The explosion in electronic information cannot replace the crucial role of public libraries which ensure all citizens have free access to information, the country's professional librarians have been told.
The annual conference of the Library Association of Ireland, which ended in Wexford yesterday, heard details of major investments recently announced by the British and French governments in the development of their national libraries.
Questions were raised about what was seen as the under-funding and lack of priority accorded to the National Library in Dublin, where the post of director remains vacant and the service is considered by many to need major review.
The £500 million government investment in the new British Library building at St Pancras, London, had done much to raise the status of libraries generally and make people aware of their importance, a guest speaker, Mr David Bradbury, told the conference.
Mr Bradbury, the British Library's director general for Collections and Services, said it was going through some of the biggest changes in its history and was enhancing its contribution to an informed citizenry.
Seating for 1,000 readers has been provided at the new building, where four underground storeys provide storage for 320 kilometres of material.
The founding Act of the British Library had stipulated it was to be for the use of "all studious and curious persons", and that remained a core principle. The most important thing about a national library was that it should be accessible to anyone from any walk of life.
Mr Bradbury warned against over-reliance on the new information technologies, which were still accessible only to a minority of the general public who possessed the necessary equipment and financial resources. "Are we going to see an information underclass forming?"
He said there was also a danger that because of the IT revolution, governments might be tempted to put less money into library services.
Mr Philippe Belaval, director general of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, said that institution was also involved in a process of major change, the central feature of which is a controversial new library building of 360,000 square metres in central Paris.
Costing £600 million, and with contents and acquisitions requiring a further £300 million, it has 2,000 seats for scholars and 1,600 seats for the general public.
It includes a computerised online catalogue and access to extensive digital collections and databases. The bibliotheque manages a website which allows access to part of the digitised collections, including a million pages and 10,000 pictures relating to the 19th century.
There was no major contradiction between the digital and traditional aspects of the national library, Mr Belaval said, as both contributed towards giving a greater number of people better access to information and knowledge through reading.
However, finding the right balance between them was now a major issue for the library's management, as it was for any other large institution operating in the information world.
He said there were good reasons why it was not paradoxical to be building new libraries "at the very moment that the explosion of IT seems to be making them redundant."
There was the heritage value inherent in the collections themselves. The new technology, moreover, implied the necessity for all kinds of technical processing facilities. Providing remote access to collections could create a demand for access to the original documents.