The future of books is bookless, or maybe it’s just the future of libraries. Stanford’s new engineering library was built to hold 85% fewer books. 85%! A study before the construction showed that most of the collection had not been off the shelves in 5 years.
The university says that it can envision the day when there will be no books. Students read most things online. It is a more up-to-date, immediate, available source of information, especially in a field that changes all the time.
As much terror as that strikes in my heart (I own 1,000 or more books), it makes sense.
When my son was a student at Georgia Tech, he took me to see what was then the new library. Universities are always very proud of their new libraries. Someone has given them a whole lot of money to name it after them and the building is a centerpiece on campus. He said he wanted to show me this new thing called the Internet. He had put my name into the search bar and all these articles I’d written came up.
I’d like to say that the hair on the back of my neck stood up but who could envision all of those volumes, all of those pages, the building itself, not to mention the money just gone?
We’re trying to uncover the future of media in a multi-media book. I hope you’ll read A Fresh, Ferocious Wave and tell us what you think.
