This is so sad to read. Although it's a bit extreme to compare this decision to political regimes that burned books, this liquidation makes some major presumptions about the future. Who says physical books won't be shown (through some research or something) to be essential after all for education? (The digital books promised to spell doom for physical book sales, but they didn't.) There's no going back after you liquidate; at least by keeping the library, the school allows for a future educational environment it cannot yet see.
Going a bit dystopian, it’s easier to alter the text of a digital book than the print one. If Orwell could’ve imagined an ebook, Winston would’ve been working from home on his laptop.
That’s true. Remember when Amazon (ironically) deleted copies of 1984 off people’s Kindles? One vulnerability of online collections is that they’re centralized—and thus subject to manipulation. Physical book ownership (across public and private libraries) is decentralized and immune from manipulation—except the most egregious and criminal kind.
You usually don’t own your ebooks. You own a license to use them. The terms of the license can be changed, and it’s adios to your access to the book.
Yes. It happened about a decade ago now. They somehow sold an unlicensed copy; when the mistake was realized, they quietly deleted the book off people’s devices. The fact that the book was 1984, made the episode darkly humorous.
Few thoughts here. I've been curious what will happen when Apple Music and Spotify eventually can no longer hold the financial burden of offering the catalogue of all recorded music. Apple loses money on iTunes but the money is in the devices. Still, what if they one day decide, nah. So, then there are X amount of musical history out there that are gone unless you have a real copy. So a small label could maybe get the rights, then if they can find masters, they can release digitally but then history gets fragmented and the haves and have nots of culture grow. Same with TV. There are rumblings that HBO Max won't be around in a few months. So what if you want to watch The Watchmen in 2025? Will you be able to? Where? I totally get that where there is content and a will, someone will make a way but the dependence on digital and streaming every bit of our lives, is attractive but it potentially leaves a-lot of holes in our culture. We've only started to deal with what copyright and content mean in a post internet age. It destroyed the music industry. It made the publishing industry grow but there is a future where laws could change, rights to works could change, and then access is a different thing entirely.
I think this is a real worry. As long as there’s a market for an asset, odds are good you’ll be able to access it for some price. But I can imagine a lot of disruption in access if, e.g., Spotify or Apple decides to eliminate service for, say, the bottom performing 10% of streams. Same vulnerability exists for any data hosted by centralized platforms.
Then again, access to music and books before the digital revolution was spotty at best. While access today is vulnerable to market flux, it’s (currently) far better on net than the analog world of video tape, rare book catalogs, and iffy interlibrary loan. That world had its charms, but it wasn’t terribly reliable either.
True. I enjoy that access. Though I wax in my heart about the fun and mystery of elusive items. What worries me is that all things become digital then the rules of access and ownership change or things are edited, or just to use a sci-fi dystopian sounding word, "disappeared." I get this is really catastrophic thinking. Ha ha.
Well,students will have a great excuse for not finishing their papers,no the dog did not eat it. The internet crashed.I love technology,but being 68 I lived before computer, life worked well,so maybe we should keep some of the old days ,like paper books.
I actually love digital tools, but I think some people are so enamored of modern tech they forget how valuable earlier tech can be. The humble book and bookcase is a feat of information technology that’s hard to surpass.
Yeah, I think that might reflect the lack of appreciation for the entire enterprise of a library. It’s not about mere information. It’s an ecosystem of discovery.
That library is shooting itself in the foot. There are pitfalls with being an all-digital library, the biggest being alienating the students who prefer using print sources. If they want to study at a university that will support them, they will look elsewhere, and enrollment at that university will decrease.
This is so sad to read. Although it's a bit extreme to compare this decision to political regimes that burned books, this liquidation makes some major presumptions about the future. Who says physical books won't be shown (through some research or something) to be essential after all for education? (The digital books promised to spell doom for physical book sales, but they didn't.) There's no going back after you liquidate; at least by keeping the library, the school allows for a future educational environment it cannot yet see.
Wayne, that’s exactly right. It’s a shortsighted solution to a problem that has better answers.
Going a bit dystopian, it’s easier to alter the text of a digital book than the print one. If Orwell could’ve imagined an ebook, Winston would’ve been working from home on his laptop.
That’s true. Remember when Amazon (ironically) deleted copies of 1984 off people’s Kindles? One vulnerability of online collections is that they’re centralized—and thus subject to manipulation. Physical book ownership (across public and private libraries) is decentralized and immune from manipulation—except the most egregious and criminal kind.
You usually don’t own your ebooks. You own a license to use them. The terms of the license can be changed, and it’s adios to your access to the book.
No, I've never heard of Amazon deleting 1984. That's funny. I wonder when they realized their mistake. Was it after actually the book itself? :)
Yes. It happened about a decade ago now. They somehow sold an unlicensed copy; when the mistake was realized, they quietly deleted the book off people’s devices. The fact that the book was 1984, made the episode darkly humorous.
Few thoughts here. I've been curious what will happen when Apple Music and Spotify eventually can no longer hold the financial burden of offering the catalogue of all recorded music. Apple loses money on iTunes but the money is in the devices. Still, what if they one day decide, nah. So, then there are X amount of musical history out there that are gone unless you have a real copy. So a small label could maybe get the rights, then if they can find masters, they can release digitally but then history gets fragmented and the haves and have nots of culture grow. Same with TV. There are rumblings that HBO Max won't be around in a few months. So what if you want to watch The Watchmen in 2025? Will you be able to? Where? I totally get that where there is content and a will, someone will make a way but the dependence on digital and streaming every bit of our lives, is attractive but it potentially leaves a-lot of holes in our culture. We've only started to deal with what copyright and content mean in a post internet age. It destroyed the music industry. It made the publishing industry grow but there is a future where laws could change, rights to works could change, and then access is a different thing entirely.
I think this is a real worry. As long as there’s a market for an asset, odds are good you’ll be able to access it for some price. But I can imagine a lot of disruption in access if, e.g., Spotify or Apple decides to eliminate service for, say, the bottom performing 10% of streams. Same vulnerability exists for any data hosted by centralized platforms.
Then again, access to music and books before the digital revolution was spotty at best. While access today is vulnerable to market flux, it’s (currently) far better on net than the analog world of video tape, rare book catalogs, and iffy interlibrary loan. That world had its charms, but it wasn’t terribly reliable either.
True. I enjoy that access. Though I wax in my heart about the fun and mystery of elusive items. What worries me is that all things become digital then the rules of access and ownership change or things are edited, or just to use a sci-fi dystopian sounding word, "disappeared." I get this is really catastrophic thinking. Ha ha.
Also, the serendipity and surprise of analog hunts can be pretty exciting, no doubt.
I think those are valid fears.
Well,students will have a great excuse for not finishing their papers,no the dog did not eat it. The internet crashed.I love technology,but being 68 I lived before computer, life worked well,so maybe we should keep some of the old days ,like paper books.
I actually love digital tools, but I think some people are so enamored of modern tech they forget how valuable earlier tech can be. The humble book and bookcase is a feat of information technology that’s hard to surpass.
Thank you for writing this. I noticed that the new university president has no library work experience in his bloated CV.
Yeah, I think that might reflect the lack of appreciation for the entire enterprise of a library. It’s not about mere information. It’s an ecosystem of discovery.
That library is shooting itself in the foot. There are pitfalls with being an all-digital library, the biggest being alienating the students who prefer using print sources. If they want to study at a university that will support them, they will look elsewhere, and enrollment at that university will decrease.