Dieter E. Zimmer Die Bibliothek der Zukunft. Text und Schrift in den Zeiten des Internet (The Library of the Future: Books and Reference Material in the Age of the Internet) Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, 2000, 330 pp. ISBN 3-455-10421-5 In the age of the internet, is there still a role for the traditional library built of bricks and mortar and acting as a repository for printed books? Do the services available on the internet eliminate the need for visits to traditional libraries? These are just two of the questions asked and answered in this excellent book, which imparts a wealth of information in an easy, non-academic style. It contains carefully researched quotations from international experts, references to leading institutes and other bodies, and reproductions of graphs, tables, library catalogue pages and software diagrams. It gives something of the history, capabilities and limitations of digital technology, and points up the difficulties in full and instant access to the whole of world literature via the home computer. It is also full of shrewd insights. For instance, the author points out that an index in a printed book, or in the catalogue of a traditional library, can guide the reader to the desired passage by listing a general subject as opposed to a word that actually appears in the book. But a computerised library usually requires the searcher to key in the exact work (or binary sequence) that he or she is looking for. This simple technological difference means that 'on-line' libraries don't always reveal what the searcher is looking for, or at least that they require different strategies. Pointers on how to go about this are supplied in a substantial index of around fifty pages containing both a bibliography and a useful list of library and other websites and their contents. Dieter Zimmer is a former editor of Die Zeit, but his book is very much more than mere journalism, despite its rather flip headings. On the contrary, slightly adapted perhaps for an Anglo-Saxon readership, his contribution should be of great interest and value to publishers, librarians and booksellers on the one side and writers, translators and teachers on the other - to a large part of new books in german's readership, in fact.