Apparently the future is now and it's library is the University of Chicago’s new Joe and Rika Mansueto Library. You enter into a 8,000 square foot dome called the Grand Reading Room, which is nicely lit and contains a vast number of tables with chairs and computer terminals. The thing you won't find in this dome are bookshelves.
The books themselves are housed in an underground storage facility located directly beneath the dome, and when you want to pull one of the 3.5 million books you just make a request on your computer terminal and a computer activated robotic crane pulls the book and sends it up to the circulation desk. The whole process apparently takes about five minutes, which should give you enough time to get up and walk to the circulation desk. The same crane system re-shelves the book when you are finished with it too.
There are a few more details as well as a neat video showing some of the underground storage in this article from Singularity Hub
I had this idea for bookstores once, using RFID tags on every book to make the shelving system easy to navigate. It truly is the way of the future.
Posted by: the sixler | May 27, 2011 at 10:38 AM
Well this is a sad and depressing reality. I do not go into libraries just to try to find one book as quickly as possible. I go into libraries for the whole experience. I walk around and poke my nose into books I wasn't even looking for. I search and use my mind to think about where the next great story I could read is. This so called modern library has taken all the joy and creative thinking that actually going to a real library provides.
Posted by: Henry | June 05, 2011 at 12:26 PM
The 'library of the future' obviously isnt going to replace every single existing library. If you like browsing, there's still going to be libraries to fit your antiquated tastes.
Posted by: the sixler | June 15, 2011 at 08:49 AM
This kind of "keep the users from browsing in the stacks" is a bad thing - it destroys serendipity - and the "robotic storage" has been going on for many years, books stored in milk crate size boxes that automatically go to the loan desk. Nothing new here!
What WOULD be new, is a simulated library, so you could search the virtual shelves with a mouse & dip into the books (maybe via google books). And being virtual, there would be the option of having the virtual library books arranged by whatever system one wanted - publication date, size, Dewey etc.
Posted by: Paul Perry | June 21, 2011 at 07:00 PM
I wonder how long it will be before the crane malfunctions & damages/destroys thousands of irreplacable volumes.
Posted by: g. travis regier | June 22, 2011 at 02:11 PM
I wonder how many thousands of irreplaceable volumes have been destroyed already by careless library patrons or employees.
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