Technology: Virtual Libraries
All over newspapers and the internet...
Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database.The entire University of Michigan library will be available online... 7 million books!
No more trudging through bad weather and searching through musty card catalogs. Just curl up in bed with your warm laptop and click buttons until your screen is filled with the information you want. Then read at your own pace while you sip your latte from your Thermos cup.
Well, that's one possibility. But I watch my wife happily gather up her to-do list and fill her tote bag with paperbacks... mostly romance novels about people in lust... and then she is out of the house for several hours. When she returns, the tote bag is re-filled with a new supply of romance paperbacks and the car is waiting to be emptied of plastic bags filled with food and other treasures gleaned during her travels.
Once she has settled back into her in-home routine, one of her new paperbacks is with her as she moves from family room to kitchen to living room to bedroom. She isn't necessarily reading it all of the time, but it is there just in case the mood strikes. Usually, around nine at night, she takes her shower and curls up in bed with her pillows and book. If I'm engrossed with TV or the computer, I suddenly may realize that the evening is gone and, by the time I turn off everything and sneak upstairs, she is already asleep... light on, book in hand, off to some romantic adventure.
As long as there are people like my wife, real books and real libraries are not in danger of disappearing.