InsideHigherEd: Bookless Libraries?

InsideHigherEd has an article about the fate of libraries in the 21st century at the 2009 EDUCAUSE conference. Will physical libraries still have a place in our society? Will all of our collections and acquisitions become digitized on the web?

What started as a debate over whether brick-and-mortar libraries would survive much further into the 21st century turned into an existential discussion on the definition of libraries, as a gathering of technologists here at the 2009 Educause Conference pondered the evolution of one of higher education’s oldest institutions.

“Let’s face it: the library, as a place, is dead,” said Suzanne E. Thorin, dean of libraries at Syracuse University. “Kaput. Finito. And we need to move on to a new concept of what the academic library is.”

Do patrons still need access to the physical materials and objects?