Last month the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and The New York Public Library hosted a conference, "The Future Public Library." The conference examined trends in technology and communications and their implications for public libraries, patterns of current and future library use, and physical and electronic collections.
Approximately one hundred participants attended this international, invitation-only conference. The invitees represented leaders from a wide range of fields, including the library, technology, communications, architecture and urban planning sectors. In addition, there were invitees from major foundations and from cultural institutions.
The conference took place at an especially relevant time, given that many of the world's oldest and greatest libraries, such as the New York Public Library, are in the process of scanning as many of their books as possible into digital format. The many implications of digitizing books, such as the cost of digitization technology, copyright issues, and the new function of the traditional library and the future function of the digital one, among others, were examined at the conference.
DF: When was the last time you went to the library? Almost an antiquated concept, isn't it? Kudos to the Niarchos Foundation for contributing to the debate and hopefully being a part of the solution.
posted on Thursday, June 15
Books