Library Juice Number 1:42 - November 25, 1998
Contents: 1. News about Library Juice 2. Article in NY Times: "Free Book Sites Hurt by Copyright Law" 3. Geoffrey Nunberg on the future of libraries 4. Netscape Open Directory 5. PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award 6. Barry Goodman's internet resource for quick legal research 7. United Nations Human Rights Website -- Treaty Bodies Database 8. ALA/SRRT's 1995 Resolution on Mumia Abu-Jamal 9. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 to Present 10. Send a FAX by e-mail 11. Library Link discussion forum on librarians and publishers 12. US District Court bars Loudon County Library from filtering internet 13. ALA statement in response to filter-monger David Burt's nosing about 14. Candid discussion of commercial database (marginal) usability 15. 1999 North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) Student Grant 16. Article on San Jose library merger, by Paul Duguid Quote for the week: "Librarians would do well to remember _Moses_ or _Pieta_ and think somewhat less frequently of Shannon and Weaver." Jesse Shera, "Librarianship and Information Science," in Fritz Machlup and Una Mansfield, _The study of information: interdisciplinary messages_ (NY: John Wiley and Sons, 1983 _______________________________________________________________________________ 1. News about Library Juice Library Juice was recently listed with the Internic's "Scout Report for the Social Sciences," which has generated a minor deluge of new subscriptions. In a few weeks or less Library Juice will be managed using Majordomo list management software. New information on subscribing and unsubscribing will be a part of the first issue after this change. You will continue to receive the Juice normally. The Scout Report's review can be found at: http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/socsci/current/index.html This is the November 17, 1998 issue. The URL will change. Library Juice was also added to The Mining Company's library and information science directory. The Mining Company employs 500 web reviewers in constructing its directory. The library and information science directory can be found at: http://librarians.miningco.com/ _______________________________________________________________________________ 2. Article in NY Times: "Free Book Sites Hurt by Copyright Law" Sent by Chuck Munson to Librarians[at]tao.ca This is bad news for the web as we have known it. I urge those of you who work through the system, to overturn the law. Those of us who think that intellectual property is theft, will continue putting etexts online as a form of direct action against this stupidity. Free Book Sites Hurt by Copyright Law http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/10/cyber/cyberlaw/30law.html Chuck0 _______________________________________________________________________________ 3. Geoffrey Nunberg on the future of libraries The full text of this article by Geoffrey Nunberg (who teaches liguistics as Stanford and once applied to be head of The Bancroft Library) is available online. The webaddress did not work for me--I just put American Prospect into my browser Copyright © 1998 by The American Prospect, Inc. Preferred Citation: Geoffrey Nunberg, "Will Libraries Survive," The American Prospect no. 41 (November-December 1998): 16-23 (http://epn.org/prospect/41/41nunb.html). Melissa Riley 1721 Cedar Street Berkeley CA 94703 510 524-2155 Fax 524-5938 (ed. note: ALA Councilor Mark Rosenzweig sent this article to the Council listserv, if that tells you anything about it.) _______________________________________________________________________________ 4. Netscape Open Directory http://directory.mozilla.org/ NewHoo!, a community-maintained search engine started in June, has just been purchased by Netscape and is now dubbed the Netscape Open Directory. While Web surfers already have an abundance of search engine options, Open Directory distinguishes itself through its method more than its content. That is, sites are selected, categorized, and annotated by over 4,500 "volunteer editors." NewHoo! contained over 100,000 categorized Websites when acquired by Netscape, and content will surely grow. The site also offers information on volunteering as an editor and using copies of the directory. "Netscape will offer a special license, similar to the mozilla.org open source code development license, to allow individuals and organizations to take advantage of and use copies of the directory that they can crawl, archive and reuse on their machines." [TK] >From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1998. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ _______________________________________________________________________________ 5. PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award Nominations are encouraged for the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award. The award, $25,000 and a limited-edition artwork, is presented each spring to a U.S. resident who has fought courageously, despite adversity, to safeguard the First Amendment right to freedom of expression as it applies to the written word. Previous winners have included a journalist, playwright, bookstore owner and school teachers. For more information and an application, see http://www.pen.org/freedom/nomination.html ________________________ Don Wood American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom 50 East Huron Street Chicago, IL 60611 800-545-2433, ext. 4225 Fax: 312-280-4227 dwood[at]ala.org ------------------------------------- {Newman's Own First Amendment? -ed.} _______________________________________________________________________________ 6. Barry Goodman's internet resource for quick legal research Forwarded to the CALIX list: Return-Path: <goodmanb[at]nsu.law.nova.edu> From: Barry Goodman <goodmanb[at]nsu.law.nova.edu> To: "'info[at]cla-net.org'" <info[at]cla-net.org> Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 12:03:54 -0500 I would like to make this legal education & research tool available to law libraries, and your site & all of your members. http://diana.law.yale.edu/diana/db/war10.html I recently authored a new type of unique internet resource for doing legal research quickly. It is located on the Diana site at Yale Law School and is the first Internet hyperlinked pathfinder research tool, for human rights & international law & related topics. It has also been linked to by Columbia University Area Studies (mid-east section) Library, ASIL, Univ of Minn. Human Rights Library, Univ. of Ga. Law School, H-net at Mich. State, Univ of Maryland, Max Plank Institute, UCSC, Stanford Univ.Law library, Amnesty International, WWW Law Library,Derechos Humanos, NSU Law Library & other law libraries & Universities. I would like to provide itto those who will find it useful & would like to link to it. It is easily viewed & explored by reaching the project Diana site at Yale law School, selecting "New on Diana", & then scroll to the bottom---the lateset addition --hyperlinked pathfinder research tool on Gulf War crimes.OR -- at the above direct address. Read : "About This Document" first to understand how it operates----Please let me know of your interest. Thank you in advance. Best regards, Barry Goodman. goodmanb[at]nsu.law.nova.edu _______________________________________________________________________________ 7. United Nations Human Rights Website -- Treaty Bodies Database http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf This database was created "to meet the growing interest in the committees established to monitor the implementation of the principal international human rights treaties (also referred as 'treaty monitoring bodies' or 'treaty bodies')" such as the Human Rights Committee, the Committee Against Torture, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the Committee on the Rights of the Child. These committees are responsible for examining the "State reports" submitted by signatories to the various treaties to demonstrate their compliance. These reports and the concluding observations by the committees form the core of the database, which also contains a number of other related documents and data. Users may search the database by keyword and view results by relevance or date or browse by a variety of parameters, such as country, date, language, treaty, reporting status, or status of ratification. Documents may be in English, French, or Spanish. [MD] >From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1998. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ _______________________________________________________________________________ 8. ALA/SRRT's 1995 Resolution on Mumia Abu-Jamal As the state of Pennsylvania prepares to excecute Mumia Abu-Jamal the SRRT listserv has been busy with plans for a protest at the midwinter conference. The following is the 1995 SRRT Resolution on Mumia Abu-Jamal, supplied to the discussion by Carol Barta: Resolution on Mumia Abu-Jamal WHEREAS the Constitution of the United States guarantees every citizen a fair and impartial trial; and WHEREAS there exists serious questions concerning the fairness of the trial that put Mumia Abu-Jamal on death row; and WHEREAS Mumia Abu-Jamal, a prominent radio broadcaster, journalist, author and President of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Association of Black Journalists, has been subjected to gross violations of his First Amendment Rights both during his trial and, following conviction, throughout his imprisonment; and WHEREAS the ultimate injustice is for the state to kill a person for a crime that person might not have committed; therefore be it RESOLVED that the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association calls upon Governor Thomas J. Ridge of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to reverse the death sentence signed on June 2, 1995, and to allow Abu-Jamal's lawyers to appeal his conviction. Passed unanimously in Chicago, IL on June 27,1995, by the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association. _______________________________________________________________________________ 9. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 to Present http://bioguide.congress.gov/ First published in 1859 and most recently in 1989, this biographical guide to the more than 13,000 individuals who have served in the national legislature and Continental Congress has been updated through the 105th Congress and released online. The work of the Senate Historical Office and the Legislative Resource Center of the House of Representatives, under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House, this database will be continually updated as necessary. The new online version offers resources not available in previous editions, including images and information previously published in separate volumes. Users may search the database by name, position, and state. Planned additions to the site include additional search options, "links to repositories listed in the Guide to Research Collections," and links to related Websites. [MD] >From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1998. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ _______________________________________________________________________________ 10. Send a FAX by e-mail sent to media-l[at]tao.ca: http://www-usa.tpc.int/faxbyemail.html Other Languages Available: Italian, German An experiment started in June 1993 now makes it possible to send a FAX (for free) to many different parts of the world by using internet e-mail. Any e-mail software can be used to send a text mesage, however formatted documents with fonts and pictures require a more sophisticated e-mail utility. (read our Client Software http://www-usa.tpc.int/clients/index.html page for more information on this topic) Before you begin, use our Check Coverage page http://www-usa.tpc.int/verify.html to verify the area you wish to send a fax to is covered by the TPC Probject. :-) :-) Message Ends; Signature File Begins (-: (-: George(s) Lessard, Community Media Arts, Management & Mentoring Information, subscriptions, public keyword searchable archives and CAUTIONS, Disclaimers, NOTES TO EDITORS and copyright information may be found [at] http://members.tripod.com/~media002/disclaimer.htm _______________________________________________________________________________ 11. Library Link discussion forum on librarians and publishers From: "Chris Keenan" <ckeenan[at]mcb.co.uk> To: ACRL Forum <acrl-frm[at]ala1.ala.org> Subject: Library Link Discussion Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 14:22:31 -0000 Library Link - http://www.mcb.co.uk/liblink Apologies for cross-posting Dear List Member, I would like to draw your attention to the Library Link discussion forum. Current discussions have been prompted by the MCB / Library Link workshop at IFLA '98 entitled 'Electronic Publishing: Librarian and Publisher Challenges, Now and Beyond 21st Century'. Since then the forum has received numerous posting from all over the world, debating a number of topics, such as: - The value added role for future librarians and information professionals - Networking issues - Librarianship and the virtual library - Electronic licensing - The Internet and the developing world Selected quotes from the postings include: "The virtual library is a myth." "...there will be fundamental changes in the distribution of research results in the future." "A widespread cannibalism is taking place..." "...librarians should know exactly how the Internet behaves." "Part of the librarians tasks could be performed as distance work or tele-work." If you have a issue that you thinks needs debating or a question that needs answering then the Library Link discussion forum will give you access to the views of hundreds of like-minded individuals. To join the discussion go to the Library Link homepage (http://www.mcb.co.uk/liblink) and follow the link that reads "discussion". To receive postings from the discussion via e-mail, type your e-mail address in the box provided and click on the "subscribe" button. Library Link is a free online discussion and information forum for Librarians and Information professional world wide. If you wish to join Library Link then go to the homepage, follow the link that reads "join" and fill in your details. Yours, Chris Keenan Executive - Library Link _______________________________________________________________________________ 12. US District Court bars Loudon County Library from filtering internet Sent to the California Library Association's listserv by Gerald Maginnity: Excerpts from the Washington Post: Library's Internet Filtering Is Barred By Brooke A. Masters and David Nakamura Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, November 24, 1998; Page A01 U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in Alexandria found that the Loudoun Library Board's decision to screen out Internet sites that could be harmful to minors violated constitutional rights of free speech and failed to serve a compelling government interest. Brinkema, a former librarian, wrote in her 46-page opinion that the Library Board's policy "offends the guarantee of free speech in the First Amendment." She also said that buying commercial software to filter Internet sites was an "abdication" of the board's constitutional responsibilities to set clear standards itself. Ken Bass, the board's attorney, said he plans to ask Brinkema to allow the filtering software to remain in place while the Library Board decides whether to appeal the decision or modify its policy. _______________________________________________________________________________ 13. ALA statement in response to filter-monger David Burt's nosing about David Burt, president of Filtering Facts, recently sent an email to the Office for Intellectual Freedom informing them that he has written to 25 large library systems requesting the release of library records. His purpose, he says, is to "obtain copies of any patron and staff complaints about patrons accessing inappropriate material on public Internet terminals. I know that my organization is a controversial one within the library profession, so this is an excellent opportunity for your library to demonstrate its commitment to the practices as well as the principles of intellectual freedom. If you decide not to release the records, please send me a response letter explaining your reasons why." >From William Gordon's November report to ALA Council _______________________________________________________________________________ 14. Candid discussion of commercial database (marginal) usability This discussion took place on librarians[at]tao.ca: Chuck Munson wrote: All search languages are doing roughly the same thing. But unless you are familiar with database systems, you would never know this to look at their infinite superficial variety. When the assholes who write a database search language get ready to pick a truncation symbol, for example, they evidently first look around very thoroughly to make absolutely certain it is unique in the universe. God forbid there would be any convention for people to fall back on. I shudder to think how much of my burned-out brain is devoted to trivia like remembering truncation symbols! Asterisks, colons, hache marks, dollar signs, plus signs, on and on and on. Yet this illustrates why the students are forever clamouring for my help. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: Michael Ravnitzky <mikerav[at]ix.netcom.com> Reply-To: mikerav[at]ix.netcom.com MIME-Version: 1.0 To: chuck[at]tao.ca, librarians[at]tao.ca Subject: Re: No War but Information War: raging against the library machinery Sender: owner-librarians[at]tao.ca Precedence: bulk I am a law student and a patron, not a librarian. I have spent hours in fruitless battles with library staff trying to explain why it would be appropriate to put a little taped card on the table next to the database or search engine, with a convenient guide to 1-what is the truncation symbol 2-what is the wild card symbol 3-what are the boolean operators 4-what are the mandatory include/exclude symbols etc. I consider myself experienced in database searching. When I ask to have such a card put out, they look at me like I am from another planet. Don't complain about patrons that ask for computer help until you put out a simple guide to the codes for that computer system. To some extent, unfortunately, there is some residual reluctance in the librarian profession to make information systems transparent to users. I note that same philosophy with regard to computerized card catalogues in most public libraries. The system is dumbed down and made quote more accessible to most users unquote, without recognizing that such fixed design is extremely frustrating to experienced users. A better approach, I think, is a selectable system that allows the user to indicate his or her experience level at the start, allowing the machine to accommodate the person, rather than vice versa. Michael Ravnitzky St. Paul, Minn. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Michael: I'm amazed that the library staff weren't sensitive to your request, but I guess there are some crappy library workers out there. Did they have database search sheets attached to the monitor? This is a way that libraries try to help users cope with the different database conventions. I think that the library profession is interested in making these convention standardized and transparent to users, but many of these problems are created by the vendors with all of their propietary formats. I see library staff as trying to develop a Linux attitude toward this, with the vendors being the billion ton Microsofts. Libraries should make more of a fuss about this. They are to timid. What they could do is to develop a set of standards and boycott vendors that don't comply. Chuck0 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 08:31:35 -0500 To: librarians[at]tao.ca From: Jen Weintraub <jsw15[at]cornell.edu> Subject: Re[2]: No War but Information War: raging against the librar Sender: owner-librarians[at]tao.ca Precedence: bulk As a librarian who selects databases for a living (that sounds worse than it is) I am interested in these comments. I completely understand how frustrating it is to be faced with a bunch of databases and not know the truncation symbols or basically, how to search them. It is irritating for librarians as well. At Cornell we have at least 100 databases all networked over the Internet. If we put up cards on every terminal in the library for even 5 interfaces it would be rather unwieldy. I have noticed that many users take cards off the terminals and put them aside as nuisances or don't even look at them. This is completely understandable and necessary to consider. None of this excuses the rudeness Michael Ravnitzky faced when asking for help. I'm just pointing out some common problems with signs all over terminals. I have noticed a trend towards more visible help in databases. For many of the newer web databases the help screens are just "one click away". We also do have those help sheets and the combination seems to work adequately, if not spectacularly. Different people learn in different ways and I believe libraries should be flexible. The idea of multiple interfaces for multiple levels of users is an excellent and not entirely new idea: several database producers already put it to use (NISC, for example). Many library catalogs, particularly in bigger or older places, are still "first generation" and their interfaces are very primitive. I would like to make one more comment about the idea of boycotting database producers who don't conform to certain conventions. I guess this might be a good idea for some future time when we have such a convention. However, I am not currently in the position of boycotting any decent database that costs a reasonable amount and provides access to literature my patrons need just because the truncation symbols are not to my liking. Unfortunately, a lot of the high quality database interfaces are very expensive and the vendors don't have the databases I need so I am forced to go to lower quality interfaces to get a database. I would think public librarians would be in the same position. I would hate to tell a patron: "no we don't have that database or index to that literature because it doesn't search the way we like it to search". We would just get the bad interface for a year and deal with it until there was some competition. I spend a lot of time complaining to database vendors or pointing out flaws in their interfaces. I'm not particularly timid about it either, as I am the customer. I think that at this point, however, an effective way to get vendors to create useful interfaces is to get in on the ground level, at the development stage, or provide incessant feedback for their upgrades. If you got 10 librarians in a room you'd have about 15 opinions on how databases should look and be searched. Perhaps that is why there are so many interfaces. Another answer to this whole question may be Z39.50, a standard that already exists whereby I can search any library's catalog or any database that I have access to that is compliant with this standard using one interface. There are problems with this idea as well, but that's enough for this early in the morning. Jen _______________________________________________________________________________ 15. 1999 North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) Student Grant NASIG AWARD ANNOUNCEMENTS 1999 NASIG STUDENT GRANT ANNOUNCEMENT The North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) is currently seeking candidates for grants to attend the Fourteenth Annual Conference to be held at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA June 10-13, 1999. Established in 1985, NASIG is an independent organization that promotes communication and sharing of ideas among all members of the serials information chain - anyone working with or concerned about serials. For more information about NASIG, please see the NASIG web page at http://nasig.ils.unc.edu/. Through the granting of these awards, NASIG desires to encourage participation in this information chain by students who are interested in pursuing some aspect of serials work upon completion of their professional degrees. Each June the annual conference is held on a different college or university campus, where the various segments of the serials community (including publishers, vendors, and librarians) meet in an informal setting to network and share information. The conference includes the presentation of papers, panels, workshops, tours, and social events. GUIDELINES SCOPE OF AWARD: Recipients are expected to attend the entire conference and submit a brief written report to NASIG, which will be excerpted for publication in the NASIG Newsletter. Expenses for travel, registration, meals, and lodging will be paid by NASIG. Each recipient will also receive a year's membership in NASIG. ELIGIBILITY: Students who are currently enrolled at the graduate level in any ALA accredited library school, who do not already have an ALA accredited degree, and who have expressed an interest in some aspect of serials work, are eligible. Applicants must be full- or part-time students at the time of application. In order to accept an award, a recipient must not be employed in a position requiring an ALA accredited degree, nor on leave from such a position, at the time of acceptance of the grant. Equal consideration will be given to all qualified applicants, with preference given to those earning their degrees the year of the conference. Students do not have to be NASIG members to apply, and they must not have earned their degrees earlier than the end of the school year prior to the NASIG conference. Applicants must not have attended a previous NASIG conference. APPLICATION PROCEDURE: Application forms will be available after November 15, 1998, in ALA accredited library schools, through the NASIG Web Page, and from Markel Tumlin, Co-Chair, Awards and Recognition Committee. Completed applications should be sent to: Markel Tumlin General Reference Division University Library, LLA 1101-L San Diego State University 5500 Camponile Drive San Diego, CA 92182-8050 Phone (619) 594-6875 Fax (619) 594-3270 E-Mail: mtumlin[at]mail.sdsu.edu APPLICATION DEADLINE: Applications must be postmarked/faxed by February 16, 1999. Applications postmarked/faxed after this date will not be considered. AWARD NOTIFICATION: Award recipients will be notified by April 1, 1999. A maximum of ten grants may be awarded for 1999. Patricia (Pat) Frade Serials Cataloger 6380 Harold B. Lee Library Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 (801) 378-6730 fax (801) 378-3221 e-mail: Pat_Frade[at]byu.edu _______________________________________________________________________________ 16. Article on San Jose library merger, by Paul Duguid Forwarded to SJSU's listserv by Hava Rubenson - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [When Paul Duguid was guest-editing RRE a while back, he was so busy being blind-sided by technical problems -- especially the great schism between mail software that employs MIME and mail software that does not -- that he didn't have time to put his personal stamp on the list. Here, however, is a short piece (1700 words) that he wrote about a proposal to merge the city and university libraries in San Jose, and what happens when you ignore things like the diversity of information, the significance of institutions, and the relevance of distinct patterns of use.] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, see http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html or send a message to requests[at]lists.gseis.ucla.edu with Subject: info rre =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 22:17:55 -0800 From: duguid[at]socrates.berkeley.edu (Paul Duguid) Information and Libraries Paul Duguid The academic senate at San Jose State University, California, will vote next week on a plan to merge the city and the university libraries. The plan primarily concerns books, so on the surface it is not necessarily of interest to those concerned with the digital world. I suspect, however, that the plausibility of that plan rests on notions of information that have flattened distinctions between different kinds of institution, use, and users. But before offering my opinion, let me give some facts. San Jose State University [SJS], part of the California State system, has long needed a new library. The current collection is illogically divided between two buildings, and each is inadequate. Attempts to fund a new library through a bond issue, voted on when the state was in recession, failed. Meanwhile, the city had acknowledged that, for a major metropolitan center (San Jose is the nearest city to Silicon Valley and growing fast), its public library was small and the collection weak. In February 1997, the mayor, Susan Hammer, proposed fixing all these problems by combining the two facilities. The city would gain access to SJS's collection, and so not need to improve its own. The university would get a new building funded in good part by the city. Predictably, this was announced as a "win-win solution." The city's plans for the libraries, however, are not as pure as they are naive. The current city library sits opposite the convention center. The city wants the site for a new hotel. By merging the two libraries, it will get it. Under the current plan, the city will provide $71 million, the state $90 million, and SJS $10 million and a new facility will be built on the campus housing both collections. The collections will be kept physically separate within the building, but all users will have access and borrowing privileges to all books. There will be one circulation and one reference service for all. And though the staff of each organization will remain separate, plans promise an undefined "seamless service". The SJS senate will vote on the matter on December 7th and those opposing the plan would welcome any support you can offer. (Fuller details can be found at <http://www.myeditor.com/soul.htm.) The planned merger takes it for granted that libraries are somehow indifferent to the collection they hold or to the particular users they serve. Only from this perspective can a single library to serve profoundly different communities seem unproblematic. That perspective may in turn reflect ways in which access to libraries has been portrayed simply as access to information they store, access which a digital future will provide remotely, rendering local features yet more irrelevant. Indeed, the California State system doesn't even believe that this is a matter for the future. In 1993, it decided to build a new campus at Fort Ord without a library at all, arguing that the information the students needed was or soon would be on line. Where do such ideas come from -- when not from the willful ignorance of administrators hoping to save money or mayors with Mitterand-like pretensions hoping to cut a deal for a convention center? One source is the popular portrayal of the Web as home for "all the answers you need" -- as a line on Oracle's web site reads. Another might be advertisements of the sort IBM aired in the States a few years ago -- early in its series "solutions for a small planet," when the "envisionary" (or simply deceptive) nature of the genre was not well established. The ad ran in Italian with subtitles and showed an old Italian farmer on his farm telling his astonished granddaughter that he had just received his Ph.D. The exchange went on: Grandfather: Did my Research at Indiana University. Woman: Indiana? Grandfather: Yup. IBM took the school's library ... and digitized it. So I could access it over the Internet. She cocks her ear to take this all in. Grandfather: You know... It's a great time to be alive. [The storyboards for the ad are at http://www.ibm.com/sfasp/locations/italy/index.html] The picture, particularly to those who know little about the digitization of libraries, is compelling. Unfortunately, it is also grossly misleading. IBM has not digitized the Indiana library. (In response to protest, the library confessed that "some of its music collection" has been digitized. IBM did not respond at all.) But, above all, the ad endorses the notion that libraries are little more than information repositories -- a primitive form of file server. (It also gives a weird view of education, but let that pass.) Actual work on digital libraries, while more difficult than IBM's ad acknowledges, is often very impressive. But, in general, it has critically failed to address libraries as social systems rather than information systems. Yet by using the name "library," the work suggests that it is concerned with all that term encompasses. I once suggested that the U.S. digital library initiative, funded with government money, had appropriated the term "library" to help draw popular and political support for what was in essence computer science work. Far from it, I was told by one proponent, the term library was probably more of a disadvantage than an advantage to their work. Nevertheless, though it was considered, the National Science Foundation has not abandoned the term. Nor, perhaps more importantly, has anyone involved considered that, in using the phrase "digital library," whatever the disadvantage to them, the problems for conventional libraries was likely to be far greater. Not only does the phrase suggest that the future of all libraries is simply digital. It also leads to the flattening of distinctions between the way libraries are used. But does anyone really know how libraries are used? At the moment, I suspect, most people simply assume that they know what goes on in libraries. At a workshop of the National Science Foundation's digital library project that I attended, studies of use and users were referred to by one researcher as "touchy feely" issues, while a previously rejected proposal by an eminent ethnographer to study use was mentioned with a rolling of eyeballs. (The failure of the book to die when its obituaries were confidently read has led studies of the book and print culture to flourish. I hope that the same will soon be true of libraries. Digital library work is not sufficiently advanced here, however, to meet the sort of rebuff that prompts reflection. In Australia, the collapse of a major national project that was due to go on-line at the end of 1996 has provoked a major reassessment.) At the moment, the idea of different patterns of use has received little attention. Take, for example, the matter of electronic journals. Justifiably, Andrew Odlyzko's paper, "Tragic Loss or Good Riddance" has become one of the most influential papers on the future of such journals, an important issue for all libraries. But that paper is directed entirely at scientific research and articles. It does not tell (because it does not attempt to tell) much at all about the humanities and social sciences or the ways their researchers use libraries. Indeed, because those most deeply involved in digital research tend to be scientists, the way other fields work has generally been taken for granted. So Odzlyko's paper is read as if it spoke for all journals and journal users. It's not hard to think of reasons why physicists use preprints from a file server at Los Alamos extensively, but those studying the humanities do not. But I don't know of the difference being widely acknowledged. It might be time to revive, at least for purposes of analysis, C.P. Snow's old notion of the "two cultures" -- but now from quite a different perspective. Snow felt that the sciences were being slighted; now they are used to represent all research. And if one voice can speak for all, then one library, presumably, can serve for all. It's worth noting, then, that the new British Library, which has been well received, has separated the reading and periodical rooms for the humanities and the sciences, as if in recognition of their distinct practices. More relevant perhaps to San Jose, the New York Public Library on 42d Street, which has just reopened after extensive renovation, has maintained its historic distinction between the research facilities (which are nonetheless open to all), and its public lending facilities. Though both in the same building, the two are entirely separate. Without conducting research (though I do use both city and university libraries here in Berkeley), it seems quite unexceptional to me to say that the patterns of use in a university research library and a civic lending library are quite distinct. The university's library's primary obligation, for example, is to its collection; thus its barriers are high. The city's obligation, by contrast, is primarily to its readers; its barriers are correspondingly low. The university lends only to people who pay fees to the university. And it refuses to graduate students who have library fines outstanding. Guards search bags at the exits. The city lends to anyone with proof of a local address; it cannot search bags. (The library of the city of San Jose has about $1 million dollars outstanding in fines and no current record of how many books are lost, stolen, or unreturned.) In numerous other ways -- patterns of readership, use of reference facilities and reading rooms, development of collections, availability of materials, resistance to censorship laws, and use of information technology -- public and private libraries are different kinds of institution. Any suggestion that both are little more than information warehouses, however, obscures the difference. To those who theorize information, who create ads for IBM (and who went along at Indiana), and particularly to those involved in digital library research, it will no doubt seem reckless to suggest that the merger in San Jose has anything to do with them. But is it too far fetched to think that the damage that will result to both city and university libraries as a result of this merger is in part "collateral damage" from the indifference shown in these instances as elsewhere to the institutional and organizational structure in which libraries and all information sources are, inescapably, situated? _______________________________________________________________________________ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - L I B R A R Y J U I C E | http://www.libr.org/Juice/ | | Except where noted, items appearing in Library Juice | are copyright-free, so feel free to share them with | colleagues and friends. Library Juice is a free weekly | publication edited by Rory Litwin. Original senders | are credited wherever possible; opinions are theirs. | Your comments and suggestions are welcome. | mailto:Juice[at]libr.org
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Date: Wednesday, November 25, 1998 12:10 PM