if:book: the really modern library -- and why starting over makes me want to scream sometimes

The Institute for the future of the book just announced at if:book: the really modern library an initiative in conjunction with the Digital Library Foundation (Peter Brantley). It encompasses an amazingly ambitious and complex set of ideas about how to explore the future of the book within the concept of the future of the library in a digital world. The articulation of the ideas takes the form of a series of questions that will be asked and pondered at 3 meetings, starting this week in LA. Even if I weren't pretty much overwhelmed trying to get a handle on the idea of research outside law (as I discussed in my last post), the enormity of this undertaking would still astound me. Maybe these folks are the equivalent 'people from another planet' that I used to encounter at law school (who's grasp of it all was simply beyond anything imaginable by the ordinary mind (mine))! Geez, I hope not. I would love to take part in this kind of discussion (nevermind that I have classes, papers, book reviews, etc. to do), but I just have so many conceptual pieces of the puzzle not yet in place. Starting over is so frustrating at times -- challenging in a very good way, but it just makes me want to scream sometimes. Reminds me of what it was like being a kid and not being able to do the things the big kids got to do...