In “The Shock of the Old” (Libray Journal), Barbara Fister discusses the Education Advisory Board’s report Redefining the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Library Services. She says that this report does not predict the future but rather describes the present. And the present isn’t really about the shift from print to digital—it’s about sharing knowledge:
In the end, unless we really screw this up, the future will more like the past than the present. Libraries were built on the principle that the advancement of knowledge depends on a disinterested search for meaning, not profits, and that sharing is essential for that search. Libraries have always been a demonstration of the wealth of networks. Now that the networked world has caught up, libraries could serve as a model for sharing knowledge in a way that advances us all.
