“In the future, it seems, there will be no fixed canons of texts and no fixed epistemological boundaries between disciplines, only paths of inquiry, modes of integration, and moments of encounter.” – Carla Hesse 

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/HistoryWired/Hesse/HesseBooksInTime.html

What is the future of libraries when knowledge is no longer created by a knowledgable speaker imparting information onto a learner or student? What you get is a lot of users and students creating knowledge. Where do libraries fit into that? 

John Seely Brown talked about this at Internet Librarian. http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17940819 If you can watch this UStream of the talk. It will inspire you, hopefully, like I was inspired, to think about how libraries fit into this kind of future. We can: 

• foster study groups
• create serendipitous moments
• find resources and help students connect and synthesize
• create collectives of learning
• when teaching – develop groups of people who will work together to create information/knowledge together
• enable paths of inquiry
• enable groups to work together
• develop critical reasoning skills
• develop the ability to play!