A Glimpse at the Future

 A new library opened up recently in San Antonio, Texas. 

 It has no shelves and no books.

 It is an all digital library.

 It has 10,000 free e-books and each can be checked out for 14 days.  The 3M Cloud Library app, which can be linked to a person’s library card, includes a counter which shows the number of days left before the e-book is “returned” to the library, that is, it is no longer available to the person who checked it out two weeks earlier.

 This is not to say that the library has only a large computer.  It occupies about five thousand square feet of space.  This houses, among other things, six hundred e-readers and forty-eight computer stations. So, if you do not have an e-reader; you can go to the library and read books on one of the library’s e-readers. They do have some e-readers that can be checked out along with the book.

 The library also has comic books and graphic novels, magazines, audio books, movies, and music. Through a program called Mango, one can take classes in over sixty foreign languages.

 The library also gives various programs, such as a kid’s story time, hands-on computer classes, and other programs.  You can even reserve a room for a meeting, making it a great place to have writers’ groups.  Just no paper books.

 This is not actually a new concept. Arizona’s Santa Rosa Branch Library tried this as far back as 2002.  But after a few years, residents demanded to have paper books back – and they got them.

 There are some who feel the San Antonio experiment is still premature. There are still many people who prefer the paper books. Others are simply not technologically literate enough to benefit from such a library.

 Then there’s the cost. Training enough people to run the library and instruct patrons might become too expensive. And some feel there is not enough digital material available yet to warrant such a move. Many best sellers do not go to digital for a year or more, thus making them unavailable at this library for an extended period of time.

 One library expert predicts that, on average, perhaps only one percent of libraries per year will go all digital for the next ten years.

 However, academic libraries are moving in this direction at a faster rate. The engineering and technology library at the University of Texas moved to e-books and e-journals in 2010. These have the advantage of being available 24/7.

 But, all arguments aside, San Antonio is making a library for the future. Judge Nelson Wolff, of Bexar County said, “A technological evolution is taking place. And I think we’re stepping in at the right time.”

It’s what our great-grandchildren will believe is the norm. Paper books? Antiques.

I’ll be writing more on digital libraries in the future.  They are coming.  I’m Ready.  All my mysteries novels and suspense novels are in paper and e-book format.  Two of my latest are:

A Ton of Gold on Amazon at:  http://amzn.to/12PeHJb  and

Nook at:  http://bit.ly/1kM7p1M

and Cleansed by Fire — on Amazon at:  http://amzn.to/XwCIgs