Electronic libraries. and paperless office

[Alain Vaillancourt]

> The "paperless library" argument sounds a lot like the "paperless office"
> dream that began about 17 years ago, but still hasn't arrived.  I say this
> only to have an excuse to repeat the best one-liner about it:  "The
> paperless office [or library, I would add] is about as likely to happen as
> the paperless bathroom."
> 
> Nick Arnett

The technology for a truly paperless office is already in the labs 
and should be out in 6 years from now or so. It is all about cheap 
high resolution screens, higher capacity telecom and new software to 
exploit these.  But not every office will be able to afford it!  Look 
at library offices now.  Many libraries do not even have a single 
computer for word processing, yet the technology has been relatively 
affordable for the last ten years.

Achieving a paperless office or two, or paperless offices in certain 
domains will be incredibly easy (about 6 years from now of course) 
compared to achieving a paperless library.  Offices generate records, 
original documents.  Given the technology they can make the shift.  
Libraries  have to deal with the publishing world.  Technology or no 
technology they are too caught up in a maze of author-editor-
publisher-distributor-library user ramifications to make the shift 
easily.

The day of the paperless office will have come when I open Byte or PC 
Magazine and notice that there are no more printer ads.

The biggest lag in this could come from lack of new software, to 
exploit the new technologies.

The day of the paperless library will have come when all the 
technology gets sorted out, all the publishers ensure that the money 
still comes in and all librarians (well maybe not all, let's say a 
siginificant proportion) finally consider themselves as part of a 
service profession, instead of keepers of documents.  This is not 
about to happen in the next ten years.  Library schools are still 
teaching collection development classes!

Au revoir!

Alain Vaillancourt

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