CDs/DVDs are digital downloads going to replace these? What about rural areas that don't have the bandwidth to have this?
Faculty demand helps to keep demand for CDs up!
Will libraries just stop checking out CDs and audio books?
What happens when physical formats become obsolete?

VHS tapes.....blank tapes aren't even being produced any more, but should you phase out tapes that are still being used?
Do space restrictions force this to happen?

Philosophy discussion - copyright and licensing issues - how will this work in the future? Online database model for future AV content streaming (with proper bandwidth)

Is TV a dead end technology?

Whaty about the MP3 player as a dead end technology?

What’s the model when there isn’t a physical item to check out? Audiobooks, music and more creates artificial limitations to make it ’seem like’ downloads are physical items.

Will the library subscribe to content and make that available to the public? Is this a model for the future?

Microsoft Office might be becoming obsolete. -- It is. They continue to REDESIGN it so you continue to have to relearn how to use the software. That wastes so much time for most people. They just want to type a document the way they've always typed a document.

Microsoft Office - Open Office to Google Docs (cloud computing in the future)

Is desktop software becoming obsolete....will internet applications take over.

Will handheld devices take the place of desktop computers.

Is the solo/stand alone library catalog becoming obsolete? Will there be a “google” of libraries - with a courier - change scoping, but it’s all interconnected (Georgia and Evergreen)

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Not sure if this belongs here or on the future of libraries discussion page. Feel free to move it there if you think it belongs over there. Eric, Janelle, and I (Heather) (re)discussed dead technologies and we briefly touched on what the future of the cd/dvd means for libraries. I came home and stumbled upon this discussion that's been going on at several library blogs. Here's one thread from Jason Griffey's blog:

"Content providers have insisted on holding tight to a model of selling their wares where content is scarce, connections are hard, and communication is expensive. We live in a world, however, where content is ubiquitous, connections are trivial, and communication is essentially free. These two worlds cannot coexist, and library vendors from Overdrive to OCLC must change their models. If they don’t, they will die as certainly as newspapers, magazines, the recording industry, television, and printed books.

"Where does all of this leave the library? As the analog dies and the digital rises, unless we get in front of the content providers and claim our place at the digital table, we run the risk of being increasingly marginalized. There are places for us in this new world, but we need to make them, to carve them from the bytes. Stewart Brand’s comment that “information wants to be free” has never been more true, but just because it wants to be free doesn’t mean it doesn’t need caretakers."