The public library is the biggest cultural institution in the Netherlands, with around 4 million members and 130 million items lent each year. From an organization primarily concerned with lending books, the library is being transformed into a cultural center. This study describes possible futures for the public library in the Netherlands and provides policy proposals to counter negative trends.

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.

In a riveting, groundbreaking narrative, Russell Shorto tells the story of New Netherland, the Dutch colony which pre-dated the Pilgrims and established ideals of tolerance and individual rights that shaped American history. "Astonishing . . . A book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past." --The New York Times When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving, polyglot society began to disappear into myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and a cartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed: 12,000 pages of its records–recently declared a national treasure–are now being translated. Russell Shorto draws on this remarkable archive in The Island at the Center of the World, which has been hailed by The New York Times as “a book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past.” The Dutch colony pre-dated the “original” thirteen colonies, yet it seems strikingly familiar. Its capital was cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic, and its citizens valued free trade, individual rights, and religious freedom. Their champion was a progressive, young lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck, who emerges in these pages as a forgotten American patriot and whose political vision brought him into conflict with Peter Stuyvesant, the autocratic director of the Dutch colony. The struggle between these two strong-willed men laid the foundation for New York City and helped shape American culture. The Island at the Center of the World uncovers a lost world and offers a surprising new perspective on our own.

More than a hundred years from now, an arborist fighting to save the last remaining forest on Earth discovers a secret about the trees—one that changes not only her life, but also the fate of our world. Inspired by the real-life “Future Library,” a long-term environmental and literary public art project currently underway in the Norwegian wilderness. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The volume deals with some of the most relevant issues related to the identity of the public library and its historical, cultural, social, organizational changes, according to a comparative perspective. The topics are covered in four sections (History, Present and Future of the Public Library; Models of Analysis, Measurement, Evaluation; Complexity Challenges; Work in Progress), thus providing a wide overview of the present and the future of an institution paramount in improving people’s lives

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, ECDL 2009, held in Corfu, Greece, in September/October 2009. The 28 revised full papers and 6 revised short papers presented together with 2 panel description, the extended abstracts of 20 revised poster and 16 demo papers were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 181 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on services, infrastructures, interaction, knowledge organization systems, interfaces, resource discovery, architectures, information retrieval, preservation, and evaluation.