Are Libraries Obsolete? ALSO by MARK Y
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Are Libraries Obsolete? ALSO BY MARK Y. H ERRING Fool’s Gold: Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library (McFarland, 2007) Are Libraries Obsolete? An Argument for Relevance in the Digital Age MARK Y. HERRING McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina Nihil obstat quominus imprimatur ISBN 978-0-7864-7356-4 softcover : acid free paper ♾ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE © 2014 Mark Y. Herring. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover images © Fuse/iStock/Thinkstock Manufactured in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com For Carol Quos amor verus tenuit, tenebit.—Seneca This page intentionally left blank Table of Contents Preface and Acknowledgments 1 Part One 5 1. Introduction 7 2. Everything Is Still Not on the Internet 19 3. Searching the Web 30 4. Quality Control, or Lack Thereof 42 5. Rotting from Within? 57 6. En Masse: Mass Digitization 67 7. Copyrig ht 80 8. Ebooks Über Alles? 96 9. Depth and Ubiquity 111 Part Two 123 10. Reading and Literacy 126 11. Privacy 138 12. Piracy 150 Part Three 165 13. You Are Here 171 14. Are Libraries Obsolete After All? Two Scenarios 187 vii viii Table of Contents Epilogue: Reviving the Spirit of Andrew Carnegie 216 Chapter Notes 219 Selected Bibliography 246 Index 255 Preface and Acknowledgments The changes that have occurred in librarianship over the last decade and a half are more than all the combined changes that have occurred since Dewey. No, I’m not over one hundred years old, but I became a librarian in 1978, so I think I can say with some assurance that the changes I have witnessed over the last fourteen or fifteen years are far more remarkable and long lasting than those theretofore. The question that is on everyone’s mind—and it really is on the minds of many librarians though they are reluctant to admit it—is, Are libraries obsolete? That is what this book is about. I won’t answer that question here (I give a strong hint in the Introduc- tion) but let me say what the book is not. This is not a screed against the Internet, though to raise even an air of criticism about the World Wide Web makes some web aficionados hyperventilate. On the other hand, even to hint to some librarians that libraries may possibly be, one day, in some sort of decline that may end in a tailspin that may make them, well, not as robust as they are now—you can see by the convoluted construction how much I’m hedging to avoid their wrath—is to commit the highest form of heresy. My prayer is that I have not offended either side so much that they both hate the work here. I am not anti- anything in this book, especially when it comes to the web. Look what happened to the much- beloved Jonathan Franzen, now the much hated, after his “What’s Wrong with the Modern World” appeared in September 13, 2013, issue of the Guardian. The “wrong” is all our device- mania, and twitterverse blew up in his face for that, calling him a curmudg- eon, one of the nicer comments. In order to make the case, however, one has to draw a line in the sand. As Flannery O’Connor once said in another context entirely, you sometimes have to write in all capitals before people will notice. 1 2 Preface and Acknowledgments Depending on where a reader stands vis-à-vis my line may make him or her call me a Luddite on the one hand, or a Quisling on the other. I have tried to give both sides a fair hearing but the fact of the matter is that, for librarians, this current age is moving against both us and libraries. For those who love the web and all its glory, however, there are, many, many things that we need to fix before we move forward with the replacement. So, to both groups, this book is a bit like Joan Rivers’ famous line, “Can we talk?” On the one hand, the pressure to make the Internet the be- all and end- all of everything in our lives should be obvious by now to anyone who has ever been online. Misconceptions abound about how we can make this work, but enthusiastic supporters of all things web- based are in a delirium to have it replace everything. Librarians have been whistling in the dark a little about this. Our professional organization, the American Library Association, appears at times schizophrenic on the question, on the one hand urging on libraries all kinds of web- based solutions and urging us to be more Google- like, and on the other, worrying if we are obsolete, but careful not to say so explicitly while encouraging us to be all things to all people. My effort here is to talk about the elephant in the room and try to say something useful about him other than he’s large and sometimes gets in the way. Some will complain that this book is nothing more than a bad réchauffé of my previous book, Fool’s Gold: Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library. Everyone’s a critic. I can say that the content of this book is as up- to-date as I could make it, and 90 percent or more of all the references are to materials written in the last four years. All of which is to say that the argu- ments made in Fool’s Gold appear to be valid today. When discussing the web’s quality, breadth and depth, readers may balk that there is some overlap, or it’s a distinction without a difference. I, of course, object to that characteri- zation and contend that in order to discuss these things, some reiteration or duplication is necessary. I ask readers’ forbearance. Why me? I have worked in libraries since 1978. I have seen everything from the OCLC’s first “update” “send” to Dialog’s phone- receiver modem and blue sheets. I coded a web page the hard way, know some pine, and watched as libraries moved from an exclusive print- based operation to one that is rapidly becoming an entirely electronic one. I have written on the topic a lot, and after I penned a piece for Against the Grain revisiting the “10 Reasons” in my regular “Red Herrings” column, Robert Franklin of McFar- land saw the article and asked me to write this book. So, if anything, let’s blame him, shall we? Preface and Acknowledgments 3 This book in in three parts, the first of which is a re- visitation of my “10 Reasons Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library” that appeared in 2000 in American Libraries. While that article, subsequent poster and even- tual book by that title all resonated well with anyone in the library profession, not many outside it liked it. By 2010, however, some in the library profession were wondering if any of the points I made in 2001 still rang true. The first part of the book answers that question. Part Two focuses on four areas that the web has created new problems for and that I think deserve far more scrutiny than have been given: reading, literacy, privacy and piracy. My contention in this part is that these are very serious concerns and if libraries really are to be replaced by the Internet, these four matters have to be resolved first. My biggest fear is that (a) we won’t address these matters or (b) simply dismiss them and still move forward with the replacement. Finally, Part Three looks at the present and the future. Chapter 13 exam- ines where we are now with an eye to the future. Chapter 14 looks squarely in the eye of the future using an environmental scan (an initialism called TEMPLES). One view says, yes, libraries are obsolete after all. The other says, no, and here’s why. I do take a side but will leave it for readers who slog their way to Chapter 14. I do not pretend that I have all the answers. My attempt here is to give one man’s impression of what it might be, relying on thirty- five years of aca- demic library experience as a director or a dean at three different institutions, combined with very wide reading in the area. Writing books is a very solitary experience. My thanks go to a few folks who helped me along the way. Dot Barber is my administrative executive spe- cialist at Winthrop and has worked at Dacus for more than forty years. She kept the office running and my calendar as free as possible so I could make progress on the book over the last year. Michaela Volkmar and Anne Thomas work in our interlibrary loan department and have been instrumental in get- ting for me about 100 different items, quickly, easily, and efficiently. Although they were not aware of it at the time, others also helped me here at Winthrop: Nancy White in circulation and Carrie Johnston, in library systems. My man- agement team of David Weeks, who runs our Public Services division, and Dr. Ronnie Faulkner, who runs our Technical Services division, took on more responsibilities, too, so I could meet deadlines.