Visitors arriving when the new library opens in 2013 will be confronted by an airy atrium filled with touch-sensitive computer screens and regularly changing exhibitions. Voluble group learning will take precedence over hushed reading rooms.
"The number of books we loan out and reference inquires we receive is sliding. We can all use Google and with discounts on Amazon, three-for-two offers in Waterstones and Tesco discounting every Harry Potter book, many of us have the means to buy books. We need to make the library more of an experience. Our role will now be less about transactions with users and more about aiding their transformation."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/03/libraries-architecture-birmingham
Alexander McCall-Smith, author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series: "Whatever changes may occur in the way in which read about the world, libraries remain absolutely central to the life of a nation. Libraries house our knowledge and our culture; they are beacons of light in a difficult world."
Irvine Welsh, novelist: "[It's] an audacious and compelling initiative which promises to redefine and modernise the entire notion of public library services, and in the process create the greatest public information resource in Europe ... Writers will love it, and so will readers."
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
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