March of the Librarians

Twice a year they gather to "learn, network, collect free stuff, and possibly to mate."

Copyright and Related Issues

A handbook on copyright and related issues for libraries. I wonder how it stacks up against The Library's Legal Answer Book?

[Edited to add:] Well, and here's the author of that book's take on the handbook, so it looks good.

Books Rule!

These are awesome!

Read all about it

Looks like Wyoming is preserving newspapers too. They're doing digital, though, while the project I'm working for here in Illinois is doing microfilm.

Once they finish I'll be able to look and see if my Dad or grandparents were ever in the news. I wonder if Bair Oil even had a newspaper. (Also, I think that it's awesome that that website I just linked to is called epodunk.com!)

Symbiosis

Brewster Khale discusses his digitization initiative in this interview.

I think he has some great insights into the relationship between libraries, publishers, and users.

"What kind of world do we want in the digital era? Do we want to have libraries like we grew up with, ones with old and new books available to those that go to the library? Or do we only want what corporations are currently peddling? Of course people want the library, but how do we do that in such a way it does not sink an industry? Libraries worked because they were a pain to go to. So instead of frequently going to a library for new books, people went to book stores. Also, libraries spend $3 to $4 billion each year on publishers' products. So how do we build a digital environment and ecology that allows new works to get created and paid for, preserve them long-term, provide access to the underprivileged, provide a different kind of access for scholarship and journalism and all in the new world. It is not simple. But it is important."

(Emphasis mine.)

I think these are a couple of points that don't get talked about a lot in the digitization debate. Libraries provide access to everyone, but there are downsides to getting your materials there too. You have to physically go there. You don't get to keep the book. You can't mark the book up or make notes in it. You might have to wait to get it if someone's already checked it out. So there's still incentive for people to buy books, which in turn funds the publishers so they can acquire and publish more books. Neither libraries nor bookstores would work on their own. Bookstores can never have the back catalog (the long tail for you 2.0-ish folks) that libraries have. And libraries can't give everyone their own copy of a work to keep. The solution for digitization isn't to eliminate one or the other, but to find a way to keep some sort of symbiotic balance. Khale also points out that libraries themselves are an income source for publishers, so there's a mutually beneficial relationship there too.

The way it should be

Thank goodness some companies actually have a sense of humor about themselves. In response to GetaFirstLife.com, Linden Labs sent the creator this letter.