Want to know what the experts are thinking about libraries--their services, buildings, and futures??

This brief excerpt comes from the Council on Library and Information Resources report, Rethinking Libraries: Rethinking Space, Rethinking Roles.

Reinventing the Library—Technology as Catalyst

"With the emergence and integration of information technology, many predicted that the library would become obsolete. Once students had the option of using their computers anywhere on campus—in their residence halls, at the local cyber café, or under a shady tree in the quad—why would they need to go to the library? Those charged with guiding the future of a college or university demanded that this question be answered before they committed any additional funding to perpetuate the “library”—a facility that many decision makers often considered little more than a warehouse for an outmoded medium for communication or scholarship. Many asserted that the virtual library would replace the physical library. The library as a place would no longer be a critical component of an academic institution.

While information technology has not replaced print media, and is not expected to do so in the foreseeable future, it has nonetheless had an astonishing and quite unanticipated impact on the role of the library. Contrary to the predictions of diminishing use and eventual obsolescence of libraries, usage has expanded dramatically—sometimes doubling or even tripling. These increases are particularly common at libraries and institutions that have worked with their architects and planners to anticipate the full impact of the integration of new information technologies throughout their facilities."

In Belmont, where school libraries are dwindling into pretty rooms with books, the Belmont Public library is actually the central point where new and emerging information technologies merge with knowledge resources in a user-focused, service-rich environment capable of supporting Belmontians in today’s knowledge work; along with the emerging and traditional learning, teaching, and research needs of the entire community from tradesmen to business to town hall.
The Informationista