Libraries replacing books with bytes.

In the age of Google, traditional libraries seem outdated. So college libraries around the United States are increasingly replacing books with digital databases.

According to the New York Times, the University of Texas at Austin's undergraduate library will disperse almost all its 90,000 books to other university collections to make room for a 24-hour electronic information commons.

"In this information-seeking America, I can't think of anyone who would elect to build a books-only library," Fred Heath, vice provost of the University of Texas Libraries in Austin, told the Times.

Their new library will feature "software suites"--modules with computers where students can work collaboratively 24 hours a day--an expanded center for writing instruction, and a center for computer training, technical assistance, and repair.

Such digital learning laboratories, which are staffed with Internet-savvy librarians, teachers, and technicians, have been spreading since first appearing in 1994 at the University of Southern California. As more texts become accessible online, libraries have been moving lesser-used materials to storage.

"There's a real transition going on," said Sarah Thomas, past president of the Association of Research Libraries and the librarian at the Cornell University Library in Ithaca, N.Y. "This is not to say you don't have paper or books. Of course, they're sacred. But more and more we're delivering material to the user as opposed to the user coming into the library to get it."

Academicians and librarians say the trend is being driven by the fact that undergraduate libraries are used little today. Many were built when leading research libraries were reserved for graduate students and faculty, but research libraries have since opened their stacks to all, leaving undergraduate libraries with duplicate collections and light reading.

Heath said the University of Texas at Austin's books are being moved within the university's library system--one of the nation's largest with 8 million volumes and growing by 100,000 a year. Basic reference books such as dictionaries and encyclopedias will remain. The move, he said, will open 6,000 square feet in the four-story Flawn Academic Center, which opened in 1963.

Similar digital library centers have been built at Emory University in Atlanta, the University of Georgia, the University of Arizona, and the University of Michigan. The University of Houston, which is doubling its library space, specializes in the publishing of scholarly material online.