San Antonio, USA. Home to the famous San Antonio Spurs, the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, the Alamo, the Tower of the Americas, Marriage Island, a well-respected zoo and now…. the first bookless public library.

It sounds rather like a contradiction in terms, doesn’t it? When you say the word ‘library’ to me, at once my mind conjures up pictures of beautiful spaces filled with books and scented with that particular and intoxicating aroma of printed pages. Something along these lines:

But Texans have revolutionised the concept of a public lending library, by opening BiblioTech, a new, $2.3 million space that contains not a single physical book, only rows of iMacs and iPads on which to read ebooks. The reason? To broaden the appeal of reading to the city’s residents: San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the US based on population size, and yet comes 60th in the rankings for literacy.

BiblioTech, which is deliberately situated in an economically deprived area of the city where residents have limited access to such technology as ereaders, is proving to be highly popular, with iMacs in demand and ereaders regularly checked out (and, interestingly, so far always returned). It’s also an economical shift, because the cost of the books and equipment is offset against cheaper premises: quite simply less space and book shelving is required.

Other cities – both in the United States and abroad – have watched the development of the library with interest, and there are plans in place to open other bookless libraries.

Personally, I think it’s an exciting innovation. After all, any endeavour that widens interest and engagement in reading is to be celebrated. But I can’t (I won’t!) imagine that bookless libraries could ever replace the traditional, print-book-stacked library, only stand alongside them as a complementary offering. In the UK, the government’s recent closure of smaller public libraries has caused a national outcry, and I think that sentiment would be all the stronger if it were progress forcing the closures rather than purely economic reasons. Libraries aren’t just receptacles for books – they are part of our culture. They have souls! As Jorge Luis Borges wrote: “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”

What do you think of bookless libraries? Should the traditional library offer a blend of ebook reading and print book reading options? Should more disadvantaged areas have bookless libraries? Is there room in modern culture for both kinds of library to happily co-exist? Or is the development of the bookless library another step towards the print book becoming a niche,  outdated item? I would love to hear your thoughts.