Seth Godin is not a library professional -- he's a marketing guru with
a string of best-selling books and a blog that manages to be both
insightful AND brief on an astonishingly consistent basis.
(http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ -- highly recommended).  So he's
outside the library world, looking in, and has a track record of
seeing far and clear.

Which means he's probably worth paying attention to when he writes
about The Future Of The Library, as he does in the newest post on his
blog:
        http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/05/the-future-of-the-library.html

To summarise: "The library is a house for the librarian ...  [Kids]
need a librarian more than ever (to figure out creative ways to find
and use data). They need a library not at all ...  We need librarians
more than we ever did. What we don't need are mere clerks who guard
dead paper."

-- Mike.