Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness, and Reality

Future Libraries offers an authoritative counter argument to the technolust of technovandals, as the authors describe the worst of the virtualists. Far from being technophobic, Crawford and Gorman are respected authors and leaders in library automation. They find much of the virtual library vision to be virtual nonsense and devastating to the cultural mission of libraries.

In place of futuristic dreaming and madness, they show how libraries can embrace advanced technologies while retaining their role as service-oriented repositories of all formats of organized information and knowledge―a role that compliments the values that community library buildings and user-friendly librarians deliver best. The authors target the electronic publishing industry, among others, and fantasies associated with it; offer a "survival guide to the serials crisis;" and analyze the economics of collections and access. A bibliography is included.