BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google

The future of libraries is filled with potential, according to Palfrey, the former director of the Harvard Law School Library and founding chair of the Digital Public Library of America. His new book carves out a strong and exciting vision for libraries in the 21st century, one that maintains the core activities of librarianship (“ensuring access to and preservation of information”), by combining the virtues of the library as a public space situated in a community with the vast networking capabilities afforded by the digital era. Palfrey, a passionate advocate for libraries, underlines their importance—but make no mistake, his book is not so much an ode to libraries as a stark wake-up call. The question that looms throughout is whether libraries will even continue to exist. To that end, he paints a harsh reality of the crisis currently facing libraries as they “awkwardly” straddle the analog and digital spheres: “on the one hand, the public sentiment that the digital era has made libraries less relevant, and on the other, the growing number of expectations we have for libraries, stemming in no small part from the very digitalization that the public assumes is making them obsolete.”
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