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Robert Darnton about the centrality of public libraries (in the distant 2008): Meanwhile, I say: shore up the library. Stock it with printed matter. Reinforce its reading rooms. But don't think of it as a warehouse or a museum. While dispensing books, most research libraries operate as nerve centers for transmitting electronic impulses. They acquire data sets, maintain digital repositories, provide access to e-journals, and orchestrate information systems that reach deep into laboratories as well as studies. Many of them are sharing their intellectual wealth with the rest of the world by permitting Google to digitize their printed collections. Therefore, I also say: long live Google, but don't count on it living long enough to replace that venerable building with the Corinthian columns. As a citadel of learning and as a platform for adventure on the Internet, the research library still deserves to stand at the center of the campus, preserving the past and accumulating energy for the future. Source: The Research Library in the Digital Age. Available: http://hul.harvard.edu/publications/Darnton_ResearchLibraryDigitalAge.pdf

Thank you very much Kevin for this report. For me has been very ilustrative; my last experience with internet connection, collaboration and public libraries in Spain was that the person in charge of the lecture hall told me I was not allowed to plug the mobile phone charger in (as I was running out of battery with my smart phone), but that I could use the library desk computers (only for 30 minutes per day for free...) I was really disgusted and for me it is great to hear that in other countries these initiatives are taking place. Thanks!

Good article, thanks for sharing it. I think what trancends in this article is that the those who have power obviously want to maintain that position and therefore it is in their interest to lobby for a "bad", "uncreative" education system, so to say to deliberatly limit thought capacity. There are certainly many interesting aspects to what is written in this article, for example the part about Gramschis thoughts is directed on a discussion of social classes, and how those might lean right or left depending on their composition. But could it also be that the, so called, lower classes (i dont like that expression) are just not there to engage and participate in political discussion that draws the outlines of such things like the education system.

Very useful resource. Recommended it some time ago to colleagues in Ethiopia when they started a new university programme in biomedical engineering and were looking for publications that they can use in their curriculum