That’s the question asked by a Wired news story. I think the answer is: absolutely, provided some sort of cheap, efficient solution presents itself to solve the problem of managing the copyright issue. There are a number of different library-like sites on the Internet already, but who wants to subscribe to 4 or 5 different sites for library access? (Which brings up the issue of how all of the stuff that in print is going to make it economically to the web — I do not think people who have never worked at a large university library realize just how much material there is produced on paper).
The article says that with an electronic library, “[students] can write an entire paper without ever visiting the campus library or cracking open a textbook.” Umm, many students already write entire papers without visiting the library or opening a textbook (I would be seriously surprised if more than 20 percent of students here ever check out a book).
Some academics are concerned that the commercial on-line libraries will threaten the not-for-profit academic libraries. I certainly hope so. Academic publishing is one area where the Internet is really going to explode the market. Academic publishers take a bath on most books they publish anyway, libraries have been cutting acquisition budgets, and it’s getting very expensive to store and maintain millions of books.
The real challenge will not be preserving the local university library or worrying about how poor kids are going to have access to commercial sites, but rather if the schools and universities are going to be able to do a better job teaching kids how to think critically, find and sift through information, than they did with traditional libraries.
Source:
Do You Still Need a Library Card? Kendra Mayfield, Wired, September 18, 2000.