There is another aspect to why the net can't replace a library which was touched on by someone else.
A book is published and written by someone who has rights to the intellectual property. A library works because each copy is paid for and can only be lent out to one person at a time. The same could be done via the net, but it wouldn't be the same as using the net at large. Most places with serious reference info currently charge people to use that info. There's also the fact that on the net, it's pretty tough to know if you're actually getting the original source. If I look at a book with yellowed pages and a copyright of 1952, it is a pretty good guess that it is the 1952 version of the book. It could be faked, but it'd be a lot harder. Dead trees are more trustworthy than virtual bits. Too bad we don't publish on hemp anymore, but that's 'cause we're silly. Finally, the net works very well for some mindsets and is nearly unintelligible to others. It was made by geeks for geeks. Xerox Parkplace (developer of the desktop and the mouse) and others have made computers more usable by different types of people, but until a whole lot of effort is put into user interface research and a lot of money is spent developing it, the net just isn't going to be for everyone. I think we'll see more use of the net for various things that the library is currently used for, but I don't see the library as ever being obsolete. I've tried reading on a palm pilot and I've seen those e-Books. You _can_ read a book on them, but it just doesn't feel right. - Jason Goray, Sheridan, NE __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@;mnforum.org Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
