A/N: Hey, I bet you weren't expecting this to update! Ever, ever again. Surprise! I thought I'd forgotten what I was going to write next, but happened to find the third chapter sitting on my backup drive. So I'll be posting the fourth and final chapter in the next day or two.

That appears to be changing now, though.

"The power of the muggle internet," Professor Creevey explains, "Is in the ability to get to vast amounts of information in just a few minutes, no matter where you are. Let's say that I am an expert in unicorns, and you are an expert in puffskeins. Right now, we would each write a book on our field of expertise. And if I wanted to read about puffskeins, I would have to go to a bookstore or a library and get your book. And the same for you to learn about unicorns. The way the muggles do it, I would put all of my information about unicorns into my computer, which functions sort of like a book in this case. And you'd put your information on puffskeins into your computer. But then our computers would be connected together through the internet, similar to how the floo network connects fireplaces. So if I want to know about puffskeins, I can just sit with my computer, and it will pull the information out of your computer without me ever leaving my house! It's like what would happen if the library had a floo-enabled fireplace behind its checkout counter, and you could just stick your head in, ask for a book, and have it handed to you."

Is this the huge leap forward envisioned for wizards? Floo fireplaces behind every library desk? Will librarians find themselves in high demand, as people forego searching the stacks themselves and expect the staff to do the work for them?

Luckily, the solution that is being developed as we speak is less labor-intensive and confusing. In fact, the future of wizarding information exchange seems to forego libraries altogether. When Professor Creevey showed me his latest prototype, I will admit that at first I was baffled. The object he placed before me looked like little more than a completely blank leather-bound book. It wasn't until he laid a parchboard over the first page and began to type that I saw its true power. He typed the phrase "cleaning spells" onto the page. After a few seconds, the page was filled with a list of books!

"You see, we are working on linking books together directly. We've got the basic charm worked out that hooks a book up to this new network. Then we've taken these blank books and enchanted them to take information from the other books and display it on their own pages. You type in what you're looking for, and it gives you a list of books that mention that phrase. You select one of the books like this," he takes a quill and circles one of the titles, "and within seconds the pages of your blank book will show the text from the selected book."

Before my eyes, the pages fill up with the text of Tips for the Happy Homewitch. There are, of course, many kinks to be worked out and many improvements yet to be made. In this particular case, the book I'm trying to access is twenty pages longer than the book that I'm holding; this might be fixed by adjusting the size of the text automatically or by enchanting the last blank page to change at a tap to show any of the extra pages. Professor Creevey also thinks that soon they'll have perfected a charm to change the color of the pages on which your search phrase can be found.

Of course, right now only a handful of books are hooked into the network. Most of them are older titles; books whose authors have died, or whose sales have dropped off enough that the authors aren't worried about losing sales. While having the entire text of Hogwarts, A History at your fingertips anywhere, anytime may be worth the price of admission alone, Dennis admits that it will be much harder to convince recent authors to make their books as available. Always the enterprising inventor, he is already hatching ideas to get around this glitch, even though hooking up all available books will take at least another few years.

"One option would be to let authors choose particular pages to put into the network. It would almost be a form of advertising. Another thing we're looking into is letting people hook up their own diaries or notebooks into the network. They're not making money off of it anyhow, why not show it to the world? Er, of course, in the case of diaries, we're looking into putting some sort of password system into place. So that I can give my friends the password to view my diary, but random strangers can't see it. The point is that there are many sources of information that we could make instantly available through this network of books. This Pagenet, as I've taken to calling it."

One group that is up in arms over the Pagenet is librarians. Irma Pince, Hogwarts librarian for over fifty years, is highly suspicious of this new technology. "Trying to put librarians out of business, is he? I remember Dennis Creevey. Never gave books the respect they deserve. Why, I remember he once tried to eat a cookie while searching the stacks of my library. He dared smear chocolate crumbs on the spines of MY books! Can you imagine? It's no surprise to me that he wants to do away with them altogether."

Creevey insists that his aim is not to put librarians out of a job, or to replace traditional books entirely. "This is one misunderstanding that we'll only sort out with time," he says, "There will always be a place for libraries and a place for books. If I know the information I want is in a particular book, would I rather search for that book in my Pagenet book, or just walk up my shelf and grab it? People will always want their own copies of the books they value most. And if I'm not entirely sure what keywords I'm interested in, but want to look through a variety of books on a general topic, I'd much rather stand in the relevant library section and see them all spread out before me so that I can pick and choose, pick one up, put it down, peruse a couple at a time. There are times when I want one particular piece of information quickly, and times when I just want to see what's out there. There are times when I need a human - a librarian to help me find what I need. Just because there are times when I'll use Pagenet does not mean that there won't also be times when I use the library. Yes, I may use the library a bit less, but remember that broom sales did not bottom out when wizards learned to apparate."

"Obviously, I will be working closely with Madame Pince once I've started my position at Hogwarts to ensure that the concerns of librarians are taken into account, and her input will be invaluable in deciding which books in the Hogwarts library should be hooked up to the 'net," he adds.

When asked for comment on that point, Madame Pince merely grunted and said "I suppose we shall see about that, shan't we?"