From "Do Libraries Still Matter?" by Daniel Akst (Carnegie Reporter, Spring 2005):
Nobody can reliably predict the far-off future, but for libraries, the digital information revolution raises a host of existential questions about the present. In this day of Amazon, the Internet, hundreds of cable channels and ubiquitous computing, what is the role of the institutions Andrew Carnegie thought were so important that he devoted himself and a good bit of his fortune to propagating them?This article is a good starting point for a newcomer to our field, as well as something to think about... for everyone else!
