The future of books, research libraries, and scholarly publishing: an insider’s view

The digital revolution has brought about significant changes for books, libraries, and publishers alike. The article draws on experiments and projects implemented at the Stanford university library network and explores some ideas about these developments – for books, the shift from paper to new media and to new forms of narration and reading; for libraries, the need to redefine their traditional remit in a digital environment and to come up with new projects; for publishers, the need to adapt to changing ways of publishing, selling, and distributing books. The author concludes that building and preserving collections and making them available will remain the fundamental duty of libraries.
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