It was briefly announced in the meeting minutes of our top-level administators' group that our main library will be gutted and rehabbed. This might start as early as next year.

Of course, there are basic things to take care of, in a library built forty years ago. Improved ADA compliance, better HVAC, upgraded network wiring, windows that open, sufficient bathrooms: these are fairly easy to get on a list of projects. But I'd like to leave all this aside and think about the challenge in a different way.

What principles might inform the strategy for gutting and rebuilding the interior of an academic library? I don't mean to suggest anything about exactly what should be done. I'm more interested in how to think about it.

Impermanence is a concept that comes to mind. Maybe flexibility is another way of putting it. I don't know about you, but I don't claim to know what academic libraries will look like in the next forty years. I may have some hopes in this area, but that's another story.

So I wonder. What might the university need from us in the coming years? Priority-wise, do we envision the library as Information Commons, as intellectual hub on campus, as research center? Do we anticipate - or aim for - more or less on-site use? What kind of collections are in our future, and how will we provide access to them? What staffing models do we anticipate, and how do we want staff to interact? What level of server infrastructure do we intend to host? Will the heart of our operations become centered around services to remote users? Will our virtual existence trump our physical one?

When our priorities are transformed, as they inevitably will be, how can we accommodate this transformation in our physical space without gutting the place again in forty years? Is this even possible?

I seem to have only questions. I'm wondering if anyone has good reading to suggest on this topic.