DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE

Society is increasingly dependent on widespread access to publications of the past and present. Libraries have proven to be the most practical means for collecting and preserving publications to provide this wide and continuing access. Society has become dependent primarily on university libraries for the collection and long-term preservation of most essential publications. But university libraries cannot continue their growth in size much longer, and even at their past exponential rate of growth none has been able to acquire and keep all the publications its patrons need. If society is to have adequate access to information, now and in the future, librarians must change to recognize that the library's real purpose is to provide access to information and that the collection of an ever-larger number of publications by each library was but a means to accomplish that purpose-a means which is no longer possible. Librarians must now find effective means to assure the collection and preservation of publications they cannot acquire or keep in their own individual collections and to provide every library with fast and reliable access to these publications in conveniently readable form. New technologies do not seem likely to decrease the need for this action but to increase it.