The library network - from book archiving to knowledge facilitator

The amount of knowledge had doubled every 10 to 15 years for the last two centuries (Price, 1953); well at least the annually number of published articles does. The number of books is also increasing rapidly. In Newton’s times it was hard to get the right books, nowadays it is hard to select the right books. This changes the role of the scientific library. At the same time, information technology - powerful databases and the internet - open up new opportunities to find relevant information.

This document describes three ideas that will hopefully make the university book collections much more valuable. These ideas are can be linked to the fundamental thoughts behind the success of Amazon, Napster and Google.