The first section briefly describes a library-information network of the kind that could exist at the end of this century if the society gave it a priority not often given to knowledge and understanding. The second section suggests that what the present library-information "system" most obviously lacks and most critically needs is the analog of a nervous system -- which is to say, of course, an appropriate computer-communication network. The third section briefly describes the ARPA Network which is now coming into being, and which sharpens many of the technical concepts that must figure in a plan for a library-information network. Although the plan described in this paper is unrealistically simple it is complex in three ways: (1) it deals with an extended future; (2) it recognizes that there are several ways to proceed toward more or less the same desideratum and (3) it deals with a highly pluralistic activity and a very complex technology -- and must therefore be "read complexly" even though stated in oversimple paragraphs. (Other papers from this conference are available as LI 003360 - 003388 and LI 003390) (Author/NH)