It’s already happening. People who use the Internet in a library are doing something very different.

What are they looking at? What are they working on? Not much of what the library staff has chosen for them. The patrons are choosing things for themselves. Without the staff getting there first. And mostly without the staff’s knowledge of what they’re doing.

They’re in the library building. Yet they’re also out there in the world, on their own.

The library staff is losing much of the power it once had to control the user experience. The patrons are gaining power. The Internet is empowering them.

As more and more content is transformed into digital data – coming into the library over the Internet – this situation will spread out from the public-computing section to the entire building.

That doesn’t mean the staff will have nothing to do. But the job skills will change.

Classically, libraries exist because people can’t read the texts otherwise. Books cost too much for most people to buy a lot of them. Or, it takes too much time and trouble to hunt them down, a task librarians do better.

The emphasis has been on books, or books and CDs and DVDs. These have been the physical objects a library has been filled with. But now those objects are giving way to new objects – electronic devices that access data.

Increasingly, writing and images and sounds are being disseminated in the form of data. They have no physical dimensions, no volume – they don’t take up any space. They’re not the objects any more.

The objects are computing machines – desktops, laptops, e-readers, smartphones. One of these devices can access more material than all the traditional library buildings in the world put together ever contained. The library will supply some of these devices. Probably most patrons will bring in their own.

The relative cheapness of the devices and related service-provider fees reduces the economic advantage libraries have always had. And the new ease of conducting searches for content reduces libraries’ expertise advantage.

Will people stop visiting libraries?

No. For some, the economic and expertise factors will still be important. But for most, they will not. The majority will still come to the library for another reason – sociability.

Consider the future appearance of a library interior. Instead of a warehouse format, it will be a clubhouse format. The shelves will be dismantled to be replaced by chairs, couches, tables, large-screen viewing areas, and workshops. The meeting rooms, conference rooms, story time rooms, and study rooms will remain.

This will allow for a more social atmosphere.

Libraries have always had a social component. But it’s been subordinate. Now the main reason for visiting a library will be to converse and collaborate with others. The theme, as always, will be the life of the mind. The new twist – the library will be a minds-meeting-place.

Sure, you may enjoy being on the net at home alone. Still, when you get a yen to rub shoulders with others doing the same thing, or to share what you’re doing not only with online buddies but also with flesh-and-blood friends face to face, the library is the place.

The big shift is from the library building as a container for things, to the library building as a meeting place for people.

People will always like getting together in a physical space with like-minded folks. People will always like getting out of the house and going to festivals, theaters, and libraries. We are social creatures.

The library of the future will be a place for empowered patrons to share the life of the mind face to face with other empowered patrons. The new digital delivery systems will make it so.