The Library is Dead: Long Live the Library
Abstract
The Third Follett Lecture, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Dominican University, 22 February 2007
This paper analyzes the development of digital collections and libraries over the past decade, and their influence on the growth of libraries and their collections. In particular, it proposes that future libraries will be more connected than ever with their patrons, providing access to not only traditional local users but also patrons working under very special circumstances. Technology will indeed make it possible for libraries to specialize their collections to the needs of individual patrons in spite of differences of time and location.
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- Figure 1: The title–page from Basilius Besler’s (1561–1629) Continuatio rariorum et aspectu dignorum varii generis quae collegit et suis impensis aeri ad vivum incidi curavit atque evulgavit (Nuremberg, 1622).
- Figure 2: Mississippi River delta.
- Figure 3: Buras Public Library under construction, November 28, 1961.
- Figure 4: Buras Public Library staff, circa 1962.
- Figure 5a: Buras Public Library children’s area before Katrina
- Figure 5b: Buras Public Library children’s area after Katrina.
- Figure 6: MyCommunityInfo.ca, London Ontario Public Library.
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