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三人对话the role of libraries in modern time and how books affect people's life.A:The information society development demands to re-define the position and objectives of all theinstitutions which work with information, knowledge, and culture. Of these, media andeducation have been discussed in the European Union actively. Libraries have been a marginaltheme.B:The situation is changing. Libraries have been identified as one of the key elements for openaccess to information, which is crucial to democratic information society development. InOctober 1998 the European Parliament adopted an own-initiative report "The Role of Librariesin Modern Societies", the first library policy paper in the EU. It defines the need for the mostimportant pan-European actions on library field.C:First, the general development of the information society is pushing to re-evaluation of all theinstitutions which work with information, data, and knowledge - indirectly also with culture. Inthis connection the roles of education and media have been discussed already quite largely alsoin the European Union. But libraries - as well as other memory institutions like archives andmuseums - have not been considered. Still, there is a clear need in the information society tomaintain an institution which is concentrating in collecting and organizing information andoffering general access to it. Until now, this work has been underestimated, but I argue thesituation will change!A:Libraries are especially important now when the whole idea of education is stressing more andmore independent learning and acting. All citizens must be able to find and use information. It isthe key raw material - but it is a zero resource, if there are no access points to it and ifdocuments are in chaotic order.B:Here we can see libraries enter the stage: The unique function of libraries is to acquire,organize, offer for use and preserve publicly available material irrespective of the form inwhich it is packaged (print, cassette, CD-ROM, network form) in such a way that, when it isneeded, it can be found and put to use. No other institution carries out this long-term, systematicwork.C:Culture must be nominated especially: it has an important and unique role in mobilizingresources of human beings. It has been described: To some extent, culture makes its influencefelt more indirectly than knowledge, but it is impossible to imagine how people's creativepowers could be fully activated without the impact of culture, which extends into the depths ofthe mind.A:The challenge to modern societies is that the basic resource, knowledge, is developing frominformation in very individual, capricious and unpredictable process. It cannot be commanded.