Library's are screwed
Eli again:
The purpose of libraries when they were created was not to
purchase commercial content for use by the community but to
store and organize the content of the community. Popular
materials have fueled a huge boom for popular libraries, but
libraries were created to protect and ensure access to things
like [local texts and history] for the communities that
produced them, not to subsidize access to the hottest new clay
tablets from Babylon. It'Ãâ¢s these unique things that don't
exist anywhere else, and that matter more to our own
communities than anyone else, that have the future for
libraries. It's not just data about the community, but also
creations of the community that libraries can enable by giving
patrons access to production tools, event venues, and most
importantly a permanent, non-commercial, online home for our
patronsÃâÃ⢠creative works, making the library the publisher
putting the emphasis on the library as a platform for the
community and less emphasis on having enough copies of the hot
new thing.
The cat is out of the bag. Everyone is a publisher. The
20th-century [library] brought the world to its community. The
21st-century library brings its community to the world.