Academics such as Paul LeClerc spend an inordinate amount of time travelling to libraries, ordering books from the stacks, waiting hours for them to materialise and then reading as much as possible before the library closes for the day.

But as president of the New York Public Library, which is in the process of scanning into computer form as many of its books as possible, Dr LeClerc can see a future when he will never have to leave his office and travel across the world to get what he needs.