I hope not.
I weep at the thought that libraries are considered as obsolete remnants of the past. It seems that some people have the notion that the intangible Internet can replace little libraries that once stood ground in any respectable small town or city. Some have even said that my generation will be the last one to know the joys of stalking through bookshelves, happening across an interesting read, and bringing it triumphantly to the front desk to check it out for the weekend.
I will not lie. These days, I read more online than on physical paper. The smell of old books is something that is hard to come by these days. Textbooks, assignments, newspaper articles, and even books are finding their way into my computer, putting a distance between me and the beloved hardcopies. E-books are shinier and lighter than real books, and sometimes, they are easier to access than physical copies. I am not sure if E-books will ever become more popular than old books, but one thing is clear- they will never be able to emulate the original books. The feel of cellulose and the smell of paper (new, old, funky, fresh) is not there. One is quite literally absorbing data from a computer, and I am afraid that the emotional connection one makes with a physical object is all but absent when it comes to an e-book. The same goes for e-libraries. True, one could theoretically access everything that has ever been printed and uploaded online, and online books are more accessible than physical ones ever were, but the physical interaction between the patron and the librarian is not there. Nor is there a sense of awe of being surrounded by stacks of books testifying how much time and effort went into writing these things.
(But one can applaud them for their effort. For example, Project Gutenberg has uploaded over 50000 e-books online for free, and these books are mostly old books that might be out of print-- plus, they often contain pictures.)
And I am not the only one in my generation to think this way. When I ask fellow book nerds on their opinion of physical books and the future of libraries, they all seem to arrive on a popular consensus: that physical books and libraries totally rule. Hopefully my generation will be able to bring back the libraries that were forced to shut down because of financial mismanagement, and that I will be able to enjoy getting lost in even more libraries for years to come.
Yes. Libraries shall survive.