The Unspeakable Truth

Here's a refreshingly frank, pithy and occasionally witty article on the "death of libraries" theme. Writer Ned Potter thinks  we are nowhere near the point where libraries are no longer needed yet, and that "there’s plenty we can do in the meantime to ensure we never get there. The first thing is to ensure everyone knows what we can already do for them, and the second thing is to adapt to what they need us to do for them." Not sure what it is - if anything - they will need us to do for them, but the article concludes sensibly that The unspeakable truth is that we should not try and outlive our usefulness. We certainly shouldn’t try and prolong that usefulness by effectively sabotaging our users’ ability to empower themselves.[ie. by resisting technologies, such as e-books, that might contribute to the obsolescence of libraries]