Library in Cyberspace
Published December 17, 2004
I don't know who first said, "knowledge shared is knowledge gained." But it is a sentiment that I would agree with. Knowledge lying dormant in books is of little value unless it is discovered and used. It is similar to burying one's talent where it will remain untapped and its potential unfulfilled.
The Royal Library of Alexandria was once the largest in the world. It was probably founded at the beginning of the 3rd century BC. At its peak it stored approximately 400,000 to 700,000 scrolls. Sadly the library was burnt down towards the end of the 3rd century AD. The loss of the world's learning up to then is incalculable, and may have set civilization back by centuries. What a tragic loss.
I am therefore delighted to hear that the search engine Google plans to make available online millions of books from five libraries, including the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, the New York Public Library, and libraries of Harvard, Stanford and Michigan Universities. Google will digitize the books and place it into their searchable database.
Already the project is recognized as one of the 21st century's major accomplishments. It is a communications revolution as great as the invention of moveable type by Johann Gutenberg (1398-1468).
Michigan and Stanford have offered to digitize their entire library collections of about 15 million books. The Bodleian is offering around one million books published before 1900. The New York library is allowing Google to digitize a small portion of its books no longer covered by copyright, while Harvard is confining its initial participation to 40,000 volumes so it can assess how well the process works.
The project will allow free access to historic publications and other rare out-of-print titles that previously were only available to specialized researchers. Among the landmark books to be made available are a 1687 first edition of Isaac Newton's "Principia," owned by Stanford and Charles Darwin's 1871 classic "The Descent of Man" in the Bodleian.
Current copyright laws only allows Google to copy books in the public domain. For more recent books, they can only copy snippets of two or three sentences from each library book.
The cost of digitization will be borne by Google, with cost estimates ranging from 150 million to 200 million dollars, or about 10 dollars per book. The entire project is expected to take about ten years.
Michael Gorman, the president-elect of the American Library Association, thinks the value of helping people from anywhere in the world view a library's special collections is "almost priceless." This will benefit some of the poorer nations.
Will this explosion of free knowledge kill off our neighborhood libraries? Probably some. Already my visits to the public library has decreased precipitously once I discovered that I can obtain all the information I want from the internet. It would have fallen even further were it not for the fact that my library now lends DVDs and CDs, a service not quite overtaken yet by the internet.
The net result of allowing so much literature freely available is that it will enrich our lives, and stimulate greater interest in scholarship and writing.
One final comment. If any of the old libraries should accidentally burn down, the information will hopefully be safely stored in cyberspace.
18 December 2004
- Library in Cyberspace
- Published: December 17, 2004
- Type:
- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Internet
- Writer: Ken Lyen
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people have been saying for years now that the internet will cause book publishing to vanish.
so far, that hasn't happened. more books are being sold than ever.
not really sure what the future will hold.
for me personally, electronic devices will never take the place of a book.
I blog books, so I have a foot in both worlds. And have you ever tried to decide whether to buy a book by a brand-new (to you) author, or figure out whether that cool title is hard science or mushy junk by surfing the booksites?
It isn't impossible, but it is hard. Besdies, like most readers, I want to own books, not just read 'em. I want to be able to take the latest tome to bed with me, and read it cuddled under a warm blanket. I want to be able to whip it out while waiting on line - pretty hard to do with your desktop PC.
Physical books trump online sources for reading. Online trumps physical libraries for search and research.
Particularly due to cultural reasons, books aren't going anywhere and will probably always play some kind of role in our lives.
A lot of the stuff that goes on in libraries is, as you mention, search and research (corporate research, students, scholars, etc.): and digital information serves these needs well, particularly when it comes to the thousands of scholarly journals pumped out each year.
I do think that the online world will improve in helping people to understand what a book "looks and feels" like without it being physically present in one's hands. Already Amazon has links that let you browse through specified pages. I think that will continue to proliferate, along with a host of other measure's for judging a book's content, merit, and worth. Certainly links to a variety of review sources will be a part of that.
Just think... blogcritics could be helping to lead the way for the future of libraries.
Eric Berlin
Dumpster Bust: Miracles from Mind Trash
http://dumpsterbust.blogspot.com
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/23381)
There is and has been for some time a raging debate about what technology and the Internet will mean for libraries.
The pessimists say, as you can imagine, that the age of the library is ending -- people can already find most of what they need via Google or some other portal, so the very idea of libraries and librarians is becoming anachronistic.
The optimists say that this is hogwash, that new waves of invention (like the Printing Press, the Dewey Decimal System, the computer, etc.) are always, in the end, great boons for libraries and for people seeking information. They feel that the term "library" may go out of existance one day -- but that people will always need the assistance of information professionals -- via e-mail, phone, or in person, to help sort through the massive sea of information that will only keep increasing. (And indeed, "librarians" exist in many companies under the name Research Analyst, Information Officeer, etc.).
I'm somewhere in the middle. I think there will always be a place for books, but that electronic information will become increasingly become the norm due to cost, ease-of-access, etc.
It's also my feeling (and many others) that librarians will see their role shift from that of gate keepers of information to information guides and educators: they will help teach the public the vital skill of information literacy, or how to access information on one's own.
This project begun by Google can only be a good thing: more information in more people's hands always is.
Great post, by the way.
Eric Berlin (Newly Minted Librarian)
Dumpster Bust: Miracles from Mind Trash
http://dumpsterbust.blogspot.com