I'm not really sure how far off the subject it is, but the librarians among us, especially, might be interested in an article, The Infinite Library , By Wade Roush May 2005 Technology Review, that discusses the Google library digitization plan.

The "slant" of the article is on how digital library materials may affect the future of libraries and librarians, especially when very large amounts of digitized books and records are made available, so perhaps it's not too far from how "consolidating" digital indexing and management will affect them.

There is, incidentally, a rather nice description in the introductory paragraphs of the Bodlian that may be of casual interest to those who haven't been there recently.

Quite a few experts quoted, with varying notions of what the future holds.

John