Library Issues article on Google Print
Barbara Fister makes a number of great points in this Library Issues article. On online books:
Evidence suggests people will pay for the convenience of reading sustained texts offline. After all, the 9/11 Commission’s report became a bestseller even though it was available for free on the Web. The National Academies Press, which makes the full text of their books available online, has conducted a study that supports the argument that free, online browsing does not hurt sales; it may even create new opportunities to “unbundle” book content and create new revenue streams.
I’ll just assume that, like me, you are already sick of the whole ebook debate, but the fact remains that books are fantastic and I see no signs of them going anywhere. Journals, sure, but not books. I think she’s right on about the ebook concern just being a modern manifestation of an old fear:
We’ve had mixed emotions about having too much information since Biblical time; the Book of Ecclesiastes complains “of the making many books there is no end.” With the advent of the printing press, much uneasiness was caused by the availability of so much unregulated textual production. “One of the diseases of the age is the multiplicity of books,” Elizabethan-era writer Barnabe Rich grumbled. “They doth so overcharge to [the] world that it is not able to digest the abundance of idle matter that is every day hatched and brought into the world.”
Honestly, I don’t totally understand the fear of increased information access. It’s rather telling that most librarians who, like ALA prez-elect Gorman, openly complain about a dumbing down tend to advocate stagnation rather than encourage experimentation and development of new, innovative tools for easily accessing information in the way people would like to. While the current vast mess of disconnected information is no replacement for knowledge, it’s rather short-sighted to ignore that many of today’s problems will be solved by tomorrow’s tools. Believing that the future will consist of ignorant masses intellectually drunk on snippets of disparate information is just plain unrealistic. More folks interested in information naturally results in more folks interested in doing the information thing correctly.
I’ve mentioned before that the evolution of the library as a place both necessary and a great opportunity, but the evolution of the library as a web app is also vital. I have a hard time believing that what’s standing in the way of library technological innovation is simply a staffing problem and low pay. From what I’ve seen, it seems to have more to do with the sluggishness in making it a priority and the resistance of librarians to give up control.
Tied into all of this is a problem touched on in the Library Issues article: Google still doesn’t have a lot of options or tools that are necessary for serious research. It’s one of the many gaping holes.