I often see articles or receive messages from campus leaders about the changing library and how things are moving away from tangible collections to virtual collections. The underlying message sometimes seems to be that because print is dying, libraries are dying. And because we won't need libraries anymore, we won't need to expend resources on things like books or magazines or shelving or cataloging or ....
To some degree, I have to agree. Libraries are changing.
I love the new technologies and wouldn't choose to go back to a world without them. But, I am mindful about making the mistake of putting all of my eggs in one basket. To me, it is not a matter of either/or -- either print on paper or digital information in cyberspace. To me it is a matter of collecting and maintaining information in a mutiplicity of formats.
Print has proven its worth and staying power over thousands of years. I can still use materials that were printed millennia ago, but I can't say the same for other formats. For example, 3.5-inch disks are a relatively new thing (about 20 years old), but the computers we are getting now don't accept them. For those who saved information on 3.5-inch disks, thinking it would be an archive for the future, it was likely a rude awakening to find that they needed to re-save everything to another format in order to preserve the information. And, judging from how fast the technology changes, saving and re-saving will be a never-ending task.
I invite you to read this article from the 2/11/10 issue of Library Journal , "Studies Cite Argument for, Resistance to Increased Digital Library Collections."
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