How do the so-called New Technologies alter the way our minds and personalities evolve? How should we understand - and how should we govern - the changing functions of the Arts? This series of lectures and essays by one of Britain's media experts, examines how all the processes of the intellect and of the emotions have been steadily redefined and modified in the comples encounters between information technologies and people over the last 400 years. This text presents the issues, offers insights and speculations about future trends concerning libraries and the Arts - television and computers, public interest and the nation.