What purposes can a library serve in an era when research can be done at home computers, thousannds of public books can be downloaded for free, and people are starting to carry around e-book readers? That's the question that David Sarno seeks to answer. "It's very common for people to say, 'Why do I need a library when I've got a computer?'" said Pam Sandlian-Smith, director of the seven-branch Rangeview, Colo. , Library District. "We have to reframe what the library means to the community." In the struggle to stay important-and ultimately  to stay open-libraries are reinventing themselves in ways unimaginable even a few years ago, preparing for a future in which most materials can be checked and read from a home computer, smartphone or electronic reading device. But not all library professionals are enthusiastic about the community-building efforts. Sandlian-Smith and others like her have taken: "If you want to have game rooms and pingpong tables and God knows what-poker parties-fine, do it, but don't pretend it has anything to do with libraries," said Michael Gorman, a former president of the American Library Assn. "The argument that all these young people would turn up to play video games and think, 'Oh by the way, I must borrow that book by Dostoyevsky'-it seems ridiculous to me." Sarno reports that lending books is taking a back seat as libraries diversify their holdings-DVDs! E-books! -and struggle to define how they can serve their local communities. And yet libraries can also serve a wider audience; some are bringing rare archival  materials online. That doesn't mean that there are e-books available yet for everything in their collections. Publishers hold back e-book versions of some big sellers from libraries, for example, Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, and the Harry Potter series. What is the main idea of the passage?
What purposes can a library serve in a computer age? The e-book and the library The library will be replaced by the e-books online. Reframe the library in the new era.