The future of the library : The crucial importance of accessibility.

Abstract

'You borrowers of books - mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetries of shelves, and creators of odd volumes'. This reproachful lament is a quotation of the English essayist Charles Lamb from the year 1823. It refers to the library as a collection of books and presupposes that this collection as such is more important than its use. This attitude used to be rather common in traditional libraries but has become the subject of serious criticism in the past years. The reason for this is the fact that libraries are subject to a number of very serious changes.

I would like to present to you the view of the Utrecht University Library on these changes and depict to you in a broad outline the future of the library. I am very honoured to be present at this conference on IRIS and library co-operation. And, referring to the IRIS project, an important topic of my presentation will be the accessibility of information sources.