San
Jose Mercury News: Stanford University is creating a new
"bookless library" from two existing libraries—physics
and engineering. The new facility will have a completely
electronic reference desk, Kindle 2 e-readers, soft seating, a
self-checkout system, and group event space. At the user's
fingertips will be 28 online databases and more than 12 000
scientific journals. One reason for going electronic is space:
Stanford's campus is running out of room, with nowhere to
expand. The new combined library will be half the size of one
of its forebears. Another reason is that in the sciences many
of the journals and reference works have already been
digitized, so users are already accessing them
electronically.
