Libraries of the future etc,.

[Steven Weller <stevenw@IGLOU.COM>]

From this months WiReD magazine (WiReD is a must-read BTW) Jan 1995,
Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab is talking about the differences
between the physical stuff and the information that stuff carries (atoms
and bits). He says the following as part of the article:

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Library of the Future

Thomas Jefferson introduced public libraries as a fundemental American
right. What this forefather never considered was that every citizen could
enter every library and borrow every book simultaneously, with a keystroke,
not a hike. All of a sudden, those library atoms become library bits and
are potentially accessible to anyone on the Net. This is not what Jefferson
imagined. This is not what authors imagine. Worst of all, this is not what
publishers imagine.

The problem is simple. When information is embodied in atoms, there is a
need for all sorts of industrial-age means and huge corporations for
delivery. But suddenly, when the focus shifts to bits, the traditional big
guys are no longer needed. Do-it-yourself publishing on the Internet makes
sense. It does not for paper copy.

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This brings up another problem. Not only will there be several million new
publications a year, but there would be many hundreds of thousands of
publishers creating them -- the writers themselves. How will the library of
the future know what to stock on paper (for those without net access etc.)
when the choice is so wide and the market shares so small?

Will paper publishing cease to make sense at some point, simply because of
the distribution problems and the time delay (as it is starting to in
scientific journals) ?


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Steven Weller  <Windsor Consulting Group>         +1 502 648 4115 (voice)
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