Rare Book and Manuscript Libraries in the Twenty-First Century.

Revised versions of the talks presented at the symposium are presented here. A preliminary discussion paper opens the manuscript, exploring the implications of changing patterns in teaching, research, and scholarship, the new demands of the marketplace and libraries' resultant collection development, the changing technologies, future staffing, funding sources, and architecture and failing facilities. The preliminary paper acts as a catalyst for discussion and argument in the papers that follow. The book is organized into four sections, each covering a different session of the conference. The first section addresses the issue of technology, change, and the virtual library in the next century. The second section deals with libraries' roles as centers for research, especially concentrating on the debate of the original manuscript/book versus electronic access to the information contained within the book. Section three explores the future of collection development, the changing marketplace and economy, and the challenge of funding collection development in the coming century. A synopsis of the roundtable discussion closes the collection, offering four perspectives on the conference: (1) the true challenge that rare book libraries are faced with is personnel, getting and keeping people who will fight for their institutions, not with technology; (2) the importance of preserving the original, but doing so in cooperation with other libraries; (3) making rare book collections a research resource, not just a repository, in order to develop an audience and a need; (4) being aware of the shifting paradigms and assumptions in the disciplines the libraries serve in order to seize upon advances and opportunities. An appendix lists the names of all conference participants. (MAS)