Digital technology is allowing the private publishing industry to usurp the role libraries have traditionally played in providing access to knowledge, warned a keynote speaker at CAUT's librarians conference.

"The future of libraries is hanging in the balance," said Ross Atkinson, deputy university librarian at Cornell University. "To survive, librarians must return to what is special about their profession - their relationship of trust with users and their role as a 'fair witness' for a general public often overwhelmed with information."

Any attempt to compete on a commercial basis with private industry is doomed to failure, Atkinson said. "The stakes in this struggle for survival are high. Its outcome will determine whether knowledge, in part through the public library system, remains the common heritage of humanity, or simply becomes a commercial commodity available only to those who can afford to pay for it."

The provocative speech provided a fitting opening to the conference. The theme of access to knowledge was picked up in sessions on privacy, scholarly publishing, and copyright, each of which explored the challenges libraries face in providing a public service in an increasingly commercialized and digitalized world.

Academic Librarians in the Digital Age, held April 4-6 in Ottawa, signaled an expansion of the range of issues dealt with by CAUT's librarians committee. "In the past this event has focused more narrowly on workplace and academic status issues," said committee chair Chris Dennis, "but the consensus in the group is that librarians have to become more active on the larger philosophical and political issues associated with the profession. We can have the best collective agreement language in the world, but it isn't going to do us any good if libraries no longer exist."

The message arising from the conference is that whether through educating faculty on the crisis in scholarly communication or lobbying politicians on copyright reform, academic librarians have a broad political role to play in the survival of their profession.