This National Library Week(Opens in a new window), we take a look at how libraries are using technology to preserve their claim on that intellectual adventure.

What was once an uneasy co-existence of print and digital has edged into a contentious gradual replacement, and libraries, confronted with dwindling patronage and shrinking budgets, saw the writing on the wall earlier than most. But because of that, they’ve also been one of the bastions of print that have best adapted to the technological shift.

Any four-year-old will tell you that a library is a building that lends books, but the real purpose of a library is to amass and disseminate knowledge. So, even if printed matter were to disappear, libraries would still be a cultural necessity.

Rather than limiting their domain, libraries have steadily expanded it by introducing their communities to technology through initiatives, classes, Internet access(Opens in a new window), and even a repurposing of their facilities(Opens in a new window). They potentially could serve as tech incubators(Opens in a new window). Two decades before the iPad would become a virtual library, Steve Jobs, in a video for the Library of Congress(Opens in a new window), said, “We’re not going to tear down our libraries, but we’re not going to be building too many more.”

Even the most venerated ones are giving up square footage to make way for new realities. The main branch of the New York Public Library is getting a $350 million renovation that involves shipping three million volumes offsite and replacing them with what will be a “state-of-the-art, computer-oriented library,” according to an article in The Nation(Opens in a new window) by Scott Sherman. To pay for it, in part, the library is selling off two branches. Behind the Beaux Arts façade at 42nd St. will be a space designed by Norman Foster of Foster + Partners, the architect behind Apple’s planned new headquarters. Though the repurposing is controversial, the New York Public Library has been soliciting the public’s opinion(Opens in a new window). It is working to convince people that even though some of the stacks are gone, the sense of discovery a library is meant to encourage remains.

Sitting alongside Jobs in the Library of Congress video, Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog(Opens in a new window) and technology enthusiast, says: “My idea of a library is it’s both a sort of a refuge—it’s just a safe, wonderful place with lots of leather—and at the same time it’s a dangerous place intellectually where you can find you don’t know what. Some of the pleasure of danger is when you walk around in the stacks…and adventure happens.”