Openers - Possibilities Evolve

As I write this column to introduce a special issue on electronic collections and digital developments in the library world, Hampton Public Library is avidly following the developments in e-book lending for public libraries. We’re both anxious and excited by the rapid-fire changes in the way these resources will be served and whether, in some cases, they’ll be available (or affordable) at all. Between the recession and technological changes in the way many people read and absorb both entertainment and information, it seems at times as though what’s at stake is not just the e-book format — and the circulation we hope will accompany it — but the survival of the print medium itself, with traditional publishing and the corner bookstore both struggling with increasing desperation. And as ever more journals and professional communications go digital — and some university libraries abolish their physical reference collections — is the demise of print finally near at hand? As a passionate reader, librarian, and creative writer, I hope this is not the case. I hope instead that the shifting digital landscape will reawaken everyone’s love for the book. That more and more people will seek out the library as a desired one-stop destination for relaxation, discovery, or study, the way I do in each new city I visit. That in our changing economy and culture, one constant will remain the availability of information and entertainment for the good of constituent populations, with libraries uniquely designed to serve each populace. In the best of all worlds, the new possibilities offered by technology should be a creative enhancement, complementing rather than threatening the way we do business.