A Paperless Global Information Environment?

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“The prospect of a paperless, global information environment arriving is about as likely as that of the paperless office – thank goodness!”

During the last few decades there has been an increasing push for libraries to embrace new technologies and an increasing fear that any libraries that fail to do so will become obsolete. With technology playing a larger part in our lives and with 24 hour access to information through the web, libraries need to change the way they operate-Could a paperless, global information environment be the right change?

Michael Gorman, (2003, pp.XI) says in the Enduring Library, It is a feature of society as a whole and libraries in particular that the newest technology is always received with irrational ardor and is always seen as transformational, bringing up the question, ‘is there a real need to transform our libraries?’. The following website extracts information from an essay that looks at the benefits and pitfalls of the paperless, global information environment, as well as the steps we are making towards it and the problems we are facing.

The term ‘digital library’ can be interpreted in several ways. This website will be using Charles Oppenheim and Daniel Smithson’s (1998, pp. 97) definition: The digital library is an information service in which all the information resources available in computer-processable form and all the functions of acquisition, storage, preservation, retrieval, access and display are carried through the use of digital technologies. Oppenheim and Smithson, (1998, pp. 98) also go on to say, One of they key points to the digital library is that the information accessed can be remote from the point of access of multiple locations. Here the term free also means that not only can it be accessed anywhere, but by anyone.

The website has been divided into firstly the benefits of a paperless global information environment, followed by the problems, (which sadly show how many of the benefits will never be realized). This will be followed by a brief conclusion, a reading list and will lastly have the essay in full, which, in spirit of the essay, is available to print here.