This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1993.

Argues against the futuristic idea of virtual libraries because it is devastating to the societal mission of libraries, proposing instead a balanced, human-oriented approach to technology that complements print, community library buildings, and user-friendly librarians.

""Future libraries" rassemble d'émérites avocats, historiens, informaticiens, linguistes, et architectes pour aborder le futur des bibliothèques, des livres et de l'écrit dans l'ère électronique.

In a world that often questions the value of libraries and librarianship, this collection of reflective essays and future-focused research emphasizes the ways in which being an information professional continues to be a rewarding and vital profession.

Academic and public libraries are much different today than they were even 15 years ago. With even bigger changes on the horizon, what lies in store? This volume offers ideas to academic and public librarians about the future of library services. Editors Hernon and Matthews invite a raft of contributors to step back and envision the type of future library that will generate excitement and enthusiasm among users and stakeholders. Anyone interested in the future of libraries, especially library managers, will be engaged and stimulated as the contributorsExamine the current state of the library, summarizing existing literature on the topic to sketch in historical backgroundProject into the future, using SWOT analysis, environmental scans, and other techniques to posit how library infrastructure (such as staff, collections, technology, and facilities) can adapt in the decades aheadConstruct potential scenarios that library leaders can use to forge paths for their own institutionsThe collection of knowledge and practical wisdom in this book will help academic and public libraries find ways to honor their missions while planning for the broader institutional changes already underway.

As we enter a new millennium, librarianship and other information professions are swept up in a period of rapid, almost frantic, change. But while there is widespread recognition that libraries in the future will be vastly different from what we know today, precisely how this change will occur is and always has been a matter of considerable speculation. To this end, Gregg Sapp has analyzed library-based predictions made between 1978, the year F.W. Lancaster published Toward Paperless Information Systems, and 1999;and compared them with seminal works published since 1876, the publication of the first issue of American Library Journal. Includes [between 500 and 700] annotated entries.