McGill’s Bicentennial Digital Time Capsule | Dean Colleen Cook on the future of libraries

Time capsules offer the opportunity to capture a moment while letting us imagine possible futures. McGill Research & Innovation’s Bicentennial Digital Time Capsule—a signature project of the University’s 200th-anniversary celebrations—features two-minute videos from 50 top McGill researchers. Contributors were asked to envision the future of their fields over the coming decades. The burning question: what will be the biggest change or discovery in your field over the next 25 years?

Trenholme Dean of Libraries Colleen Cook weighed in on the future of academic research libraries:

Technology will make advancements through the internet and will allow us to absorb information in many ways that will make learning so much easier. We will be able to absorb information through all our senses because we will have representations of information visually, audibly, tactilely through the building and printing of three-dimensional objects. As a result of this and through artificial intelligence, we will be able to stand on the shoulders of giants and information will come to us easier than it has ever come to us before.

Watch the full submission:

Looking for more library-related bicentennial content? Check out the Library’s bicentennial web space! It features four notable contributions, a timeline with milestones, and a curated social media feed. The bicentennial timeline project was three years in the making and a Library-wide effort. Kudos to all staff members who contributed!