RE: Anderson, Michalko & drastic change
From: "Pakala, Jim" <Jim.Pakala_at_covenantseminary.edu>
Following on the heels of the latest in the Google books case, this is still another
intriguing development.
http://www.slate.com/id/2289012/
Jim
============
James C. Pakala jim.pakala_at_covenantseminary.edu
Library Director Phone: 314-434-4044 x4101; Fax 314-434-4819
Covenant Theological Seminary
12330 Conway Road; St. Louis, MO 63141-8697
From: Pakala, Jim
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2011 9:50 AM
To: 'James Michalko (michalkj_at_oclc.org)'; 'Lorcan Dempsey'; 'Rick Anderson'
Cc: 'ATLANTIS_at_list.atla.com'; 'ACL ListservMailTo (acl_at_acl.org)'; 'MOBIUS Users list
(mobius-users-l_at_po.mobius.umsystem.edu)'; 'COLLDV-L_at_usc.edu'; 'Tracy Byerly'
Subject: RE: Anderson, Michalko & drastic change
St. Louis University’s head of libraries, Gail Staines, has commented following Utah’s
Rick Anderson and Washington U’s Shirley Baker and many of us are deeply grateful. Because
Gail’s went to the MOBIUS Council list I’m taking the liberty of sharing this with the
original recipients as I shared Shirley’s (except the full MOBIUS users list with which
she shared it).
Meanwhile, Dr. Louis Charles Willard (formerly at Harvard, then ATS, etc.) kindly sent the
attached by U of Chicago’s Andrew Abbott and asked what I think of it. Well, it’s one of
the most stimulating and enjoyable things I’ve read (in any genre), but a study-read is
necessary and maybe a second read (at least for me) because it’s highly erudite—indeed
brilliant. I told Charles that I’d need to interact with others before responding. Any
reactions to Abbott (some of you undoubtedly are aware of this because you’re more “with
it” than I)?
Just now John Abbott who co-runs COLLDV-L_at_usc.edu asked me to put all this in
chronological order and re-post it to that list. Below the 4 messages are arranged in
inverse chronological order (mine, Rick’s, Shirley’s, and Gail’s).
Jim (contact info at bottom below)
From: mobius-l-bounces_at_lists.mobiusconsortium.org
[mailto:mobius-l-bounces_at_lists.mobiusconsortium.org] On Behalf Of Gail Staines
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2011 9:19 AM
To: Baker, Shirley
Cc: MOBIUS Council Discussion Forum (mobius-l_at_po.mobius.umsystem.edu)
Subject: Re: [Mobius-l] Anderson, Michalko & drastic change
Hi All:
This is an interesting discussion. Like Shirley, we are expanding climate controlled
storage for our special collections (rare books, manuscripts, and archives) in all
formats. We are fortunate to have the equipment to migrate most forms of nonprint
materials (e.g., slides, cassette tapes, VHS, beta, etc.) to electronic format, though we
are carefully prioritizing what will be digitized. We do not have the goal of digitizing all.
What is also interesting is that researchers of all kinds want access to the original. I
just finished reading Devil in the White City by author Larson, Erik. Larson was able to
read a postcard written by the individual who murdered a city of Chicago mayor during the
time of their World's Fair at the turn of the 20th century. He wrote that he was pleased
and fortunate to be able to read the original postcard as he could see how hard the pencil
marks were when the murderer wrote the postcard. You can't get that type of detail doing
fast digitization.
Gail
Gail M. Staines, Ph.D.
Assistant Vice President for University Libraries
Saint Louis University
3650 Lindell Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63108
phone: 314-977-3102
fax: 314-977-3587
email: gstaines_at_slu.edu
On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 4:12 PM, Baker, Shirley <shirley.baker_at_wustl.edu> wrote:
Jim,
I think this will be another instance of “both/and”. I’m always saying that nothing
ever goes totally away in libraries. And, we are honor-bound to keep unique items. While
we think our physical libraries will be steady state pretty soon – removing “replaced by
digital” collections and devoting more to user and technology space – we will need more
and more space for “special” collections – our unique and distinctive collections.
For my library, the amount of space we have for special collections has grown by 250% in
the past decade, mostly at our West Campus (old Famous Barr store) location. And we are
full and have more collections lined up to be added. So we are laying the groundwork for
getting new (and more) space for these collections in the next decade.
And we will digitize some of these materials depending on demand and copyright, but will
certainly keep the originals. Digitizing will enhance discovery and reduce wear-and-tear
on the originals. We hope to deposit these in a repository like the Hathi Trust (and have
“print-on demand” capability in the library here).
Shirley [Baker, Vice Chancellor for Scholarly Resources and Dean of University
Libraries, Washington University, St. Louis]
[Jim:]
Sure. Paul is right about the problems in the Google Book corpus. Those problems are real,
and they're consequential. But every possible response to the challenges of information
access is rife with consequential problems, and if we're going to derive rational
conclusions about what those limitations imply for our future choices, we need to put them
in context. As I tell my staff all the time, neither a list of "pros" nor a list of "cons"
gives us useful information until all the pros and all the cons of all the available
options are examined together. Despite its significant flaws, the Google Books corpus
offers strengths that no individual library's print collection can come close to matching,
even as it offers flaws that the print collection also lacks. And I'm willing to bet that
patrons will value those strengths more than they fear the flaws. Would patrons be right
to feel that way? Maybe and maybe not. But as far as the future of libraries is concerned,
what will matter is how patrons actually behave, not what we think (rightly or wrongly)
about how patrons ought to behave.
Of course! "Both/and" is almost always preferable to "either/or." Two problems, however:
1. It's all well and good to say that libraries will have "both" (meaning both
locally-crafted collections and access to enormous databases of content such as the GBS
and Hathi Trust collections). That observation is true but trivial. The more significant
question is "how much will we have of each?"
If and when Google succeeds at making, say, 50 million digitized books available to my
library for free, and to my library's remote users at a single (presumably affordable)
subscription price, how will I explain to the provost that instead of renovating a
decrepit physics lab or building a sorely-needed classroom building, he should continue to
allocate funds to my library as if our local collection still held the same relevance to
our students and researchers that it did before GBS and Hathi? I'm not saying the argument
can't be made--only that the necessity of making it (and the possibility of failing to do
so persuasively) will mark a radical sea change in the library's position.
2. What's preferable and what will actually happen are not necessarily the same. Libraries
need to be preparing for what looks likely to happen, not just for what we would prefer to
have happen.
Rick
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dir. for Scholarly Resources & Collections Marriott Library Univ. of Utah
rick.anderson_at_utah.edu
Office: (801)587-9989
Cell: (801) 721-1687
From: mobius-users-l-bounces_at_lists.mobiusconsortium.org
[mailto:mobius-users-l-bounces_at_lists.mobiusconsortium.org] On Behalf Of Pakala, Jim
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2011 9:12 AM
To: James Michalko (michalkj_at_oclc.org); 'Lorcan Dempsey'; Rick Anderson
Cc: MOBIUS Users list (mobius-users-l_at_po.mobius.umsystem.edu); COLLDV-L_at_usc.edu;
ATLANTIS_at_list.atla.com; ACL ListservMailTo (acl_at_acl.org)
Subject: [Mobius-users-l] Anderson, Michalko & drastic change
James, Lorcan & Rick:
Thanks for your leadership in things library. This message was prompted by Lorcan
Dempsey's Weblog Email Digest
<http://orweblog.oclc.org/>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m wondering how much debris, foam (vacuity), etc. will be in the water when the dam
breaks (after the Google settlement) in light of the scathing presentation from Paul
Duguid, Professor, School of Information, University of California, Berkeley, about all of
the inaccuracies in Google Books. Any thoughts?
As an academic librarian, my own experience with faculty and students shows a wide range.
Some are out ahead of me with their e-devices and all, some need help to read and write.
Then there’s the big middle without easy categorizations of not only technique but
motivation, tastes, etc.
Today I decided to dispense with scads of audiocassettes we cannot afford to migrate,
rather than store them with the reel-to-reel tapes we for years—and still—hope to migrate.
Though our unique (donated) Mormoniana collection has no local interest but significant
national interest, I see no institutional interest or money to afford digitization, so all
those print books (etc.) will be among the millions of non-cloud titles.
Rick’s message about the dam breaking must not shut out his enthusiasm about U of Utah’s
ability to produce a print copy within minutes (glue pot and all). Doesn’t “both/and” seem
preferable to “either/or”?
And, then there’s the current and hugely potential role for librarians illustrated,
Lorcan, by your post of…
The power of pull redux .. with examples
March 09, 2011
<http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/002161.html>
Faculty and students, not to mention the public, want help rather than going solo, owing
to the advantages of human interaction and rewards of research collaboration (even if it’s
to find that good children’s book!), time-saving, identification and retrieval expertise, etc.
Jim
James C. Pakala jim.pakala_at_covenantseminary.edu
Library Director Phone: 314-434-4044 x4101; Fax 314-434-4819
Covenant Theological Seminary
12330 Conway Road; St. Louis, MO 63141-8697
Received on Fri Mar 25 2011 - 03:09:56 EDT