Caption: Dedication - Grainger Engineering Library Symposium
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—y R O B E R T W E D G E WO RTH U N I V E R S I T Y L I B R A R I A N OF T H E L I B R A R Y OP T H E U N I V E R S I T Y OF I L L I N O I S AT URB AN A -C H A M P A I Q N A few weeks ago the New Ybrk Times published a front-page story about an AT&T camera crew that went into the streets of Manhattan filming interviews at random with persons who were asked, "Can you tell me how to find the information superhighway?" One answer was. "You go down this street and take a right!" If the question had been. "Can you tell me how tofindthe bookstore or library/ in small towns and big cities across the nation you may not have received therightanswer but most people would understand the question. That is part of our dilemma today. Over the centuries universities have developed an understanding of what constitutes formal knowledge. We have accumulated it in books and journals, we have organized it in courses and in libraries, and we have transmitted it to students and to the public Most of what we recognize asformalknowledge is in printed form. By the middle of this century, with the growth rate of knowledge at exponential levels, we began to employ a number of information technologies to manage the records of knowledge, to index it and produce abstracts. The introduction of photocopying allowed us to share texts more widely. The advent of satellite communications added the capability of transmitting texts and images worldwide liken together, these developments have only changed our understanding of knowledge and knowledge institutions marginally. Robert Wedgeworth is the university librarian of the Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana<hampaign. the third-largest academic library in the country. and president of the International Federation of Library Associations Heformerfy was dean of the School of Library Service at Columbia University and executiw directorfor more than a decade of the American Library Association. PAGE 21
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