There's still work to do

Just a few thoughts to pass on.

Outsourcing of work to create efficiencies doesn't necessarily mean we don't have work to do.

Non-catalogers and library administrators are not recognizing and acknowledging that there needs to be a lot of time devoted to the maintenance of the catalog and to the individual records that make up the catalog. So, there may be services/options to automate a variety of processes, including cataloging, but there still needs to be ongoing maintenance and revision of records to ensure that URLs are connecting properly and the database is clean. We can continue to add records through automated processes, but that leads to duplicate bib records that need to be cleaned up and other related issues.

This also applies to the work related to electronic resources that are being purchased to replace paper periodicals and monographs. There are services such as Serial Solutions to aid in the management of these resources, but vendors are constantly making changes that they do not necessarily notify us about. Someone is always going in and cleaning up holdings information and resolving connectivity issues that need to be fixed at our end.

These services are great, but they don't run properly without ongoing oversight by a real person or persons.

A related thought. Just because you take "professional" librarians off the reference desk doesn't mean there is no reference desk. Someone else needs to come in a take on that responsibility in some manner. Work is shifted and adjusted, it doesn't disappear.