8: The Librarian

Books — physical, tangible, bound stacks of paper containing all of the knowledge of humanity in ink-printed words — still circulate through every school, homes, store, laboratory and office of power and change in this world, but increasingly man puts his thoughts and discoveries, past and present, into machines, publishing those digital tomes online for any and all to read. In a future world in which all of man’s past musings, his discoveries, his histories, buried deep in musty volumes deep in the great libraries of the old world, exist online accessible from anywhere, and no one ever publishes humanity's present and future writings in analog format, libraries must think differently about how best to serve their patrons and preserve the world's information. Christopher Platt is the chief branch library officer at the New York Public Library and tells us how that institution with its 53 million items, $245 million budget and 3.5 million patrons is planning for the that future.