It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. Particularly in the world of information. Never has there been so much information available, and never has so much information been so easily accessible by so many regardless of income level or social status. The bad news is that the library profession and library funding are under fire due largely to a sluggish worldwide economy and the resulting rush to shrink public funding. Ironically, the need for professional librarians has never been greater as we launch into a knowledge based economy. When I entered the profession, many of us served in an information desert where we constantly scanned the horizon seeking information oases. Today we function in an information jungle where our skills are needed to hack through the tangle of search results to locate the credible and appropriate information sources that are best suited to our patron's needs. Book digitization and information wikis are two rapidly expanding Internet based sources of information. In order to cover this trend and to provide an access portal to many of these sites, we are building a companion website. DigitalLibraryNE is currently under construction, but we encourage you to visit the site and watch two videos that we believe frame the discussion about the future of books and information. Brewster Kahle and Jimmy Wales are not professional librarians, but we believe that their passion for providing access to books and information in a digital format to as many people as possible benefits the mission of all libraries.