[Web4lib] A Delicious Future for Libraries?

[Karen Coyle]

Peter, the line between an index and a library may blur in terms of law, 
but there's a big difference in terms of usability, and I think that's 
something that we are glossing over when we use the term "digitize." 
There are lots of ways to digitize a text, from the Project Gutenberg 
"plain ASCII," to a photograph of the page in TIFF format, to a 
DAISY-conformant digital audio and text file, to a TEI-encoded format of 
the text, to Mobipocket format, etc. Each of these has its own 
"affordances" and no one of them is the perfect format for everything we 
want to do with a text.

Project Gutenberg has over 10,000 public domain texts in a 
machine-readable form and available for free over the Internet. I would 
like to think that this has made a big difference in some people's 
lives, but I'm not sure that's the case. We need to understand what we 
can do to promote *reading*, not just searching and downloading. I'm 
pretty sure that putting lots of public domain text on the Internet for 
free is not in itself going to cause the revolution that folks like 
Michael Hart and Brewster Kahle are hoping for. There's a huge social 
and individual element that we have not addressed. Compared to the 
technology questions, these more human questions are many times more 
difficult. But if we don't solve them, then the technology is just 
turning out more copies to be stored on more machines, without enriching 
the lives of people.

kc

Peter Morville wrote:

>That's a good clarification Karen. Of course, providing access to degraded
>(but readable) versions of public domain items will be a wonderful cultural
>contribution. For many people around the world, this will be much better
>than nothing. Also, I'm optimistic that copyright law and the publishing
>industry's business models will evolve in a positive direction. So, in the
>long run, I expect the line between index and library to blur.
>
>
>Peter Morville
>President, Semantic Studios
>http://semanticstudios.com
>http://findability.org
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
>[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Karen Coyle
>Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 1:38 PM
>To: Peter Morville
>Cc: web4lib at webjunction.org
>Subject: Re: [Web4lib] A Delicious Future for Libraries?
>
>I think that this statement is not true:
>
>"The collections of the University of Michigan, Harvard University, 
>Stanford University, the New York Public Library, and Oxford University 
>will be accessible to anyone, anytime, anywhere. This is amazing. The 
>world's greatest works of art, history, science, engineering, law, and 
>literature are about to join the public Web. "
>
>The collections are not joining the web, and the collections are not 
>accessible. You can do *discovery* through Google, but good luck 
>borrowing the book. Public Domain items may be available in their 
>entirety, but in a very degraded form for using or reading. Remember, 
>Google is creating an index, not e-books, and not a library.
>
>kc
>
>Peter Morville wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Some thoughts about the future of librarianship:
>>
>>	Ambient Findability: Libraries at the Crossroads of Ubiquitous
>>Computing and the Internet
>>	http://www.infotoday.com/online/nov05/morville.shtml
>>
>>I'd love to hear reactions whether positive or critical or both. Thanks!
>>
>>
>>Peter Morville
>>President, Semantic Studios
>>http://semanticstudios.com
>>http://findability.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>Web4lib mailing list
>>Web4lib at webjunction.org
>>http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>>
>>
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>
>  
>

-- 
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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