Introducing the Bookless Library

Marty Mc Fly and Doc Brown had just finished making sure that Mc Fly would be born after all—do you remember the original Back to The Future movie? Well, then comes the final part of the movie, when Doc tells Marty they have drive off into the future now, for another adventure in the DeLorean:

Marty: Hey Doc we better back up, we don’t have enough road to get up to 88 [mph].

Doc: Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.

Ladies, and gentlemen welcome to 2013, where we no longer need books…at least not the physical kind. Introducing Biblio Tech, the United States’ first bookless library, coming to Baxter County Texas and made up entirely of digital tomes.

In the next few months, the county, which is closer to better known San Antonio, Texas plans to trade aisles of printed pages for a hall of computers: fifty e-readers, twenty-five laptops and twenty-five tablets to use on site.

Judge Nelson Wolff of Bexar County , the force behind Biblio Tech believes his latest project to be an inevitable progression of the library. “We all know the world is changing. I am an avid book reader. I read hardcover books, I have a collection of 1,000 first editions, but the world is changing and this is the best, most effective way to bring services to our community,” Wolff told ABC News.

But things might not be all smooth digital sailing for Biblio Tech if history is any indication. The Santa Rosa Branch Library in Tucson, Arizona also tried a digital-only library in 2002, the result? People demanded real books in addition to electronic readers.