Fairwell Public Library and Dewey Decimal System?

Growing up I would walk or ride my bike to the public library. A cool blast of air and the distinct smell of books would greet me at the door. This silent sanctuary of knowledge was a wonderful place to visit. However, to navigate the aisles filled with volumes of information without some type of "road map" would prove very tedious and time consuming. Enter the Dewey Decimal System or Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC).

This system along with its card catalog was created over 134 years ago but was the technology that revolutionized the way we organize and search physical knowledge bases (libraries) still today. When Melvil Dewey created his system back in 1876 the technology streamlined, not replaced the way books were placed in order and retrieved.
The DDC was very good but in this ever changing world there came needed revisions to the system. There have been 22 major revisions to the Dewey Decimal System as of 2003. The Dewey name is still used and associated with the old style as well as an online based, commercial version of the system. http://www.oclc.org/dewey/
Today, technology such as computers and the Internet has launched us onto the information highway where searching topics of any phrase, word or even number is performed in a matter of seconds and from the comfort of your own home, a café, a park or even your public library. Even the libraries themselves are using computer technology to assist patrons with finding books, magazine articles, movies, etc.

The potential is there with today's technology to put all the information held in every library on earth in one central location such as the Internet. And software programs such as OPNET IT Guru can assist with putting the current, electronic information out there as well as to create new information in the form of eBooks, diagrams, simulations, etc. One big question in my mind is can we actually put the information from all the hardcopy books into electronic form? I believe the job is too massive an undertaking to retype all the information. And to scan older books would in most cases mean destroying them by taking them apart so that they would fit in a scanner. Do we want to destroy the old to accommodate the new or should both ways of acquiring knowledge coexist? I think that although the new technology is heavily depended on and highly desirable, it is not necessarily better than the old but rather the new enhances the old. One melds into the other to make something better.

One way the old and new combine to make something better is with the creation of handheld devices like the Nook. Where the information is electronic but there is still something tangible like a book would be. You can hold either in your hand and manipulate the pages with your fingers or a stylus. This brings a new meaning to the word eBook.
Yesterday's library will never be totally replaced by technology as libraries have been around for centuries; evolving, adapting and coexisting with technology.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Decimal_Classification
http://www.opnet.com/university_program/itguru_academic_edition/
http://www.oclc.org/dewey/