Inventing the Electronic University

David W. Lewis is Lehman Librarian at Columbia University, New York, New York 10027. Higher education is confronting a fundamental change. The transition from print on paper to digital and electronic technologies is transforming instruction, scholarly communication, and the storage and preservation of knowledge. What is required is not the automation of old systems, but the restructuring of institutions. The drive for autonomy, needed for effective scholarship, and the push for standardization, needed to assure easy and open access to information, will create conflicts difficult to resolve. Universities must find new ways of funding and financing information services and new staffing patterns if they are to continue as effective learning and research centers.