The future of library acquisitions as the electronic information realm evolves

The community of scholars and the scholarship industry coexist in a symbiosis. It is sometimes claimed that computers could take over the role of libraries as information migrates from print to electronic transmission, but computing should properly be seen as a new element in the publishing industry while libraries are the property of the community of scholars. There is a wide range of intellectual material, from data through information to works of understanding and imagination, and no single medium is best for every purpose. Computers have much to offer at the data end of the range, but print remains the choice of users for works requiring extended exposition, as well as current awareness publishing.