Library Reinvention

An LA Times article about libraries reinventing themselves as they struggle to remain relevant in the digital age.

And a rare dissenting opinion, at least in the articles I've come across:

Some traditional librarians worry that experiments aimed at making libraries more accessible could dumb them down.

"If you want to have game rooms and pingpong tables and God knows what — poker parties — fine, do it, but don't pretend it has anything to do with libraries," said Michael Gorman, a former president of the American Library Assn. "The argument that all these young people would turn up to play video games and think, 'Oh by the way, I must borrow that book by Dostoyevsky' — it seems ludicrous to me."

I'm still trying to get my head around organizing bookshelves like book stores, without the Dewey Decimal System and with books organized around topics. Not that Dewey Decimal isn't grouped by topic - that's kind of the whole point. Isn't there maybe a middle ground between strict adherence to the DDC and loose book store arragements?

Note the small mention of Google Books.