With all the discussion about the future of books and libraries, it’s timely to take a look at what physical libraries are doing in regards to the internet, and how they are using it to better serve their members and patrons. MNlinkGateway.org lets users access the full catalogue of several public Minnesota libraries, and check basic data (author, title, collection, ISBN, etc). Books are not digitalized, not even their front covers. What you can actually browse online is newspapers and magazines collections, but you’ll need to create an account in the site in order to do that, which in turn has some perks, as you will be able to bookmark searches, books or items of interest, and also make requests online. Though very useful for researchers and students, this site is not really appealing to a broader audience, like other state’s libraries which provide tax filing resources, lists of recommended reads or homework help, and also links to other sites of interest. I wonder if they can re-think functionalities and services a bit for the next version of the site.