Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Depends what sort of libraries you're talking about.
The great national libraries - The British Library, the Library of Congress, etc -are there primarily to be the custodians of the "literary treasures" of a nation, to preserve them for future generations, and to allow researchers access to them. That type of library certainly has a future, although there's now a clear trend of making the contents of such libraries available to anyone in the world via the Internet.
"Local" libraries from which you borrow books. Yes, these will disappear, I suspect.
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I don't believe local libraries will disappear but I do think many more of them will need to have electronic checkout of eBooks and other advanced features. There is a wiki entry highlighting the libraries that already support this kind of thing. Libraries provide important features already such as computers available and they will have to adapt even more in the future. The direction is more clear than the opening statement in this thread would have you believe. Children's books are one area that is just starting to blossom in electronic form from Libraries, audio files and even video files are a part of the Library of the present in some forms and the library of the future.
Dale