The Future of Libraries

I too have had a life long love of libraries. I began working in my home town's public library when I was 15. I then worked in a neighborhood branch for 3 years until it was closed due to budget cuts in the city. I then worked at the Science and Engineering library at BU for 4 years before starting at the BAC. I have been working at the BAC library since I started the program in 2008.

I agree that libraries need to adapt to the new digital resources, however I disagree that books should be completely replaced. Not all indexes and contents are cataloged from each book which makes it impossible to find every resource available on a topic you're researching unless you browse the stacks. Also, historical archiving isn't the same when books are scanned digitally. Most science and engineering text is available primarily online, however I was surprised at the small amount of architecture and design information available online. Books have been imperative to almost every design class I have taken that involves any kind of precedent study or existing building research.

I think the new programmatic elements being incorporated into libraries is very exciting. It has always been a place where all the community is welcome, but now these dedicated spaces for that purpose makes libraries even more inviting. These new points of interest also help the general public remain interested in continuing to visit the libraries when they could easily find online material or read from their kindle, nook or ipad.

Some things I have found regarding the changing faces of library recently are "Anythink" a new library idea started in Adams County, CO and Scott Douglas, a public librarian in California who has a blog (Observations on a Life Not Yet Observed) and a twitter account (@scott_douglas). His book "Quiet Please, Dispatches from a Public Librarian" I would recommend to any person interested in libraries.