As more and more information is available on-line, as software allows anyone to find any passage in any book, an important question becomes: Who needs libraries anymore? Why does anyone need four walls filled with paper between covers? Surprisingly, they still do and in this program award-winning producer Richard Paul explores how research libraries, university libraries, school libraries and public libraries have adapted to the new information world. The American Library Association’s Carol Brey-Casiano discusses the changing role of libraries in their communities. The University of Nevada’s Director of Resource Acquisitions, Rick Anderson, talks about how libraries are shifting their emphasis to technology. A visit to the Washington D.C. Research Library Consortium’s “dead-book” room confirms that libraries are deaccessing hardcovers at an amazing rate, as they build up their digitalized collections. But primary source material continues to remain an important part of research libraries, as the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Richard Kuhta demonstrates with one of the 79 copies of the Folger’s collection of First Folios. Digitized collections also face copyright and access issues. Yet despite the problems, library usage is escalating.

Who Needs Libraries? is part of a Soundprint special series called The Education Connection, about the early introduction of technology into the classroom. The series is supported in part by the U.S. Department of Education.