|
|
 |
|
Traditional Roles and Future Issues
In expressing concerns about the permanence of digital resources, I am not saying that the future should look like the past, that the Web should work like a library. Each has value and purpose. But I do propose that we look at what libraries have done and determine whether some of the same attributes and strengths are needed in the emerging electronic environment.
Let me briefly highlight some of the traditional roles played by libraries in
the support of scholarship and research:
- Libraries bring people and information together. In a research institution, a significant number of items are acquired with the expectation that they will be needed not now but rather at some time in the future. It is the nature of research materials that it often takes years for information to be needed, years to "find" its audience. Universities have a responsibility
not only to provide information for their faculties and students but also to preserve the intellectual and cultural heritage of society.
- Libraries add value by organizing information into "collections," by placing items into classifications. The selection of materials is active, intentional, and consonant with the institution's mission. Libraries construct systems of access, both intellectual and physical.
- Libraries manage the collections and allow for the retrieval of items so that they may be used by individuals in-house, locally, or through interlibrary lending. While managing the use of materials, libraries also protect the privacy of users. In subscribing to the American Library Association Code of Ethics, libraries agree "to protect each user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and sources consulted, borrowed, acquired, or transmitted."
- Libraries engage in the preservation of collections, work that encompasses a substantial range of materials. In music collections alone, there are wax cylinders, acetate disks, vinyl disks, magnetic tapes, performance videos, CDs, and DVDs, in addition to materials in sheet and
book form.
The creation of new knowledge is founded on the ability to rigorously pursue diverse routes of inquiry. New work builds on previously recorded knowledge, in all formats.
Putting aside libraries for the moment, we must also deal with the researcher's inquiries in the years ahead:
- How can I know that this e-text is the latest edition? Is it the British
version? Is it the one with the author's emendations? Do I have the first
conference paper or the pre-print?
- How can I find what I know I saw yesterday on this terminal?
- How can I download this to be sure that I can use it again tomorrow?
- How do I know this is authentic?
It is certainly fair to say that not all information is intended to last. But how do we determine-or who determines-what should last? What if none of the "temporary" or "less meaningful" information had survived from Tiananmen Square, or Desert Storm, or World Ware II, or the Civil War, or expeditions to discover the American West? What if diaries and personal correspondence had not survived?
With all the enthusiasm for using digital content, there is relatively little understanding of what we expect to build and how well it will expand to the future. With little question, digital content excels in terms of providing access. There are exciting opportunities to bring together in a digital context items that in the current physical context would require an individual to use many different facilities. The increase in digital texts such as journals, books, manuscripts, photographs, and other research material provides an array of resources available around the clock. There are exciting developments that will support new ways for learning, for teaching, and for delivering library services.
For example, imagine holding in your hand a music manuscript from South India and at the same time being able to work online with the field notes of the anthropologist and to hear the recording as it was captured in the field years ago and to click on photos that were taken at that time to see buildings, the marketplace, train stations, clothing, a culture that no longer exists. Imagine what it would be like to know the context in which the music was produced and enjoyed, to know what the composer or artist was a part of, to know that particular "slice" of time and place. That is why we build digital libraries, to stimulate learning and research, even though we know there are risks and challenges.
|
