Main Library Service to Users.

DESPITEwith its resultant WORLD URBANIZATION, homogenization of urban problems and the institutions designed to deal with them, some institutions, by their very closeness to the people they serve, tend to resist change.In some cases the nature or tools of these institutions seem inflexible; parts of their operation seem, to outward view at least, everlasting.Most librarians have quoted and been reassured by several passages in that little pamphlet, The Impact of Technology on the Library Building, to the effect that "for at least the next 20 years the book will remain an irreplaceable medium of information , . .and the continued use of a central library building will still be necessary."lLibrarians probably accept J. C. R. Licklider's scoring of the printed page as a superb medium for the display of information, but the book as bulky and heavy, containing more information than the reader wants or can apprehend, too expensive, circulating too slowly, a poor display device, only fair in storage function, and not easily retrievable; furthermore, it makes no active contribution to organizing knowledge, indexing and abstracting.Libraries of books are even less satisfactory.To overcome this passiveness of books and pages, "a meld of library and computer is evidently required."2In the meantime libraries stubbornly remain places with books; however up to date, called by whatever seeming euphemism, public, university, and school libraries are known by their books and catalogs.No one would mistake any of these types of libraries for record stores, amusement parks, or computer centers.Nothing then so characterizes the urban main library as its collection of books, and nothing perhaps so much limits the variety of its services to the public as the emphasis that it seemingly must continue to put on the collection, organization, retrieval, etc., of books.Whether to an individual, to a group, or to other libraries, information centers, or what-