Slate has an inter­est­ing slideshow with the slightly mis­lead­ing title Bor­rowed Time: How Do You Build a Pub­lic Library in the Age of Google. I say mis­lead­ing, only because the author lit­er­ally means “build,” as in phys­i­cal build­ing. It doesn’t take into account staff or any web-based ser­vices at all, so why even men­tion Google? Even though it’s an incom­plete pic­ture, I found the last slide espe­cially interesting.

“Ross Daw­son, a busi­ness con­sul­tant who tracks dif­fer­ent cus­toms, devices, and insti­tu­tions on what he calls an Extinc­tion Time­line, pre­dicts that libraries will dis­ap­pear in 2019. He’s prob­a­bly right as far as the func­tion of the library as a civic mon­u­ment, or as a pub­lic repos­i­tory for books, is con­cerned. On the other hand, in its mutat­ing role as urban hang­out, meet­ing place, and arbiter of infor­ma­tion, the pub­lic library seems far from spent. This has less to do with the dig­i­tal world—or the dig­i­tal word—than with the age-old need for human contact.”

I missed Dawson’s orig­i­nal post about the extinc­tion time­line last year, so it was news to me that libraries will dis­ap­pear in just 11 years. I tend to agree more with the Slate author because for me, libraries are about a lot more than just books or study car­rels. That’s why I think there’s room for things like gam­ing in today’s library. (Thanks, Dad!)