Libraries!!!
Don't miss a wonderful article entitled Future Reading in the New Yorker Magazine of November 5, 2007. The article is by the noted Princeton historian, Anthony Grafton, who has written outstanding books on Renaissance history and the history of books & reading. He has authored a witty, erudite book on the history of the footnote logically entitled The Footnote.
The New Yorker article examines the current drive by Google and Microsoft to build a universal archive and " a comprehensive index of all the books in the world." Grafton tells us that this endeavor will take a longer time frame to complete than anticipated and it is really premature to speak of a universal archive. He is a champion of libraries and concludes that the path to knowlege will still lead you to the library.