Thursday, June 14, 2007

Cost-free copies

Clay Shirky demolishes the prejudices of print scarcity:

In a world where copies have become cost-free, people who expend their resources to prevent access or sharing are forgoing the principal advantages of the new tools, and this dilemma is common to every institution modeled on the scarcity and fragility of physical copies. Academic libraries, which in earlier days provided a service, have outsourced themselves as bouncers to publishers like Reed-Elsevier; their principal job, in the digital realm, is to prevent interested readers from gaining access to scholarly material.

1 comment:

Adam Corson-Finnerty said...

Fernando, I am surprised that you reprinted Shirky's slam on academic libraries. I read his article, and share with you what I commented to him:

I take exception to Shirky's description of academic libraries as "bouncers to publishers like Reed-Elsevier; their principal job, in the digital realm, is to prevent interested readers from gaining access to scholarly material."
Academic libraries act as "brokers" for their patron community (faculty, students, researchers, staff) when they license access to databases from providers like Elsevier. Otherwise we would have individual and/or departmental subscriptions that in aggregate would cost the university far more, and deny access to individuals and departments who did not subscribe. Our vendors, like Elsevier, require us to restrict access to our defined community--otherwise they would cancel our contract.
Does Shirky think that academic libraries are *in the way* of public access? That's ridiculous. Elsevier and other commercial vendors are not giving their stuff away for free, so there is no information free lunch if academic libraries somehow disappear.
Academic libraries have spent considerable money and staff time digitizing rare books and manuscripts which are placed on the web for free access to any interested party. In addition, state university libraries have had some success in allowing anyone who enters their buildings to have full database access--and these Univs are open to any citizen of their state. Finally, public libraries have also licensed databases for use by any member of the public who enters their walls.
Shirky's piece is mainly a criticism of Michael Gorman's article. Gorman has made a name for himself in the library world by being an information-revolution curmudgeon. His views do not represent mainstream library views (despite his being elected President of ALA for one year). However, he *is* properly critical of the technophoria crowd who keep asking us if "the library is obsolete."

Adam C-F; Penn Libraries