The purpose of Librarea is to provide librarians with an area to build and experiment with virtual library models. A particularly interesting library-related application in this environment is bots. There are a many different bots to choose from in AW, they perform a variety of functions, all are free or shareware, and all are improving rapidly. Well, besides the obvious applications for virtual reference, a public library could provide its community with a place to meet on the internet, a sort of virtual marketplace, where library patrons could communicate with each other in a familiar place where they feel a sense of ownership. Then again, this technology could be used to reproduce the actual physical features of a community.
Librarians are concerned, and rightfully so, with what our role in the future is going to be.
The warehouse full of books is fast becoming an anachronism, and the need to redefine what it will mean to be a librarian in the future is creating a lot of free-floating anxiety among the members of our profession. Soon, that process will repeat itself, for monographs. I suggest that our role as librarians in the future is inextricably tied to the internet, and that we must accept that fact and get on with it. It should be the librarians who provide the comprehensive, definitive web portal for our communities. Librarea might not be the answer to an enhanced web community presence for libraries, but it is a start towards making library homepages essential local resources that will continue to be supported even after the books are gone.