From the Editor From the Reader - DiscoverArchive Home ...

38
THE
By LABAN C ARRICK H ILL
S u m m e r 2 0 0 5
Infinite
When for-profit interests start driving access to information,
what happens to libraries and the people who use them?
“Will libraries exist at the turn of the next century?”
wonders University Librarian Paul Gherman one morning in his office
on the sixth floor of Vanderbilt’s Jean and Alexander Heard Library.
“I don’t know. Libraries as we know them certainly won’t exist.”
The forces defining the future of libraries, and particularly research
libraries like those at Vanderbilt, are not completely in a librarian’s
control. “It’s a very scary world for libraries with huge dynamics,”
explains Gherman, “and now there are big-money players that have
never been involved before.”
The player Gherman is primarily worried about is Google. “They
are either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse,” says Gherman.
“They are such a juggernaut. They have money, and they’re brilliant
people. The world already says, If I want to find something, I’ll go to
Google. They no longer think to go to a library database.”