In October I gave an invited keynote lecture at the XV International Conference on University Libraries at UNAM, the national university of Mexico. The conference theme was how libraries can face the challenges of the coming years, when infinite knowledge is available to anyone at the swipe of a smartphone screen, and continue to provide value to their users and to society; my keynote was to address the phenomenon of information overload and its repercussions for both libraries and users.
This gave me an opportunity to combine two fascinating domains: my core field of Information Overload, and the evolution of Libraries and Knowledge acquisition and dissemination in general. I had to consider how exactly is IO detrimental to libraries and readers – and how does IO provide libraries with new opportunities to survive in the 21st century? It took much reflection and many discussions with academic faculty and students to get the answers
The lecture was well received, so it must have included some interesting observations, which I cover in this insight article for your reading pleasure.
