Reading #3

The Future of Libraries

This article is going into detail about the timeline of libraries and information in general. It begins by talking about DaVinci and how his journals and other works were “kept”. Libraries, even at that early stage, were very important. The bulk of the article speculates on how information will be obtained in the future, and from what source. The belief is that we will stop worrying so much about the size of the objects as advances begin to slow down, but more-so on their functionality, durability, speed, etc. People’s lives are becoming increasingly hectic, and future libraries will have to accommodate for the new lifestyle. Keyboards will be obsolete in the future as a result of this. Dr William Crossman, Founder/Director of the CompSpeak 2050 Institute for the Study of Talking Computers and Oral Cultures believes that as libraries and technology begin to advance and we make things such as keyboards obsolete in our society, that we will begin a transformation to a verbal society. He also makes a prediction that by 2050 literacy will be dead.

The last prediction made by Dr. Crossman makes me very uneasy. As a population we already are becoming increasingly lethargic, having things such as “fast food” and being able to get all our info off of computers and television. Reading is the one thing that I love doing when I’m bored. There really is nothing like opening up a good book and reading on a rainy afternoon. I want my children and children’s children to be able to experience the same thing, but at this rate it doesn’t look like that will be happening.

The times they are a-changin. I believe that libraries will be able to survive, even in a world with no books. They will have to have a massive overhaul on their processes, but if they don’t wait until it is too late, they could help to revolutionize how people gather their information. I envision libraries having massive servers, and tons of computers (or whatever we’re using at that point), allowing people free access to every piece of information available, as well as any game, movie, show or anything else that would interest them. It will become not only a place for knowledge and information, but also entertainment.