That is the future, and it is probably nearer than we think. But our primary problem as universities is not engineering that future. We must rise above the obsession with quantity of information and speed of transmission, and recognize that the key issue for us is our ability to organize this information once it has been amassed - to assimilate it, find meaning in it, and assure its survival for use by generations to come.

Libraries keep the records on behalf of all humanity. the unique and the absurd, the wise and the fragments of stupidity.

The library is our house of intellect, our transcendental university, with one exception: no one graduates from a library. No one possibly can, and no one should.

The only condition a library asks its users to honor is to do justice to their own imagination, their own curiosity and their own thirst for knowledge, and in the process, to achieve their own independence of mind and spirit.

That is the future, and it is probably nearer than we think. But our primary problem as universities is not engineering that future. We must rise above the obsession with quantity of information and speed of transmission, and recognize that the key issue for us is our ability to organize this information once it has been amassed - to assimilate it, find meaning in it, and assure its survival for use by generations to come.

The universe is not going to see someone like you again in the entire history of creation.

The book is here to stay. What we're doing is symbolic of the peaceful coexistence of the book and the computer.