Confessions of a Mad Librarian

The writer of one of my favorite books has written an article for the Carnegie Corporation called, "Do Libraries Still Matter?" The question is answered by Daniel Akst very quickly (and positively), but it's a interesting article about modern libraries, the digital age and the legacy of Carnegie.

On the contrary, �the problem of purpose,� as library historian Patrick Williams has called it, is as old as American libraries. From the very outset, American libraries have had multiple purposes, and throughout their history have undergone multiple crises of identity. The history of American libraries, in fact, can be seen as a grand tug of war between these utopian institutions and the people they would serve, with each struggling to recreate the other in its own image. In the long run, it�s fair to say that both sides got bigger muscles from the exercise.