A quick roundup of reaction to the Taiga Provocative Statements (2 page PDF): a collection of statements about the future of libraries (though the focus appears to be on academic libraries, with a US flavour: unsurprising given that the authors are senior US academic libarians).

Walt Crawford finds them “A little extreme” and links to John Dupois, who finds them “unsupported and unsupportable”, and offers a detail critique.  Meredith Farkas isn’t impressed either. Dorothea Salo went looking “for antidotes to Taiga poison” – and found some, if you’re interested.

The Darien Statements on the Library and Librarians are getting a more positive reaction, though not from everyone. Me, I’m not a huge fan of manifestos (they always seem vague, I like/need to have things a bit more concrete) but mostly this is good stuff – I want to engage and debate with it rather than trash it (go read the comments; there’s a nice discussion about the Platonic ideal of the Library…).

I would agree with Annoyed Librarian that these sorts of statements and manifestos tend to focus on public libraries first; maybe include academic libraries, and pretty much ignore corporate, government and other special libraries.  One could also argue with “continual change”, perhaps changing it to a willingness to be prepared for change, and to advocate for, or be willing to accept, change when necessary. Then there’s the problem that the Statements talk about users engagement with the Library (not individual libaries)…well, if the Library is an ideal, how do users engage with it?

But like I say, it’s mostly good stuff… go read.