The Auster Defense

Moving Library Books. Taken from the Exeter University library Flickr Stream

Paul Auster, in the first book of his New York Trilogy, created an interesting argument about the use of words. To paraphrase his argument: if an object no longer serves it's purpose, it really cannot be called by it's proper name anymore.

So, according to Auster, a library with no books cannot be called a library. What makes Auster's argument interesting is that is has something to with current news in academia.  According to the news website Inside Higher Ed, the Penrose Library at the University of Denver is planning to perminantly move 80 percent of their books off campus. 

The Article goes on to state that the library's focus is to focus more on becoming a social and study space for students, and that most of the texts leaving the library are journals (which are mostly accessed digitally), government documents, and less-used books, citing a national trend for an increase in library social space.

The librarians arguing for the storage of those materials do have some valid points. As an English major - a degree that requires lots of research from journals and books - I've relied heavily on electronic journal articles, mostly due to the convenience and ease of access (one can simply search for relevant articles rather than having to slog through mountains of possibly relevant journals)

Also, I have never needed to find government documents. I know that having documents available is important for transparency, but I've never known anyone to read those documents (at the Fargo Public Library also has a similar setup, but I think for a public library, it's more important to the people at large to have access to those documents)

However, the part about unused books has me concerned. Although all of the books don't get checked out of a library, it's still important to have them available for students, especially those that are out of print, but not yet in the public domain, or outside of the price range or scope of the students or other libraries - musical scores for example, are kept at the NDSU library, and the cost of a symphonic score can be outrageous, depending on the piece)

Also, to tie in this argument to Auster's, can a library keep its name without the books? There are lots of meeting spaces on campus - computer labs and common areas aren't rare, and the availability of study material must be kept in mind along with the availability of study space.

There may be a point where academic libraries can digitize their entire collections, and facilitate more meeting space for students. However, we have not reached that time just yet.

Virtual Light/Virtual Heat

from mondolithic.com

Any book ever published in the history of, well, history, free for anybody to read, and curated online by people who specialize in getting information out to the masses. This subject sounds a bit Utopian, as well as something out of a William Gibson novel. However, the reality is that this had almost arrived, and that there's a good chance that it might still happen.

Initially, Google had planned to make an online library and bookstore, after digitalizing massive amounts of books.  This was struck down by a New York federal judge, out of concerns for copyright and Google's monopoly on the market (if successful, Google would have been the only people who have access to much of their content, and they could profit from it without the consent of the copyright owners)

However, out of the defeat of one idea comes the birth of the improvement on that idea.  After Google was blocked from completing their digital library, a movement has risen to create a universal public library.  The project (which has backing from librarians at Harvard, as well as several other universities, the National Archives, and the Library of Congress)

This is an amazing idea, and one that improves on Google's original idea. For example, the current project is entirely non-commercial, which means that hopefully the copyright owners will be less concerned with the possibility of money being made off of their copyright without their permission

However, the best thing about this possibility is that it extends the reach and concept of the library far beyond what can traditionally be offered. Books will no longer be limited to a physical location, which means that providing information to patrons who seek it (which is one of the main goals of librarianship, especially in public libraries) will be much easier.

It will also help libraries in the transition to digital media. Currently, libraries need to work with media providers to circulate e-books. My previous post touched on how certain providers are making things more difficult for libraries to provide the selection of material that they might otherwise be able to. With this, digital items of high quality will be easily available, thus eliminating the need for content providers to restrict their material.

Although right now, there's still much to be done with this plan - the logistics are still mostly up in the air, and there's still lots of scanning before this project can be a reality. However, if this can be pulled off, information can be argued as being at last, free.

The bigger fool

Library Thing's "e-reader" http://www.librarything.com/

In celebration of April Fool's Day, Library Thing.com, a cataloging site for personal libraries, introduced it's own e-reader. The "LibraryThing-e" has all the features of a Kindle or Nook, with the addition of such features as a barcode scanner, a detection feature that "tells you where your reading-nemesis is at all times", and most importantly, casing that feels like old book leather, and that produces a faint book smell.

The introduction to the device is obviously a prank, but like all good humor, there are some underlying statements of truth and contention to the post. The first, and most obvious, is how despite all the awesomeness of an e-reader, there is still no substitute for a physical book, and several of the tangible elements - how it smells, the feeling of actually reading the book - are not emulate-able. 

Another satirical argument comes from another feature - "Though a ground-breaking arrangement with most publishers, the LibraryThing-e comes pre-installed with up to 200 of your LibraryThing books already scanned in; HarperCollins titles are restricted to a 26-page sample."

This comes form HarperCollins' decision to force libraries to limit circulation of their e-books to a mere 26 times before the file becomes permanently unusable, thus forcing the library to purchase a new e-book. Although this decision can be seen as an attempt to offset potential losses from e-book sales compared to physical book sales, it still negatively affects libraries by limiting the amount of books they can provide at a reasonable price.

(For the record, one of the reasons that HarperCollins gave for their restriction is that books end up in very poor condition after being circulated over 26 times. According to a video submitted by a librarian to Boing Boing, that simply isn't true.)

Another interesting "feature" is that the reader integrates many features of the Library Thing site within the reader, such as collection tracking, integration, and comparison via a wireless connection. I suspect this is a commentary on how new devices are becoming increasingly integrated. There's a long-standing joke about how you can do pretty much anything with a cell phone except for make a call, and that sort of functionality, well not being parodied here, is seemingly alluded to.

April Fool's Day has always provided people with opportunities to introduce humor into everyday life, and people in the tech world seem to especially take advantage of it (Google has a particularly lengthy history). It's interesting to see how there is both humor and commentary in it.