Thad McIlroy - The Future of Publishing

Summary 1. Indisputably libraries have in the last century (and more) been a primary resource to the reading public. And research libraries have filled a role that Google has not yet supplanted. The publishing industry, in particular the book publishing industry, would never have flourished as fully without public libraries.

2. In the last several years libraries have bravely moved into strange new worlds: audiobooks, CDs, DVDs, Internet access and more. These moves are serving libraries well to maintain their role within the community of readers, and indeed allowing them to expand their constituency.

3. Data shows that despite the decline in "literate" reading among the general public, libraries are as frequently utilized as they were many decades ago.

4. At the same time there is an enormous effort underway by Google and other players to first of all digitize books and other printed material that are out of copyright, but also to encourage publishers to have searchable digital versions of material that has been more recently published. If everything that libraries currently offer was accessible online, what would the role of the library become? Shall we ask a librarian?

Introduction to Libraries and the Future of Publishing

Like the rest of the publishing and information industries, libraries face an ongoing struggle to redefine their roles in this era of disruptive media transition. Libraries continue to vigorously explore a host of options, from offering free online access to the Web and online access to (traditionally expensive) proprietary databases, to a host of other media: music, films and more.

Certainly as of this writing there is a vast amount of published material that can still not be accessed on the Internet, certainly not for free, often not at all. But these protected publications tend to serve the community of scholars more than the public at large.

Librarians Consider the Future of Libraries

By the nature of their profession, librarians are probably more likely than any other players in the publishing spectrum to ask the tough questions about their future role on the publishing carousel. In my experience reading through numerous studies and articles by members of the profession, librarians are anything but defensive about their future role. Where there's a threat there's an opportunity, and most seemed fascinating in exploring the opportunity. These are well-trained professionals after all -- they know how to do a great deal more than run your library card by a scanner during check-out. Look to the References section below for more about how librarians view their role in the evolving future of publishing.

The Modern Development of Libraries

As print extended its reach, philanthropists like the American Andrew Carnegie, reinvigorated the library as a purveyor of information to a broad public. (According to Wikipedia, "of the 2,509 libraries (Carnegie) funded between 1883 and 1929, 1,689 were built in the United States, 660 in Britain and Ireland, 156 in Canada, and others in Australia, New Zealand, Serbia, the Caribbean, and Fiji). This had a tremendous impact on making books more widely (and inexpensively) available to the public.

While some publishing efforts, like the paperback book, made literature and other information widely available without a guarded repository such as a library, throughout the ages, up until today, some of the most important data has been controlled by private companies that charge exorbitant fees for access. Colleges and universities, and sometimes the public library, were mechanisms whereby students and an interested public could get past these fees on an individual basis.

It has been an interesting transition. "Library science," a creation of the modern information era, reflects as much the complex ways that information is offered to the public as it does the complexity of the information itself. Google has probably been the most anarchic of the information developments impacting the public library.

While unquestionably a well-trained librarian can outperform your average Googler, your average Googler can gain access to far more information than the untrained searcher of the pre-Web era.

What business model should libraries best emulate? Should they work with proprietary information providers to ensure that certain data can only be accessed through public institutions or at great cost privately? Should they become masters of all data available through all public and private sources: become maestros of information retrieval? It's hard to say.

The role of libraries as we know them today is surely in question, and will continue to rapidly evolve in the years to come.

The Alexandria Library

The most fascinating and perhaps most representative story about the changing roles of libraries is the reopening of Egypt's Alexandria Library, launched with great fanfare in late 2002 after a 1,600-year hiatus. Rechristened the Bibliotheca Alexandria, it had been a beacon of knowledge for the ancient world over a span of seven centuries before its demise in the year AD 415.

Twenty years in the planning and built at a cost of more than $200-million (U.S.), the result is an 11-storey building, located on the spot where scholars believe the ancient library stood before it was destroyed. The building was designed to represent the sum of human knowledge, in keeping with the reputation of the Greek Ptolemies, who erected the original in 290 B.C.

The vision statement of the Library of Alexandria is that it "seeks to recapture the spirit of the ancient Library of Alexandria and aspires to be:

    * The world's window on Egypt;
    * Egypt's window on the world;
    * An instrument for rising to the challenges of the digital age; and, above all,
    * A center for dialogue between peoples and civilizations"

You don't have to go to Egypt to enjoy this developing resource. Start with the website.

The Digital Library

In early 2005, the Internet Archive and Yahoo! helped form the Open Content Alliance (OCA) which represents "the collaborative efforts of a group of cultural, technology, nonprofit, and governmental organizations from around the world that will help build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized text and multimedia content...as a way to offer broad, public access to a rich panorama of world culture."

This was the beginning of a major cross-organizational effort to digitize library holdings and make them accessible via the Web.

A large number of libraries joined, and then Google and Microsoft got into the act to offer what could be considered complementary or competitive programs. Microsoft dropped out of the game in May 2008, but Google is going strong. At the same time, there are numerous smaller initiatives with essentially the same goal, albeit on a more proprietary basis.

There is a bottom line. First, there is the enormous issue of works that are still protected by copyright and those which are not. Both Google and Amazon have programs available to publishers for "searching within the book." These are largely founded not on scholarship, but the notion that allowing the public access to the (selected and somewhat-protected) content of copyrighted works will enhance the likelihood that they may publish the full printed or eBook version. Second is the issue of what the impact will be on libraries when their holdings on non-copyrighted works become freely available on the Web. Whatever its shortcomings, when it comes to older references, the Web offers better tools for searching through masses of content than sitting in a dimly-lit room, struggling with great effort through indexes.

The struggle is ongoing, and will be for some time. But it appears to me inevitable that soon all non-copyrighted publications will be accessible via the Web, and it's only a matter of time until copyrighted material is similarly accessible.

I do not for a moment believe this negates the role of librarians or of libraries. But a challenge is emerging.

References