The need for reservoirs (collections) and the demand for flow (distribution): towards a neo-bibliothecal economy

Present thinking attempts to redefine in an active and modern way the beautiful notion of "conservation". It shows firstly that, in the language of networks, the library is as much a place for redistribution as a space for retention. It is as much a "circulator" as a "reservoir". As a result, the problems of processing the flow of information (notably the costs of document maintenance and searching) must be treated in a context that is networked and not static. Therefore, as in the mathematical-physical sciences, "conservation" can be no more than invariance under transformation.
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