Books and Information Go Their Separate Ways Print goes onto the
net every day By Bruce McKinney Books until recently have been
the primary form for preserving and distributing information.
They were typically inexpensive, compact and easily organized.
Society, to ensure broad access, supported libraries. Schools
had their own as did most communities. Information was widely
held as a social good. For decades books and information were
inseparable and this has made it an easy assumption that books
and information are inseparable. They are not and the
consequences for libraries enormous. For the past ten years the
internet has made it possible to obtain information without
opening a book. Initially the book you didn't have to open was
the yellow pages. These days it's increasingly your research
resources. It isn't so much that the exact material is online.
Rather it's that a reasonable approximation is and it's easy to
find. You may not find the Encyclopedia Britannica but you will
find Wikipedia. In the not-so