The Library Vs. The Internet: What The Numbers Say

Why the Internet Hasn’t Killed the Library (Yet)

David A. Barclay | April 28, 2016 

US institutions of higher education and US local governments are under extraordinary pressure to cut costs and eliminate from institutional or governmental ledgers any expenses whose absence would cause little or no pain.
In this political climate, academic and public libraries may be in danger. The existence of vast amounts of information—a lot of it free—on the internet might suggest that the library has outlived its usefulness.
But has it? The numbers tell a very different story.

For several generations, academic librarians were primarily preoccupied with the role of their library buildings as portals to information, print and later digital. In recent years, we have reawakened to the fact that libraries are fundamentally about people – how they learn, how they use information and how they participate in the life of a learning community. As a result, we are beginning to design libraries that seek to restore parts of the library’s historic role as an institution of learning, culture and intellectual community.

Source: http://qz.com/672706/why-the-internet-hasnt-killed-the-library-yet/ (quoting Sam Demas, college librarian emeritus of Carleton College [See: http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub129/pub129.pdf/view])

Source: http://www.futuristspeaker.com/future-scenarios/the-future-of-libraries/

<more at http://qz.com/672706/why-the-internet-hasnt-killed-the-library-yet/; related articles and links: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014038.pdf (Academic Libraries: 2012. First Look. NCES 2014-038. U.S. Department of Education. 2014) and https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2015/02/26/forecasting-the-future-of-libraries-2015/ (Forecasting the Future of Libraries 2015. Trends in culture, community, and education point to increased potential for expanding the role of libraries of all types. February 26, 2015)>