Electronic catalogues were invented in the 50’s and introduced as enterprise systems as early as in the 70’s. This digital age amplified the role of libraries as multi-data institutions, specifically in academic libraries. This was of course the shift from the second paradigm to the third, allowing the scholars to simulate reality in order to test in detail their theory against their empirical observation. The digital revolution in the last few decades allowed a computational branch to grow with the opportunity to use the developed theories to simulate complex phenomena. However, by no means books were the only things in traditional libraries: they held maps, manuscripts, paintings, and archives of all kinds, even ephemera like shoes. This traditional function of a library has been dominated by “books” – hence the term Library, from Latin ‘liber’. Libraries’ estates were usually established at the heart of the campus to perform their organizational function for the circulation of knowledge and serve as a sanctuary for study. When the reproduction of scholarly works became easier, libraries were able to collect a large segment of the world’s knowledge and make it accessible to researchers and students. They started off by holding the manuscripts and prints of researchers working at the institution, in times when reproduction of scholarly work was the exception and scholars had to travel around the world to gain insights into the works of other scholars. The last few hundred years then saw a theoretical branch evolving, followed by models and generalizations were used to understand what was behind these natural phenomena, thus making the shift from the first paradigm to the second, with the scholars no longer being a passive observer, but actively trying to find out, why things are like they are.Īccompanying this development, libraries for centuries were a major, if not the main research infrastructure for academic institutions.
Gray points out that since a thousand years research is intellectual and observational, describing natural phenomena.
This can best be described in parallel to what Jim Gray introduced as the four paradigms of science. The concept of a “Library” has changed dramatically through the last years. 1 The forth paradigm and the role of libraries