# 23 Summary

My learning experience ranged from sheer torture to great interest. The most difficult were the more technical subjects like tagging and productivity applications. Some were just boring, like the creepy avatars. But I really enjoyed Librarything and Biblio. The most fascinating was Project Gutenberg. How exciting that they are trying to preserve literature in many languages, such as Yiddish. And I hope that is an important part of this new technology: how to make information and literature available now and to future generations. I was very encouraged by Dr. Wendy Schultz's article on the future of libraries, when she describes libraries as not just collections of documents and books but "they are conversations, they are convocations of people, ideas, and artifacts in dynamic exchange. Libraries are not merely in communities: they are communities: they preserve and promote community memories; they provide mentors not only for the exploration of stored memory, but also for the creation of new artifacts of memory..."