Recent events in two leading world libraries show that libraries are indeed able to evolve successfully to meet current changes in the world. The first event was at the Bodleian Library at Oxford:
One of the remaining bastions of male domination has come crumbling down as one of the oldest libraries in Europe prepares to get to grips with the demands of the 21st century. For more than 400 years, the Bodliean Library – the main research library at the University of Oxford and the second largest in the UK after the British Library – has had a man at the helm. It has also never been run by anyone born outside these shores. But both of those taboos have been broken (Feb. 21, 2007), with the accession of [American] Dr. Sarah Thomas to the post of Bodleian Librarian.For the remainder of the article please visit this site.
The second event was at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., an institution that turned 207 years old on April 24th, 2007. However, with the addition of the first-ever blog to its award-winning Web site, it quite possibly has never looked younger. Long a pioneer and leading provider of online content, with a Web site at www.loc.gov that makes 22 million items available at the click of a mouse and receives 5 billion hits per year, the Library of Congress has launched its new blog at www.loc.gov/blog/.
(From Richard Hopkins)
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