Information just doesn't float around and get gathered on its own. Libraries give it structure. It's a place that people come to create information and knowledge.

It's our purpose to make sure knowledge lives for a long time, whether it's digital, paper or papyrus.

It's exciting to walk through and see chemistry students drawing compounds and talking. It's not just a bunch of students reading art books.

Students can do just about anything; they can treat it sort of like a giant living room. We frowned on food; now we think it's an advantage to be able to work in a friendly setting rather than worry about some crumbs dropped here and there.

Schools have never been about getting access to information. That's the job of libraries. Schools and universities have nobler missions as gentle gatekeepers. Their role is to control ideas on the loose and to present the best and noblest ideas to the young.

To ask why we need libraries at all, when there is so much information available elsewhere, is about as sensible as asking if roadmaps are necessary now that there are so very many roads."

[American Libraries Magazine, May 28, 2009]