At the recent Educause conference in Denver there was an excellent debate into the changing nature of library buildings and whether they are necessary any more. Thanks to modern technology even those of us in the UK can watch the proceedings via video.
I watched the first fifteen minutes where the speakers each outline their arguments:
it is fascinating stuff.
Both speakers agreed that the library was becoming less and less a centre of hard copy collections. Suzanne E. Thoron of Syracuse University plays devils advocate arguing that librarians should bring knowledge to the people by providing digital resources and outreach librarians. Many departments have their own VLE's which perform similar functions to libraries, and most students do not come to libraries to use the libraries online resources but to perform other activities (presumably she means to read their hotmail, download dodgy videos and chat.) Richard E. Luce of Emory University argues that libraries are becoming the classrooms and laboratories and centres of social interaction that form the basis of education and that universities are coming full circle: just as in medieval colleges the library IS the University.
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