図書館報「α」Vol.10 No.1目次にもどる
Libraries have historically played an important and valuable role in history as centers of learning that brought the knowledge of the world together under a single roof. In the Great Library of Alexandria, dating from around the 3rd century B.C., which served to bring learned men from all the world to study the books it contained. Today we have no equivalent of the Great Library of Alexandria. Instead we have countless smaller libraries across the world. All containing the knowledge of Alexandria within their computers, within the internet.
Through the internet and email, I have been able to talk to my friends and family in America, England, Italy and China every single day． A feat of communication that the wise men who traveled to the Great Library of Alexandria could have only dreamed of. I was able to talk to my little brother before and after he went to his high school senior dance. I was able to find out the very day that he was accepted to college. I was able to wish my fiancee a happy birthday on her birthday which I otherwise would have missed.
In addition to keeping in contact with friends and family I have been able to use the internet to do research on various topics: from Japanese movies to the Knights Templar of the First Crusade. I have been able to read what the top ten movies in America were before most newspapers in America had even published them.
Clearly the internet is a powerful tool that belongs in no better place than the library. For thousands of years libraries have been centers of knowledge, and with the computers and the internet, libraries stand ready to maintain that position for thousands of years to come.