Alberto Manguel

Panel I
Alberto Manguel, National Library of Argentina
A National Library in the Digital Age

How is a national library to become capable of serving readers and non-readers alike? How can a national library convert non-readers into readers? How can it transform the perception that most non-readers have of libraries as alien places and books –printed or digital– as alien instruments, into a cartography in which all share a common, effective intellectual space? Perhaps a national library can become a sort of creative workshop as well as a place in which memory is stored for future readers to find clues in order to imagine better worlds, a place where new readers are formed and old readers reaffirmed. These are some the questions that this presentation will address.