From the classic and perceptive novel Small World:

"...information is much more portable in the modern world than it used to be. So are people. Ergo, it's no longer necessary to hoard your information in one building, or keep your top scholars corralled in one campus. There are three things which have revolutionized academic life in the last twenty years, though very few people have woken up to the fact: jet travel, direct-dialling telephones and the Xerox machine. Scholars don't have to work in the same institution to interact, nowadays: they call each other up, or they meet at international conferences. And they don't have to grub about in library stacks for data: any book or article that sounds interesting they have Xeroxed and read it at home. Or on the plane going to the next conference. I work mostly at home or on planes these days. I seldom go into the university except to teach my courses.

...As long as you have access to a telephone, a Xerox machine and a conference grant fund, you're OK, you're plugged into the only university that really matters - the global campus. A young man in a hurry can see the world by conference-hopping"

David Lodge: Small World London: Secker & Warburg, 1984.