The quiet in the library these days is reserved for the reading rooms. In the library business world, there is anything but silence.

Whether they are public, corporate or institutional facilities, libraries are witnessing wide-scale change as they move from a physical function as a knowledge warehouse to providing information management systems in the digital cloud.

“3M revealed that it is selling its North American and global libraries businesses to Bibliotheca, a European start-up backed by a division of JP Morgan Chase. The deal is for all of 3M’s library businesses, which includes security, and productivity solutions,” reports Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly senior writer.