ABSTRACT
The Library has done a good job telling the users what it has and what knowledge is known. It has done a good job of attaching skilled specialists to this knowledge to help the users use the materials efficiently. The digital optical disk can store library materials in two different ways that are of great importance to the Library of Congress (LC). Senior scholars who wish to work at the LC are losing grants and travel money, the cost of air tickets is breathtaking, and hotel rooms in Washington cost more for one night than a week's rent in Amarillo. It is time either to create regional "national libraries" or to start building specialized units that are total—every known book on geology, everything on social security, everything on music regardless of format, source, or application. The people interviewed who held the opposing view defended a large, centralized, comprehensive national library and brushed off the pessimists' concerns casual disdain.
