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Facing declining visitors and uncertainty about what to do about it, library administrators in the new town of Almere in the Netherlands did something extraordinary. They redesigned their libraries based on the changing needs and desires of library users and, in 2010, opened the Nieuwe Bibliotheek (New Library), a thriving community hub that looks more like a bookstore than a library. Guided by patron surveys, administrators tossed out traditional methods of library organization, turning to retail design and merchandising for inspiration. They now group books by areas of interest, combining fiction and nonfiction; they display books face-out to catch the eye of browsers; and they train staff members in marketing and customer service techniques. The library is also a Seats2meet (S2M) location where patrons are empowered to help one another in exchange for free, permanent, coworking space, and they utilize the S2M Serendipity Machine to connect library users in real-time. They also have a bustling cafe, an extensive events and music program, a gaming facility, a reading garden and more. The result? The New Library surpassed all expectation about usage with over 100,000 visitors in the first two months. It is now considered one of the most innovative libraries in the world.

ABOUT FIND THE FUTURE Find The Future at NYPL brings visitors to the Library together with players around the world to tap into the creative power of the Library's collections. It is the first game in the world in which winning the game means writing a book together - a collection of 100 ways to make history and change the future, inspired by 100 of the most intriguing works of the past. Starting May 21, 2011, visitors to the Stephen A. Schwarzman branch of the NYPL can play the game with their personal smartphones or on Library computers. Global players will join the game with any computer that has access to the Internet. The game is free to play. The game is designed to empower players to find inspiration for their own extraordinary futures by bringing them face-to-face with the writings and personal objects of people who made an extraordinary difference in the past. The game starts with a special, invitation-only event on May 20, 2011. As part of the Centennial celebration weekend, hundreds of gamers will earn the chance to join a special once-in-a-lifetime event: an "overnight lock-in" at NYPL's Stephen A. Schwarzman building. This "write all night" lock in will serve as the official kick-off for the Find The Future game. All visitors to the Library or the website nypl.org/game will continue to be able to play Find The Future through the end of 2011.

""We want to demolish museums and libraries," the fevered Italian aesthetic revolutionary F.T. Marinetti declared in his 1909 Futurist Manifesto. "Museums, cemeteries!" Maybe so, maybe no. I'll vote no -- and so, I think, would photographer Richard Barnes, whose fascinating exhibit "Animal Logic," which documents the Smithsonian and other natural history museums as containers of imagined histories and outrageous dreams, is on view this month at Blue Sky Gallery. "

2020 Media Futures is an ambitious, multi-industry strategic foresight project designed to understand and envision what media may look like in the year 2020; what kind of cross-platform Internet environment may shape our media and entertainment in the coming decade; and how our firms and organizations can take action today toward capturing and maintaining positions of national and international leadership.

IN library - Open-source foresight project on future media 2020 Media Futures is an ambitious, multi-industry strategic foresight project designed to understand and envision what media may look like in the year 2020; what kind of cross-platform Internet environment may shape our media and entertainment in the coming decade; and how our firms and organizations can take action today toward capturing and maintaining positions of national and international leadership.

Over the next few decades, the global food system will come under renewed pressure from the combined effects of seven fundamental factors: population growth, the nutrition transition, energy, land, water, labour and climate change. The combined effects will create constraints on food supply and if action is not taken, there is a real potential for demand growth to outstrip increases in global food production. Effects on developing countries would be devastating. Developed countries will be affected too. Expectations of abundant and ever cheaper food could come under strain. The UK can no longer afford to take its food supply for granted.

Views on the economy, technology, logistics, the environment and society from Deutsche Post DHL experts and leading experts from the field.

 Biomass role in achieving the Climate Change & Renewables EU policytargets. Demand and Supply dynamics under the perspective of stakeholders . IEE 08 653 SI2. 529 241

Andrew Craig hit the start-button on a balmy Albany April day. His Landcruiser unhooked from the household power, then the twin electric motors cut in and moved it quietly down the drive. The silence disturbed some people when HydroElectrics first took over the V8 market, so they'd bought the audio option that simulated the sound of a historical V8 engine. Now the only time you'd hear anything like that was when the amplified "chugga, chugga, chugga" of a Harley Electro Hog drifted through the open window.

"Based on the current situation we have projected changes in the sea level 500 years into the future," says Aslak Grinsted, a researcher at the Centre for Ice and Climate, the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. His group forms part of a team that has calculated the long-term outlook for rising sea levels in relations to the emission of greenhouse gases and pollution of the atmosphere.