Urs, S. (2006). Gutenberg to Google: Changing Facets of Libraries. Information Studies, 12(4), 197-204
In the above article, Shalini Urs builds on this idea of the library as a communal meeting place in her article, by pointing out rightly that the library is bringing back the "notion of the old community centers of learning." Urs points out that this revival is being brought about, in part, by the library's expansion to the internet and the spread of information becoming more accessible to everyone, not just inside the library, but everywhere, by inference, where there is an internet connection. Thus, the library is more than it was, even as it seems to becoming less to those of us who are more comfortable with the idea of walls, bookshelves and cozy chairs that were a staple of the traditional library environment. Nowadays, however, the library is more, to everyone, it is becoming more accessible to the community and to everyday people. If librarians make the library valuable to those who matter, the consumer, the people in the community, then it can never die. As in days of old, the centers of learning were not just housed inside buildings, but also in parks and other places. We can expand the idea of what is possible for a library to be and become, if we think beyond the limitations of our own library experience and education and make the new library come to be, to be real for everyone and useful to all.
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