In Liverpool, N.Y., for example, the public library offers online training to entrepreneurs. Other libraries feature foreign language classes, literacy courses, after-school activities, guidance for expectant mothers and other opportunities. Librarians are more necessary than ever, says Kranich. In the nonstop tsunami of global information, librarians provide us with floaties and teach us how to swim. In a way, librarians are Yahoos.
Librarians are selective.
They are critical and choosy in ways that computers never will be. Libraries are like the ultimate 3-D Web sites. The beloved buses, step vans and other chunky vehicles that carry books into the hinterlands are still putt-putting around some rural routes. A few, called cybermobiles, have been updated with computers hooked up to the Internet via satellites. At the Chester County Library in Exton, Pa., the traditional bookmobile is rigged with a pair of personal computers.