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Addresses this question: If iPads and other new mobile computers catch on, libraries might not need to offer rooms full of computers for students to do their research, writing, and Facebooking. But if that happens, will students have any reason left to visit the library?

In 2008, WebJunction received support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a set of competencies for those managing public access computing in their libraries. As a follow-up to this work, we developed a full Competencies Index for the Library Field, which outlines the full spectrum of library practice. The Index was published in 2009, and since July 2009, we've been using this index to help us identify the topics library staff most need to develop new skills or support around. WebJunction's Competencies for Libraries outlines recent research we've completed in this area.

Good site to be aware of. Thanks!

Eric's current comments about his "old" posting: In a slightly dated LITA-hosted blog posting [1] I addressed this question, and below are snippets from my reply: 1) XML - XML is a sort of modern-day alchemy. 2) Relational databases - Libraries love lists. 3) Indexing - Believe it or not, databases suck as facilitating search, especially considering today's user expectations regarding relevance ranking. 4) Web serving - Increasingly people expect to acquire the information the require for learning, teaching, and research through a Web browser. 5) Programming/scripting - Finally, you will want to "glue" all of the above technologies together into a coherent whole. Please do not be overwhelmed. All of these things can be learned and practiced on your desktop or home computer. They lend themselves better to server-class operating systems such a Unix/Linux, but learning about these operating systems is challenging in itself and not readily applicable to librarianship. All you need is the ability to read books, the desire to learn, and the time to do it.