In a recent article, Harold Billings, Director of Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin, used the metaphor of the Ark in discussing current preservation issues confronting libraries. Navigation will be problematic.
Today there are probably a dozen different routes or combination of routes that all seem attractive.
At intervals, all of these routes will be strewn with massive fiscal barriers, outcroppings of copyright controversy, and an occasional technological or social detour. Last week, as I was contemplating this meeting and the issues it was to address, I came upon an article in The New York Times . I was struck by the similarity in how the human brain works toward mapping together its assets to locate the source of sound and the manner in which scholars, teachers, and information specialists today are working together to map new information avenues. Once the perception is complete, the networks fall back into separate components where they can be reactivated in difference combinations. A multitude of neurons and their different combinations make it all possible.