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the goose quill put an end to talk,. It abolished mystery. It was the basic metaphor with which the cyle of civilisation began, the step from the darm into the light of mind. The hand that hardened the clay tables by baking like bricks created the library. libraries have undergone a major change in modern times. They have been experiencing technological revolution that goes well beyond anything that has existed since the invention of printing. Not surprisingly, the digital library with all that portends for the future of the book, but also with all that it implies for the kins of information that will be collected and disseminated, will necessarily preoccupy those responsible for libraries in the new millennium. Every person who uses digital libraries will also expect to have acces to the internet and the electronic library will look like any other internet sources. Much attentin is now devoted to the information of social life; we are told that we are entering an information age, tha an ew mode of information predominates, that we have moved into a global information economy. The general criteria for the development of information societies are clearly beginning to emerge. Many dreamers believe that netwroking and the internet are just vanguard of technologies that will transform libraries into electronic libraries. While LANs ( local area networks) and the internet may be the wave of the future, the fact is that OPAC ( Online Public Access Catalogue) and the electronic circulation are the real foundations of the `library without wall`. It is obvious that libraries being built today do not resemble those marble sanctuaries constructed in the early twentieth centry. This is a work that shows how libraries have been transformed from `refuges` from the external world, to places that reflects the social and intellectual values of specific societies.
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