BiblioTech : why libraries matter more than ever in the age of Google / John Palfrey.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-270) and index.

Crisis: A perfect storm -- Customers: How we use libraries -- Spaces: The connection between the virtual and the physical -- Platforms: What cloud computing means for libraries -- Hacking libraries: How to build the future -- Networks: The human network of librarians -- Preservation: Collaboration, not competition, to preserve culture -- Education: Libraries and connected learners -- Law: Why copyright and privacy matter so much -- Conclusion: What's at stake.

The ways in which people of all ages use and obtain that information has changed drastically in recent years: e-book readership has increased, Wikipedia has largely supplanted encyclopedias and reference books, and many people now consume news and media through their smartphones, tablets, and laptops. With digital culture ascendant, it seems counterintuitive to argue that libraries, of all things, are more important than ever. But that is exactly what library expert John Palfrey does in BiblioTech, a stirring call to arms that explains how libraries can become bulwarks against the creeping problems of our times: unequal access to education, jobs, and information. Yet the fate of the local library is by no means secure; these institutions are struggling to adapt to our rapidly modernizing world, and often rely on dwindling funding from state and local governments to do so. In order to survive, libraries will need to dramatically shift their focus from maintaining and building up their collections to serving their communities. Print and analog formats will never disappear, Palfrey assures us, but libraries must make the transition to a digital future as soon as possible -- by digitizing print material, ensuring that born-digital material (from data sets to blog posts to sound recordings) is accessible to researchers, and making all of this digital information publicly available online.