Remember the days.....
when a visit to the library meant browsing the shelves, selecting a book and sitting in comfortable window-facing chairs, where you could enjoy the view while reading the beginning of your book to see if it was worth taking home?
You can still sit, read and enjoy, but life has changed momentum. Our new digital lifestyle means that whether we are at work or at play, we are constantly connected to each other and to the Web via our mobile and non-mobile devices.
Technological advances deliver instant information to us without having to move. Sites like Facebook and Flickr have shrunk the world so that the interchange of information is very quick. There's no waiting for mail to arrive to share news with loved ones. We can now share photographs similtaneously with family and friends and watch with amusement for comments, tags, and sometimes even discover some home truths we would rather have not known.
Rick Anderson's 'Icebergs'
I understand that there needs to be a balance when providing a 'collection'. Physical and digital collections and implementing ways to access the world come at a cost. However progressing too fast away from a physical collection can creat a huge chasm between the 'haves' and 'have nots'. Yes books are now being downloaded for reading online but how does this compare with sitting and enjoying a book you can hold in your hands. For recreation at least, I can't envisage this changing too much. The research field is a different matter. The changes have already made huge differences to the amount and depth of information that can be accessed and also to the time it takes for retrieval.
The vision of finding new ways to bring services to patrons makes sense if the library is to survive.
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