This is why I think that once the Google-Publishers agreement goes through
sooner or later (and the publishers can't hold it back forever no matter how
much they might want to stop it!), librarians are going to have to ask
themselves some hard questions.
While Cushing Academy has definitely jumped the gun
(http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/09/04/a_library_without_the_books/),
I think eventually everybody will have to face some facts. The Cushing
library has (or had) only 20,000 volumes, probably 95%-98% available either
as public domain books or through the Google Books agreement. The 2%-5% of
books not available digitally probably had never been looked at anyway, and
besides, much modern usage of books is that people just xerox what they
want. Once we are subscribed to Google Books, which will be forced upon us
since our users will demand it, then we will have to justify the large
expenditures for maintaining a local print collection with all of its staff
and associated costs, and this local print collection will necessarily be a
tiny percentage of what people *really* will have access to in Google Books.
It wouldn't surprise me that when the Google Books are available, there will
be enough that an undergraduate student could get the degree without even
stepping into the library. These will be facts that our administrators will
throw at us.
When people are having taking cuts in salaries, being laid off permanently
from work, then saying that our users need that "cozy quality" (ref.
http://www.egcitizen.com/articles/2009/10/06/lifestyle/doc4acbd91119c88074945884.txt)
will fall on deaf ears. I really think that many librarians believe that
nothing much will change with the Google Books agreement; that our
institutions will pay for the subscription *plus* gladly shell out $40 or
more on each ILL for books that are in Google Books just because people want
to "hold them" for a couple of weeks before they have to send them back. I
sure know I wouldn't want to take a pay cut or lose my job for that.
Buying new books won't change; the catalog won't change; reference won't
change. Of course, I think everything will change.
But it could change for the better, that is, if we reconsider what
librarians do. If we think of libraries as doing: selection, acquisition,
receipt, describing, organizing, circulating, shelving, preservation,
providing reference help with the collection, I don't think we stand a
chance. I do think we provide vital services to society, but it's not these
tasks. All of this is more like a type of "workflow" based on various
processes attached to physical materials and while we still need to do these
things, we shouldn't get confused and think that these are our primary
tasks. We know that people have massive problems finding relevant materials
on the web. People are communicating with one another in all kinds of
strange and innovative ways, and they are often having trouble. These seem
to be good places to start to find our way.
I just hope it's not too late.
Jim Weinheimer
Received on Wed Oct 07 2009 - 06:47:58 EDT