Technically Speaking, a Shrinking Planet.(Brief Article)(Editorial)

Last month marked the fourth full year I have been writing the Technically Speaking column in American Libraries. These four years have seen the continued rise of the World Wide Web and, with it, the beginning of a fundamental transformation of the technology and culture of modem librarianship. One of the underlying aspects of that transformation has been the increasing globalization of librarianship. Now that a significant--and ever-increasing--amount of the content that libraries provide their readers can be sent around the globe in a matter of seconds, we find that the ways in which librarianship is practiced around the world affects North American librarians and their patrons ever more directly. The e-mail discussion list lends itself to use …