Thanksgiving break, the ‘calm before the storm,’ so to speak, before a final onslaught of papers, projects, and assignments begins--and it’s time for my final blog entry of the semester. As I said in my first entry, the semester’s end does not mean the end – I intend to keep this blog running to the best of my ability even after I’ve safely checked LSC 555 off my list of required courses – but the blog will obviously be taking a slightly-different structure and tone from this point out.
But there is still one official, LSC 555 entry to go, so: back to business. We’ve touched upon many different technological concerns in LIS this semester – usability, Web 2.0, records management, and others – but it is perhaps appropriate that our final batch of readings looks ahead, to the future of libraries.
What is the future of libraries? This may seem a ridiculous question here in the 21st century; without a doubt, the future of libraries is digital, or at least necessarily involves digital tools in some way. Digital libraries have been coming along for quite a while (for example, I recently completed a paper for LSC 555 overviewing the Perseus Digital Library, which has been in development since the late 1980s). But whereas the Perseus Digital Library was initially a finite set of documents contained on a set of disks, digital libraries in the 21st century have a seemingly-infinite variety of possibilities and applications.
Brian Gambles (Gambles, 2010) describes a few of these possibilities in his overview of the Library of Birmingham. Gambles puts forward a variety of ways in which the Library of Birmingham, or LoB as he frequently abbreviates it, will move into the digital age, many of which are reminiscent of our earlier discussions of Library 2.0. LoB, like many digital libraries, is designed upon an awareness of the expectations of users in the digital age: that information be available anytime, anywhere, with both physical and distance access. It will approach this goal with a special emphasis on opportunities offered by mobile devices: for instance, LoB will have a navigation system accessible from mobile phones which will direct users not only to the library, but through various areas to find the particular information or resource they need. LoB will also build upon principles of Web 2.0 by aiming to increase user participation and collaboration in its services—i.e., by allowing users to share reviews and recommendations. Finally, and perhaps most-uniquely, LoB will include information beyond the typical, digital library resources in its collection. Gambles describes how LoB may use a framework similar to iTunes U to capture the special information of subject librarians for general use. All of these efforts are, of course, in addition to our usual vision of digital libraries, including, among other features, full-text searching and access to some primary materials which are otherwise restricted.
Brian Gambles (Gambles, 2010) describes a few of these possibilities in his overview of the Library of Birmingham. Gambles puts forward a variety of ways in which the Library of Birmingham, or LoB as he frequently abbreviates it, will move into the digital age, many of which are reminiscent of our earlier discussions of Library 2.0. LoB, like many digital libraries, is designed upon an awareness of the expectations of users in the digital age: that information be available anytime, anywhere, with both physical and distance access. It will approach this goal with a special emphasis on opportunities offered by mobile devices: for instance, LoB will have a navigation system accessible from mobile phones which will direct users not only to the library, but through various areas to find the particular information or resource they need. LoB will also build upon principles of Web 2.0 by aiming to increase user participation and collaboration in its services—i.e., by allowing users to share reviews and recommendations. Finally, and perhaps most-uniquely, LoB will include information beyond the typical, digital library resources in its collection. Gambles describes how LoB may use a framework similar to iTunes U to capture the special information of subject librarians for general use. All of these efforts are, of course, in addition to our usual vision of digital libraries, including, among other features, full-text searching and access to some primary materials which are otherwise restricted.
Still, digital libraries are not as cut-and-dried as we may tend to think they are –here we can carry over some principles from our discussion of electronic records management. In fact, many of the same issues are present with digital libraries: stability/preservation of electronic data, hardware and software obsolescence, and – particularly with digital libraries – issues of data integrity, privacy, etc. When we talk about the problems facing digital libraries, copyright seems to come directly to the front of the discussion. Even in the early days this was a problem. When the Perseus Digital Library was first developed, the project had significant difficulty acquiring the rights for its materials; no one really knew how to adjust the existing policies to accommodate its new format, much-larger scale, and much-greater (intended) lifespan (Mylonas, 1993, Rights and Publication). Nowadays, of course, the complications have increased exponentially.
Siva Vaidhyanathan presents a few of these complications in his article on the Google Libraries Project and the legal issues it has recently faced (Vaidhyanathan 2005). Many of us, I would imagine, have heard something or other about these legal battles, but Vaidhyanathan has a take that I, for one, had not considered: he argues that the Google Libraries Project is actually reckless. While there are undoubtedly benefits to an electronic gathering or resources, in his view, these benefits are not enough to uphold Google’s actions in a court of law. That is, if Google tries to justify its various breaches of copyright over the course of this project by arguing for the “greater good” or “market failure” (i.e., that Google is providing a service the market fails to provide, therefore its service falls under the “fair use” of copyright law), it will lose its case. Vaidhyanathan is not sure that Google is the only, or best, institution to provide the digital resources involved, and that means that exceptions to copyright probably should not, and probably would not, be made in its case. Additionally, Google’s method of paying back university libraries for their parts in the project –handing off the digital copies it produces, free of charge – are a little questionable. So, the courts will side against Google, there will be some large fines involved, a slap on the wrist, and Google will continue to operate, innovate, and push the envelope in other ways, right? According to Vaidhyanathan, wrong. He argues that the visible things, like the Libraries project, are not the only ways in which Google violates copyright; the very way that its search engine works, by caching people’s (copyrighted) webpages, is borderline in-violation. If Google pushes the copyright issue in court, it could end up losing a lot more than a digital library; its very ability to function as a search engine, and by extension, the ability of other companies to run their search engines, could be jeopardized. Whether or not you agree with these drastic predictions, we can take away from Vaidhyanathan’s discussion a sense of the seriousness of the issues involved in creating digital libraries. Digital libraries do not only pose technological difficulties; they challenge and drastically-alter the ways in which we have previously thought about, structured, and taken possession of information. As librarians, guardians and disseminators of information (among other duties), it will at many points fall to us to explore, determine, and uphold the boundaries which are appropriate for our developing, digital culture.
Siva Vaidhyanathan presents a few of these complications in his article on the Google Libraries Project and the legal issues it has recently faced (Vaidhyanathan 2005). Many of us, I would imagine, have heard something or other about these legal battles, but Vaidhyanathan has a take that I, for one, had not considered: he argues that the Google Libraries Project is actually reckless. While there are undoubtedly benefits to an electronic gathering or resources, in his view, these benefits are not enough to uphold Google’s actions in a court of law. That is, if Google tries to justify its various breaches of copyright over the course of this project by arguing for the “greater good” or “market failure” (i.e., that Google is providing a service the market fails to provide, therefore its service falls under the “fair use” of copyright law), it will lose its case. Vaidhyanathan is not sure that Google is the only, or best, institution to provide the digital resources involved, and that means that exceptions to copyright probably should not, and probably would not, be made in its case. Additionally, Google’s method of paying back university libraries for their parts in the project –handing off the digital copies it produces, free of charge – are a little questionable. So, the courts will side against Google, there will be some large fines involved, a slap on the wrist, and Google will continue to operate, innovate, and push the envelope in other ways, right? According to Vaidhyanathan, wrong. He argues that the visible things, like the Libraries project, are not the only ways in which Google violates copyright; the very way that its search engine works, by caching people’s (copyrighted) webpages, is borderline in-violation. If Google pushes the copyright issue in court, it could end up losing a lot more than a digital library; its very ability to function as a search engine, and by extension, the ability of other companies to run their search engines, could be jeopardized. Whether or not you agree with these drastic predictions, we can take away from Vaidhyanathan’s discussion a sense of the seriousness of the issues involved in creating digital libraries. Digital libraries do not only pose technological difficulties; they challenge and drastically-alter the ways in which we have previously thought about, structured, and taken possession of information. As librarians, guardians and disseminators of information (among other duties), it will at many points fall to us to explore, determine, and uphold the boundaries which are appropriate for our developing, digital culture.
There is, of course, another side to this issue: users are not the only ones getting free information which they perhaps should not be. Martin Zimmerman, in an article published just last year (Zimmerman 2010), takes a vigorous look at the information about users which digital culture is making (questionably) available. Going back to Google (and other search engines) and their cached information, for example. Our internet browsers keep a cache, too – and that cache frequently includes information about us, whether it is the websites we have visited (and how often, and when), the locations and computers from which we access them, or the personal information we leave behind (like that credit card information that we love to have conveniently saved). How many of us are diligent about making sure this information is cleared, even when it is cached on public computers and not our own laptops? How many of us remember that even our own computers are not 100% safe from intrusion-- or that we have no idea what other computers, and in what state of security, are collecting that information on the other side of our internet transactions? Despite our previous discussions about the fragility of electronic records, they are not dependably fragile, and can sometimes slip between secure cracks.
This can pose more issues for librarians than the cached information on our public computers. There is an aspect of our profession that relies heavily on service with confidentiality, and open access to information—an aspect which our efficient information systems can actually undermine. Zimmerman suggests several ways in which this is so. For one, we have come to rely heavily on electronic databases – there is plenty of discussion today about the financial and intellectual difficulties which these databases and their accompanying contracts may cause. But these contracts also, in many cases, allow vendors to access certain information which may very well fall under our profession’s sense of confidentiality. More significantly in recent years have been the privacy issues presented by our own, in-house systems. Circulation modules allow us to track, well, the circulation of materials, to align missing or overdue materials with the relevant patrons, and in general to keep our services running efficiently. But if these systems retain our patrons’ information, they can also prevent our services from running confidentially. Electronic records without a thoughtful retention/deletion policy (emphasis on deletion in this instance) create a liability, a record of patrons’ activity every bit as intrusive—and every bit as retroactively-retrievable—as those caches on our computers. So while we, as librarians, must be aware of the information necessary to run our transactions properly, we also need to be mindful of what we potentially expose patrons to each time we collect that information.
To sum it all up, the role of librarians is changing vastly, and most-likely doing so on a daily basis. Today we are rookies, learning this in theory; but tomorrow, as librarians, we will be on the front lines. This means: knowing how to use developing technologies, and how to learn the ones that we cannot even imagine developing at this moment. It means revising the way in which we think about users, information and the sharing thereof, and the role of libraries in general. It means “going with the flow,” gradually developing a sense of the ways in which Web 2.0 can best contribute to our mission, without destroying or totally altering it. But most importantly, it means understanding both the benefits and limitations which technology can bring to our profession. We have seen, in the first article on LoB and in other readings throughout the semester, the miracles that technology can work in our libraries. But we have also seen, in the case of the articles on Google and on user privacy, that it can present some pretty serious challenges. Like any powerful entity, technology can be just as dangerous as it is helpful. The judgment call that we will have to someday make, perhaps on a daily basis, is: Where is the line drawn? Where will technology hurt libraries more than it helps? Where is mindless implementation of technology/Web 2.0 just too much?
I suppose as a general discussion question we might pose, Is technology worth it? –but I believe that ship has long since sailed. So I would propose instead that we ask ourselves, Where do I actually see my role—our role-- in the future of libraries? Are we gatekeepers of copyrighted knowledge, or champions of free information at the loss of copyright? Am I a facilitator of user interaction and input? To what extent should my knowledge of information science impose on user input methods such as tagging? Do I see myself running a merging physical and digital library, or one or the other? Am I here to organize information? Collocate it? Simply find it where others have laid it? Or do I, too, share a responsibility for creating such information resources as I can?
…And with those thoughts, I leave you-- to continue using my electronic library resources to push a last bit of coursework through. All my wishes for a restful Thanksgiving, a survivable end-of-semester for those of you/us in academia, and (depending on how long it takes for me to get back to this) Happy Holidays. See you soon!
Gambles, B. (2010). "Rewriting the Book: On the Move in the Library of Birmingham.” Ariadne, 64. Retrieved November 22, 2011 from http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/
Mylonas, E. (1993). The Perseus project. In A. Okerson (Ed.), Scholarly publishing on the electronic networks. Proceedings of the Second Symposium, December 5-8, 1992. Washington, DC: ARL. Retrieved Nov 3, 2011 from http://www.arl.org/
Vaidhyanathan, S. (2005). The Googlization of Everything and the Future of Copyright . UC Davis Law Review, 40(3), 1207-1231. Retrieved November 22, 2011, from http://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/
Zimerman, M. (2010). Technology and privacy erosion in United States Libraries: A personal viewpoint. New Library World. 111(1/2): 7-15. Retrieved November 22, 2011 from Emerald Library.
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