Another great thought piece from The Atlantic about libraries:
Why We Can’t Afford Not to Create a Well-Stocked National Digital Library System
by David Rothman, a writer in Alexandria, Va, who is the founder of TeleRead, the oldest English-language site offering general e-book news and views.
“Might the time have finally come for a well-stocked national digital library system (NDLS) for the United States?”
Many of the pieces are falling into place. The benefits would be huge for a country with big econmc, education and employment challenges. Could this be the next space race?
It’s worth the read and the discussion on the site and on library lists, tweets and blogs has been intense.
What do you think?
Stephen
5 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
as long as the info is backed up IN PRINT somewhere.
A giant, government controlled system with every book, and every person who’s read it—what could possibly go wrong?
Deeply offensive idea, doubly so for being discussed positively by a profession with an otherwise clear preference against government monitoring and for reader privacy.
Thankfully, the idea is dead on arrival. A country that refuses to have a national registry for gun ownership out of concern for its misuse is not about to have a national registry for book ownership.
Stephen, Judith and Tim…
S: Thanks for your kind words.
J: I’m in favor of all types of backups–with different media, different server operating systems and so on. Keep in mind that paper isn’t exactly the ideal medium for dynamic databases. A “must” would be to monitor the storage constantly and in all respects, geographical and otherwise, make it as redundant as possible. Certainly a national digital library system would be more reliable than private corporations alone–we need different business models! And, yes, I like the idea of nongovernment-owned backups as well. Finally don’t forget about the experiences of New Orleans libraries after Katrina hit. Given the threat of global warming when vast sections of certain major cities may be washed over, shouldn’t we be less papercentric? Hardy THE reason to digitize for real–but certainly A reason.
T: I appreciate the many glories of LibraryThing. If you offered enough value, there would still be a market for your services—perhaps even more of one. You might even be a contractor for the national digital library system or participating libraries. LibraryThing is great at what it does. Whether or not you’ll forever control a majority of LibraryThing (is Wikipedia accurate?), I assume you’re thinking about your future. And could the real problem be that you feel that the LibraryThing-style business model would be better off with paper books continuing to dominate?
In a somewhat related vein, I also wonder about your paper-vs.-electronic cost calculations for the per-book-circ. costs of libraries; you really need to look at A/C costs, construction expenses, etc., if you are not doing so already. Could the same fears about your business models be at work here in regard to the possibility of a well-stocked naitonal digital library system? If so, chill out—given the contracting possibilities.
As for requiring a national book registry, that’s nowhere in the plan, and in fact I’ve told how we could use time windows and other techniques to keep private bookstores going. Are you saying I want people to register privately owned books–including those bought through anonymous cash or whatever? A complete canard. What’s ironic is that you’ve built a business around people revealing their tastes in books; does this mean you’re on the NRA’s S list? Hardly. It’s voluntary—just as publicly revealed book lists could be in the case of a national digital library system. But here’s to privacy, too! End user wishes above all!
Tim, I hope that even from the perspective of a businessman interested in the long-term future of LibraryThing—in fact maybe especially from that perspective–you’ll reconsider. Given the decline of paper and the rise of digital, are you saying you prefer for public libraries to fade away in favor of Google-zon—just to end your fears about your business? Please reconsider. Right now you remind me of Jack Valenti fretting about VCRs.
Thanks,
David Rothman
[email protected]
703-370-6540
David,
Thank you for your long post, but I must say, you entirely missed the point of my remarks.
I have no idea what commercial interests you have, but I respect you as an intellectual in this space, and wouldn’t bring your commercial interests into a discussion of politics or political theory.
The fact is that my opposition to a government ebook system has absolutely nothing to do with LibraryThing, except insofar as LibraryThing’s rules and culture reflects my values–cherishing the freedom to read, taking a maximalist approach to privacy, and having no speech code for discussions.(1)
The same goes for my other opinions about ebooks. You will search long and hard for any argument I make about ebook and LibraryThing as a company. In fact, I think ebooks are probably a net gain for LibraryThing as the company–and you will be hearing some news along that front soon. But I see the other side; there is a danger that vendor lock-in will squeeze independent players out, and make bookish apps as dependent on them as apps are on Facebook now.
In short, my fear that libraries will hurt bookstores, libraries and eventually authors and intellectual culture have nothing to do with LibraryThing. I regret that you had to go there.
Best,
Tim
1. The site allows any opinion to be expressed, even vile ones, but they must be expressed without personally attacking another member. The restriction is like the right to say anything in Parliament or Congress, except to call a colleague an ass.
Thanks for your note, Tim. I do think that commercial interests can influence even the best of people. As a writer, I would obviously benefit, and I’ll also disclose, as I did on the Atlantic site, that I am a very small Google shareholder–although I was pushing the vision years before Google existed and I hate the proposed Google Books settlement. Talk about the perils of relying on just one company or a few! This is exactly the kind of risk that a well-stocked national digital library system could reduce.
I, too, favor privacy, the reason why I strongly believe that people should be able to buy e-books with anonymous digital cash. And as noted, I would emphatically oppose a mandatory book ownership registry. While most ANY kind of library carries SOME privacy risk, we should also consider the major benefits in terms of growing the number of book- and knowledge-lovers.
Finally, I have already told how delayed release of bestsellers and other strategies could help protect bookstores–which of course would also benefit from the increased interests in books.
Best right back,
David