Future/Death of the Library: A Collaborative Topic Modeling Project

“What the libraries of the future will be like is something we should be imagining now.” - Neil Gaiman (2015) “Books for entertainment will last, but the reference book is terminal. The death-bed is surrounded by librarians, teachers, and even putative publishers who are yanking out the life-support tubes.” - Matthew J. Bruccoli (2007) The future and potential demise of libraries has been a source of speculation for librarians, authors, publishers, futurists, and technocrats since the advent of the World Wide Web, driven by the question: How will a shifting information landscape affect libraries long term? Inspired by the potential of topic modeling in the digital humanities, two librarians decided to embark on a project centered on exploring the discourse of the future and/or death of libraries, themes that are often discussed both in the popular press and in journal articles specific to the discipline. By partnering with a digital humanist with knowledge of topic modeling, this project also provided an opportunity for librarians to learn digital humanities by doing digital humanities. This presentation will highlight a collaborative research project emerging from the University of Utah’s Digital Matters Lab. Methodology, collaboration details, and initial findings will be shared from this research project along with areas of future investigation