About the future of libraries. Reflections on a preliminary research report

Abstract

The world-famous Marshall McLuhan worked on a book with his friend at the end of the 70s, whose title would have been “The future of the library”. McLuhan's sudden death in 1980 prevented the completion and publishing of this work. In the last 35 years several prognoses were published which aimed at capturing and describing the future of libraries, the effects of digital culture and computers on our profession. This is not easy at all, as we know: even in Asimov's vision you have to travel to the centre of the galaxy, to the library (i.e. the network e.g. is missing from the concept). However, as it turns out, “all this is part of a complex computer system which only specialists could navigate."

Therefore, if a prestigious institution, one of the world's greatest universities’ library (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries) starts a project entitled "The Future of Libraries" it is worth paying attention.