In such an atmosphere, I thought that the Internet would be a major topic of conversation. Libraries are about the collection, organization, and preservation of knowledge. They are also, in democratic societies at any rate, about making that knowledge universally accessible. Within that mission, the Internet is seen as just another container, lumped in with books, newspapers, periodicals, videos, CD's, art prints, and vertical files. However, the Internet is a new kind of container, one that can swallow many other containers within it, and that is organized in a fundamentally different fashion.
Librarians look at it with an eye to the knowledge it can contribute to their mission.
That is the Question. Gorman is more than a librarian. He is a philosopher of knowledge, articulate, clever, and very humorous. He shared many ideas in a rambling talk, but the essence of what he said is that the library is a repository of knowledge, no matter what container that knowledge comes in. He did not want to throw away the books, but he also did not want to break the machines.