Judith Adams-Volpe has been director of Lockwood Library since 1989. She is the author of "The American Amusement Park Industry: A History of Technology and Thrills."

Adams-Volpe

How have libraries changed since you began work in the field?
The major transformations have been in modes of access to information and the scope of information available. I began my career in 1975 when the first computer systems arrived in libraries and we've been mastering or embracing emerging technologies at a constantly accelerating speed for 25 years. The revolution in access for everyone to worldwide information resources has made libraries very possibly the most democratic institution in our culture. This is what makes our profession so rewarding. Today, a challenge for libraries is to create effective gateways to all this information that are responsive to the different ways we learn. Us "old fogies" are linear-we approach information by reading front to back, top to bottom in a detectable sequence-while young folks are "twitchers," jumping around following intuitive, fast-paced connections.

Do you think there will ever be "bookless" libraries?
The greatest roadblock for virtual bookless libraries is the impermanence of electronic media. To date, the lifespan of digital technologies is very short. Paper has the proven record, it can last 500 years and more. Even Lockwood has a couple of books about 400 years old. CD-ROMs have been found to be reliable for only five years, while digital and access technologies continually change, forcing repeated costly reformatting at the least. With the Internet and networks, extensive collections may now reside in only one place on one server that allows universal access. However, the dark side of this fragile dependence was dramatically demonstrated to me in the last couple weeks as I looked at Lockwood's books on art and architecture in Kosovo and Yugoslavia-these books, held by many libraries throughout the world, are perhaps the only historic record of treasures now destroyed by war and gone forever.

What's the most challenging part of heading a library today?
Research libraries are at a moment of transformation. Our challenge is to decide what a library will be in the coming millennium. Budget and technical realities force us to make fundamental cultural choices. Will our library respond to the demands of most of our users and become a digital gateway? Will it be the preserver of our cultural heritage and the repository of human knowledge? Will it be a juke box of information resources, a venue for teaching information literacy, a collaborative service organization for the integration of technology in the academic curriculum? Lockwood's circulation statistics have taken a nose-dive since the introduction of access to hundreds of online, full-text and other databases. More than 20 million pages have been printed from computers in the libraries from July through March this fiscal year. Should we keep acquiring those books on art in Kosovo? A balance among all these desired roles is almost certainly impossible.

Librarians are famous for their opposition to censorship. Is that a problem encountered in an academic library?
Censorship is a critical issue to academic and research libraries because it is these institutions that preserve the historical record. Librarians and archivists have been murdered by many political regimes so that records could be altered or destroyed. Today, the Internet has generated great societal concern about the harmful effects of insidious pornography easily available to any computer user. The American Library Association recently led a successful court battle to strike down a statute which would have held any institution legally liable for simply providing the network a minor could use to access pornography on the Internet. The issue is a clear demonstration of how the value of access can lead to repression. A much broader issue than pornography, censorship is a central threat to our democratic values.

What's the best excuse you've ever heard for not bringing a book back?
The high-profile case is the Hollywood director/producer who was caught with storage lockers full of library books and claimed his "art" places him above library policies. But my favorite comes from Alabama, where at Auburn University a patron wouldn't return his books until spring because he was using them to help insulate his chicken coop-and, when we finally got them back and were forced to discard them due to "infestation," the library got in trouble for tossing books.

How did you get interested in studying amusement parks? What do they tell us about society?
Having grown up on the Jersey shore, my fondest and most vivid childhood memories are of my Dad taking me to the boardwalk and the amusement rides on warm summer evenings. An article on Coney Island as a case study of technology and social change was the spark that resulted in my book on the history of amusement parks. Amusement venues have been the testing ground for new technologies and have reflected our social culture, starting with the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. Walt Disney's father served as a construction worker for the exposition, and EPCOT is very much a permanent world's fair. As the century turned, Coney Island threw off the grandeur and instilled wonder, stripped away inhibitions and intimately mingled the immigrant masses. In a seminar course I taught at UB on the "American Dream," one of our brilliant students summed it up perfectly: "The Columbian Exposition made America LOOK good, Coney Island made America FEEL good." As we approach a new millennium, will our amusement venues lure us to give up our societal and corporate quests to pursue our personal dreams?

What's your favorite amusement park? Favorite amusement park ride? Any plans to ride "Superman: Ride of Steel," the colossal roller coaster set to open at Darien Lake this summer?
My favorite ride proves that there is a dark side to this mild-mannered librarian-I love Disney's "Space Mountain" because, for glorious minutes, your fate is completely out of your control and you can't even see it coming! Cedar Point in Ohio is my favorite amusement park for its charming blend of history (it has preserved many elements from its more than hundred-year life, including the Hotel Breakers with its palatial verandas and Tiffany chandeliers) with high-tech scream machines. And also its unique, open expanse on a spit of land surrounded by Lake Erie makes it feel limitless. As for riding "Superman" at Darien Lake, ask me to write a reaction piece for the Reporter and I'll do it. Eoowww!