T HERE have been radical changes in communication theory and techniques in recent decades, and these changes have been increasing at an almost exponential rate. The theory of binary computers was well known more than a generation ago; yet even fifteen years ago anyone who had forecast that there would now be more than a dozen manufacturers in this field, some of whom are building electronic office machines by the dozen-with a minimum price tag well over a million dollarswould have been considered the most visionary of dreamers. With this example before us, it would be well not to underestimate the potential of technology, and it might be just as well to admit at the outset that whatever one man can dream, sooner or later another man can build. Now, having recognized (or perhaps sensed) that there are no theoretical limits to the capabilities of technology, there are those who have leaped to the advocacy or prediction of the application of technology to all intellectual pursuits -a jump which may well convert a good tool into a bad master. The fact that these new devices do perform amazing feats in the standardized, sequential, manipulative arts to which they can be applied does not justify the conclusion that they are a universal solution for all communications purposes and problems. This transfer from the good to the universal, the search for one quick and easy answer to all problems, is a human trait of long standing. And as one of my old chemistry professors used to enjoy saying, Since earliest times man has searched for the universal solvent, but no one has figured out what he would keep it in if he found it. Leaving aside the problems of documentation, which are handled in Mr. Clapp's paper and which present a number of different facets than do library services in general, our discussion will be confined to the parts of library work which we have come to consider conventional and the ways in which they may be affected by the newly evolving technology. All the conventional arts and services of the library revolve about the (and, to avoid repeated use of modifiers, let us use the term book in a generic sense to cover all types of material normally used in conveying information normally stored and serviced by libraries, including hard covers, soft covers, periodicals, pamphlets, reports, broadsides, films, and recordings of various types, etc.). If we can assume that the form of the will change radically, then we must plan for quite radical changes in library techniques and services.