8/14/2019 Dont write the librarys obit yet.

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As part of the task ofdigital informationmanagement (DH

Education, July 19, 2007)digital decay is contrastedwith paper decay, prolifera-tion of gray content on theWeb and how the trio fac-tors (accessibility, ease of

use and perceived utility)accelerate use of digital in-formation are discussed.While the unpublished andthe semi-published (gray)are receiving high attentionin the digital world, real e-publishing is happening ata lower pace than expected.

The growth of e-journalsis neither rapid nor signifi-

cant as was initially expect-ed. Todays e-journals arenot real e-journals. Only pa-per replacements of some journals of society and hy-brid e-journals of commer-cial publishers (both re-quire least social and cul-tural changes) are flourish-ing without full electronici-ty journals ( see Hovov and

Gray for an excellent re-view article on the topic inthe latest Advances in Com-puters, volume 67, 2006).

In case of e-journals,without backward compati-bility, institutions and li-braries are at the mercy of acontinually changing digi-tal world. It has been wellestablished that a typical re-

searcher (scientist) uses 5 to15 journals. But the consor-tia deals of commercialpublishers and their greedyagents are boasting thatthey provide access to thou-sands of journals, usually10 to 20 times more than the

number of journals sub-scribed by an institution ora library.

As far as institutionsand libraries are con-cerned, digital access man-agement consisting of han-dling license agreement,price negotiation, offerevaluation, usage assess-ment, etc. became new exer-

cises wherein publishersand their agents decide anddictate terms.

Incidentally, e-books areyet to take off. DigitalRights Management (DRM)is the main issue. Havingnot been able to resolve thecopyright issue, more andmore gray literature liketheses and dissertations

and copyright-free oldbooks are getting digitised.Yet we do not have confi-dence to discard old dilapi-dated printed material afterdigitising, but try to makecopies to continue preserveand / or use.

Yes,technology (ICT) hasenabled instant access toenormous information any-

where anytime. One seriousconsequence of this accessto excessproblem is the re-versal of the traditional se-quence of selection andthen accessing informationin the new digital world.That is traditionally li-

braries were first selectingthe material and then allow-ing their users to accessthem. Now the users have toaccess and retrieve a largechunk of material and thenstart sifting the mass for se-lecting the required infor-mation from thousands andat times, millions of hits. Inother words, the filtering re-

sponsibility got shifted tousers and the value addi-tion of libraries is lost.

We have witnessed acommunication revolutionin the recent past withtremendous increase inspeed as well as frequency ofuse. But we have forgottenthat the density (or value) ofinformation communicated

is inversely proportional tothe speed of communica-tion. Our recent modes ofcommunication like mobilephones and e-mails are toofast, but the contents pass-ing through them are pro-portionately diluted.

The cost of sharing anddistribution of informationis low and negligible in the

digital world. But sharing isa complex human processsubjected to the psychologyof the individual and hisprofessional and cultural

predisposition. Despite cer-tain drawbacks, problemsand adverse predictions, aclose runner-up position ac-corded to Wikipedia byNa-ture in a comparative studywith the traditionallystrongEncyclopedia Britan-nica is a triumph for collab-oration and open accessmovement.

It is well known that theforces and objectives be-hind resource sharingamong libraries and form-ing a consortia include: 1.Existence of unutilisedspare capacity of resource,2. Optimum utilisation ofresource, 3. Budgetarycrunch, and 4. Avoiding du-plication. It is difficult to

say that these objective aremuch better achieved in thenew digital environment,particularly in view of thecontent boom, enormousduplication and unutilisedresources as well as hugeexpenditure indirectly in-curred by centralised agen-cies towards consortia sub-scriptions.

As said earlier, ICT hasenabled information shar-ing and collaborative work-ing. But the collaborativeevaluation of content in theInternet has become a mar-keting tool. Amazon usesevaluation and views ofcustomers to rate books andpresent to others to furtherits commercial interest.The

information managementcommunity requires is thattechnology learn userslikes and dislikes over timein order to dynamically andconsistently deliver theright content to users.

With the technology-driven changed scenario ofcausing a power shift andcomputers becoming

household appliances, allkinds of information arewithin the reach of thecommon man. Then, are weheading towards the end of

libraries is the question of-ten raised. Information iseverywhere and everybodyneeds information. But asusual, libraries are contin-ued to be used by a smallsubset of the population.Hence it is meaningless tocompare libraries withGoogle. With the invasion ofthe Internet, no doubt the

number of referencequeries to libraries have de-clined and the innovativepersonalised service likeAsk a librarian on the Webhas also been made redun-dant by auto answeringservices of the popularsearch engines.

One prediction is that li-braries, particularly public

libraries, may stay and be-come intellectual com-mons or community cen-tres in the future. Anothersurvey (of course, in theWest) revealed that li-braries continue to be grad-ed as top among communityservices. Yet another studyshowed that there is nochange in the number of

construction projects of li-brary buildings over theyears. As early as the 1970s,experts predicted a paper-less society by the 1990s.Now, there are a few wish-fully predicting that li-braries will die soon. Nei-ther did a paperless societyarrive nor are libraries be-coming extinct. Every tech-

nology has to become oldand has to be modified oroccasionally replaced bysome better newer technol-ogy. But the basic issues re-main the same with needfor some refinement.

M S SRIDHAR

e-mail:mirlesridhar@gmail.com

Dont write the librarys obit yetThe informationblitzkrieg on theNet has led to

people predictingthe death of thelibrary. Butdigitising has along way to gobefore it becomesa threat to the

good old library.