by Michael Ridley

The digital revolution has captured our attention and imagination. It has transformed our present and defines our vision of the future. But let's look farther over the horizon - way farther over the horizon. As we ponder the future of libraries, we need to look past the digital. The next transformation is not about the digital but the biochemical.

Advances in cognitive neuroscience promise to completely redefine our understanding of information, knowledge, and, almost certainly, libraries. We need to start thinking about the physiology of information, neural prosthetics, cognitive pharmacology, and the possibility of a "post literate" world.

Information is signal; information is noise; information is flow. It is power, transformation, liberation. It wants to be free (sort of). It is said be an activity and hence a verb and not a noun. In our field ("all things information") we characterize information in a myriad of ways. I want to suggest we think about it differently. Very differently. And then I want to suggest something provocative. Yes, welcome back to the wacko zone.