Oberlin College Library Perspectives

Number 12, May 1995

The Library of the Future:

Differentiating Real Promise from Madness and Snake Oil

The absence of a clearer picture of the library of the future has resulted from exaggerated predictions about the potential of the emerging electronic information environment. Futuristic scenarios include expert systems software; widespread electronic publishing; digitization of older books, journals, and other materials; shared access through electronic networks; and use of these resources from powerful workstations. There is no doubt that these trends will occur. In fact, many of them are already upon us. But in the more extreme utopian visions, this electronic future is what constitutes the library. Printed books and the physical spaces we know as libraries become things of the past.

Two new books, one intended for general audiences and the other for library professionals, should help create a more realistic impression of future libraries in the public mind. The first is Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway by Clifford Stoll (Doubleday, 1995). The second is Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness, and Reality by Walt Crawford and Michael Gorman (Am. Lib. Assn., 1995). Stoll is an astronomer and popular writer who is best known for The Cuckoo's Egg, a book about his discovery of a computer hacker who penetrated classified systems at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Crawford is a senior analyst for the Research Libraries Group and Gorman, a prolific author in the library field, is Dean of Library Services at California State University, Fresno.

Stoll's Silicon Snake Oil combines thoughtful reflection and outright diatribe in a consistent attack on the hyperboles that have accompanied discussions of the information superhighway. Stoll mounts a variety of arguments to support his claim that "the bookless library is a dream, a hallucination." While his book is itself overstated and subject to hyperbole , it does point out serious flaws in futuristic library models. These include reader preference for the book format, the fact that electronic media are not archival in nature, the cost of digitization, difficulties relating to copyright and preservation, and the problems of providing structured access to information in a distributed electronic environment.

Crawford and Gorman's Future Libraries critiques futuristic electronic library models while also assessing the value of electronic technologies for improved library services. Their chapters on "The Madness of Technolust," "Deconstructing Dreams of the All-Electronic Future," and "Future Libraries: Beyond the Walls" merit careful reading by those who want to consider the realistic potential of electronic technologies for libraries.

As I consider the future of academic libraries, it appears certain that electronic information technologies will become increasingly important. These technologies have enormous potential for providing improved access to information resources of various kinds, including bibliographic access tools, reference works, journal and newspaper articles, as well as materials that would not otherwise be part of a library's collections. At the same time, the printed book has proved remarkably enduring as a preferred format for sustained reading and reflection. There's no valid reason to believe that it will be replaced by the computer. In addition, libraries in their current form offer physical spaces that are exceptionally well suited to the kind of reading and reflection that is central to liberal education. So we have every reason to believe that libraries, though they will change rapidly as electronic technologies progress, will continue as physical spaces that contain materials in many formats and that rely heavily on books, journals, and other printed materials. Electronic resources will be a significant part of the future library environment. But it's important that we not mistake the part for the whole.

--Ray English, Director of Libraries

Table of Contents Library Perspectives, no. 12

Return to What's New at the Oberlin College Library