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Can Architects Save Libraries from the Internet?
theodp writes "Slate has an interesting photo essay exploring the question of how to build a public library in the age of Google, Wikipedia, and Kindle. The grand old reading rooms and stacks of past civic monuments are giving way to a new library-as-urban-hangout concept, as evidenced by Seattle's Starbucks-meets-mega-bookstore central library and Salt Lake City's shop-lined education mall. Without some dramatic changes, The Extinction Timeline predicts libraries will R.I.P. in 2019."
Since I started my studies, I spent exactly 0 hours and 0 minutes in the university libraries. I access all the scientific material online, and even the books. Those very few books that I could not find in electronic form online (and by online I mean in our university's electronic library) and I could not do without, I bought them. But the idea of walking into the library, borrow a book and then return in in one week, it just feels impractical at this point, to me.
For antique books, sure, libraries will always exist, but even there I'd prefer to see them as conservation points where they are transferred into electronic format(s) made available online. Being an antique book collector myself, I would hate to know that precious antique books are being touched by people who don't wash their hands, or worse.
So basically, I don't think libraries have much reason to exist in their current form. Perhaps something like a public study-and-discussion place, with refreshments and internet access?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
The Extinction Timeline is total garbage. "Mending things" and repair shops are going to be extinct in 2009? Laughable. Secrets and text based searching, and the computer mouse by 2020?
Demented But Determined.
I also remember the first time I dialed into a BBS and discovered volumes of reading material I could freely download... next came my first exposure to the Internet through USENET and later the WWW. My excitement grew with each new advance in information sharing. These technologies were all logical stepping stone extensions to what came before them, and enabled me to access worlds of information that simply weren't attainable before.
Would I mourn the death of physical libraries where I can walk up and down the aisles? Yes, but for largely sentimental reasons. While the dreams a "paperless society" have largely been unfulfilled to date, the time is rapidly coming when many of the core concepts will be a reality. I'm an optimist in that I like to focus on learning about new ways to share information.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Netcraft confirms it!
.02USD
(sorry, just had to get it in)
Best thing about libraries is they are quiet places to study, read, write etc. I use them for research and when I need to get away from the internet.
So it looks like they are going to try to produce something that will be state of the art and competes with electronic media. This will be doomed from the start as technology changes so rapidly, any library built will probably be obsolete before it is finished. Probably the best thing to do is figure out a libraries strengths and play to them instead.
my
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
"education mall"? really? only a politician who is trying to line his pockets could come up with something like this.
this has less to do with making libraries urban hangouts than subsidizing the shops that are now going into them.
even knowledge/education is a commodity/industry in america.
teachers will be called "knowledge technicians"
mr c
"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." - R. Feynman
Yes, I get a lot of articles for my work from online journals, but sometimes (especially with older articles) they aren't scanned in and I have actually gone through stacks of old journals and dug up an article and photocopied it. Aside from this, whenever I do find an article online, I print it off if it's important and relevant enough for me to read it and then I highlight it to hell and put notes everywhere. You can't do that with pdfs (well, if you want to save it anyways) and I can't curl up on the couch, lie on my back and hold my laptop above my face for an hour while reading an article either.
It would be terrible if we lost libraries and books. I can't imagine a generation of kids downloading books and printing them out or staring at a computer screen all day reading one. I know that when I was a kid I couldn't afford to get my own books and my parents seldom bought them for me (well, once I grew out of books they liked me to read) so the library was my salvation. I never would have gotten into a great number of authors and subjects if not for libraries.
what's that now?
To expand on your point, it's good to remember that just because something is available on the Internet, it does not necessarily follow that it is automatically better/easier to view than something that it available at your library.
For example, most (if not all) of the New York Times archives are available on-line... but for a fee. The New York Times charges $3.95 for a single archive or $15.95 for a ten-pack of articles. Compare this to a archive of the newspaper in a bricks-n-mortar library which will allow you to look through their records for free as long as your willing to work the microfilm reader.
If, for example, you're a sports writer who is researching contemporary coverage of the 1972 Mets, you'd end up paying quite a lot more to do your research over the Internet as things stand now.
"Flag on the moon. How did it get there?"
The grand old reading rooms and stacks of past civic monuments are giving way to a new library-as-urban-hangout concept
As opposed to the library-as-indigent-hangout concept, which has been around for decades or maybe centuries.
IANAArchitect (though I am an architecture student), but it would seem to me that decreasing relevance of the library in the urban fabric is more of a problem of programming than design, and one that is being addressed just fine already. As the Internet becomes a valid source of information and entertainment, the libraries are shifting focus, becoming more akin to public computer labs. While the appearance is different (rows of PCs instead of books), they still serve the purpose of providing free democratic access to knowledge. The next big shift is creating a more social atmosphere within the library, which as the TFA shows is ongoing and would seem to be effective.
Is the library changing? Most certainly, yes. Is it dying? Not so much.
A fine novel by a fine SF author (review: http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2006/11/vernor_vinges_r.html) He forecasts (probably tongue-in-cheek) the end of paper-book libraries when a private company gets the contract to digitize all the remaining paper books by the equivalent of the Human Genome Project "shotgun" technique. Their quick and efficient method of digitizing is to throw multiple copies of the book into a shredder, blow the fragments down a tunnel lined with scanning cameras, and fast computers piece all the fragments together to make a 99.99% accurate representation of the original text. Naturally they are opposed by book lovers who consider this horrifying - but it's all incidental to the main story line. I love Vernor Vinge's ideas!
their reason for being will simply evolve
this is even hinted at in the story summary
we still have colisseums, we don't feed christians to lions in them. we still have public squares, we don't have gallows in them
true, we don't really have forts with cannons and we don't have stables, but we do have military installations, and we do have garages
so its not like the need for a public place for information storage and retrieval will go ever go away, just how it is accessed will change and evolve
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
As another who has spent a considerable amount of time in a library, I do find that there is room for improvement. I don't think that they will be gone anytime soon, but I think that a large part of the problem has to do with financing. My university library (undergrad) was only a place for me to study. I NEVER USED IT TO DO RESEARCH. Furthermore, in medical school, the library served the exact same purpose. On the flip side, as a medical resident, I used the hospital library extensively. Why? I am not going to pay to get access to articles my library can get me. That is the only reason I used it. I was doing research and it required me to get access to things I couldn't otherwise pay for.
Growing up, I used the library to be able to freely read books.
I think this remains the fundamental and most important role of a library. Equalizing access to information that the public could not otherwise get to. Sure, as a professional, I can afford to pay for things, but it seems that costs are proportional. The specialized texts I want now are considerably more expensive than the texts I had wanted earlier.
As long as there is an underclass, the role of a library will remain important. Given trends in society, the underclass is growing and the divide between those with access to information will only further it. Granted most people with access to resources don't use it, but every now and then it will make a huge difference.
Furthermore, one has to consider the library in question. A community library serves a very different purpose than a university library. I think that a community library would be better off avoiding trying to provide large amounts of space towards computers. Should they have them? Yes, its important to provide a complete set of services for those who may not otherwise be able to have them.
What needs to be done to ensure the relevance of libraries? How about longer hours? With changing work schedules, knowing that the library will be open would be useful. I hate having to leave an hour after arrival because the place is going to close. How about an in library mirror of the Gutenberg free text collection to ensure availability despite loss of internet connectivity. Libraries have been known as warehouses of information; just because the data is digital, this should not change.
Printing services for this information. How about being able to select a text from the Gutenberg (or other) online collection and paying X dollars to have a copy printed and bound in some fashion for pickup. This can be both a revenue generating and role preserving improvement to a library.
A coffee shop. I think that Barnes n' Noble have done more to "hurt" libraries than any other place. They're open longer and I can drink some coffee.... Its a huge improvement.
Club meetings - chess, reading - local competitions for the kids. There are many services that can be provided through a library that many libraries have already adopted.
My main request would be that they mirror important literary texts locally. Given the questionable and temporary quality of electronic media, its important to have as many copies distributed as widely as possible.
done ranting... need to find another task to avoid reading.
When all else fails, try.
I think the mouse is already outdated.
My webcam should be tracking my eyes, and know exactly where I am trying to click.
Just transfer the left / right mouse buttons & scroll wheel onto the keyboard and I can stop moving my hands!
Seriously, does no one else think it's impractical we have to keep taking our hands off the keyboard?
The death of the library is a harbinger of the death of free education.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"This I agree with, although I can't see why they couldn't function electronically as well."
You don't mean entirely electronically, do you?
I'm an academic working in the field of medieval culture. While I can access facsimiles (print and electronic) of medieval manuscripts, it's sometimes essential to look at the originals. You can't rely on a facsimile to tell you whether pages have been removed, or whether two texts were originally bound together or created separately. A facsimile won't always show up erasures from the text.
What I'm trying to get at is that there are two ways of treating books (and other sources of printed information). The first is to see them as simple repositories of information, whose content can be translated into electronic form without any loss of meaning. The second is to see them as objects of study or artefacts in themselves. Some books can be treated in the first way without any problems; others must be treated in the second unless we're prepared to lose a lot in understanding them. For me, this second category of book is one reason why libraries will never entirely disappear.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
That may be true in scientific disciplines. Right now, I have about two dozen books from the university library. Only a couple of them would be available online. Intensive reading is also much easier with physical books, which I read far more than papers: one of my courses required students to read two books a week.
University libraries are one thing; public libraries another. The local public library is very popular. Students do their homework there, access the Internet, or hang out after school. They have children's programs and other events. The building looks out over a sports field, with a view of mountains beyond: it's the sort of place people like to be. I drop by there several times a week. I borrow a lot of DVDs, but I also peruse the books. The key, I think, is that it's close by - I can walk there or drop in on my way somewhere else. If a library is integrated into the community, somewhere nearby and convenient, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't thrive. Books, movies, forums about the future of copyright, whatever - it will find a role. Unfortunately most of our communities are planned so that activities are isolated and reachable only by car. A library treated as a warehouse, to which patrons must trek to take out and return materials, is likely doomed.
Being able to search the library catalogue, and reserve books, online has increased my library usage. One of the handier things web access has given me.
I concur. The availability of cheap, good quality, sophisticated and powerful tools makes it even more rewarding to build and mend stuff these days.
That the Internet provides inspiration for D.I.Y. projects is a big factor, too. Sometimes, I'm inspired by the World Wide Web to go to a library, even. Having library services available on the Web makes using a real library all the more worthwhile.
I think calling the Extinction Timeline garbage is an understatement. Sometimes I can make cool stuff out of garbage.
Blancmange
If we find that people seem to be getting dumber, libraries are partially to blaim since they haven't stuck to their original mission.
Libraries are meant to lift up the community. To push knowledge into the dark corners that exist everywhere, not just in the minds of the poor. Funded by tax revenue, they increase the buying power of the average citizen and lower the cost to access knowledge. They increase demand for that knowledge by stocking it in warehouses. They make that knowledge easier to access by organizing it and providing assistance in finding it.
Some libraries have lost their way because they thought it was all about the paper. Some have simply become centers for the poor while the rest of the community is increasingly satisfied by the deluge of cheap, easy but often lower quality information found online. Notice how most of the information in wikipedia is pop culture? Where is the depth? The trend is towards the dumbing down of the citizenry.
Libraries have a mandate by the tax payers to continue to be booster for knowledge. Don't think installing a bunch of internet workstations is the going to be enough. They need to come to us, here on the internet. They need to put up websites where knowledge that normally costs extra, requires physically driving to a certain place or otherwise is difficult enough to access that more and more people simply ignore it, is made easily accessible. There is a lot of information on the internet but it lacks depth in key areas. Libraries have that information and can put it on the internet using public funds. The net result is that the average citizen is once again encouraged to delve deeper into the depths of knowledge and not be satisified by the common knowledge available on the street.
This boost of knowledge in a community can occur by:
1. Provide access to paid information services on the internet (newspapers, etc) for no extra charge
2. Scan and digitize information on a ongoing basis and make it available online. negotiate copyright access for the community
3. Organize information so that it is easier to find. this means developing websites that are easy to use and provide quick access to democratizing knowledge
And I am sure there is more, have to go before I can finish writing this...
It gives the so called, self appointed 'technologists' something to do other than produce any useful work.
Here is my prediction: By 2020 people will finally get sick of these self appointed prophets and will hook them up to the Matrix to use as power sources.
I believe I've written that myself, but I don't believe it. All public libraries do is get busier and busier. When they put terminals in place for the public they get mobbed. The terminals are busy all-day-long. There are never enough. Free WiFi is also busy all day long. these aren't all the 'information disenfranchised' who don't have computer at home either. Whether they have to compete with siblings at home, or find the library more convenient, or enjoy greater bandwidth (The local lib has fiber optic) I don't know. I just know they are busy.
Someone said the online resources are never used and are there to make administrators feel good?? How ignorant! Statistics show double digit increased use every year, from live homework help to academic magazine indexes, you can't get that at home without a subscription. Instead, the library pools its resources and buys subscriptions for the entire community. That's what government SHOULD do, leverage your taxes rather than simply tell you what to do. The average Return on Investment of a public library is over 800%, i.e.: If you had to purchase the information that a library gives out every year year and compare the purchase cost to the library budget (paid by taxes), you'd pay 8 times as much for the same thing. In my state the average cost to a homeowner for their local public library is about 25 cents per thousand dollars of value. In other words, a $400,000 house costs you $100 per year for the public library, less than $10 a month. What's that? Three lattes? It's not like the library breaks your taxpaying back. Look to the public schools for that. The library is flat out the best deal the taxpayer has, period.
Someone once described the Internet as a library with all the books dumped at random in the middle of the floor. What makes the library different is an organized body of knowledge with people assigned to help you. The people in public libraries generally have a Master's degree in Librarianship, and in academic libraries a second masters degree in their subject area. These folks are more familiar with your subject than you are and they've been doing database searches since well before you were born.
If you're one of these people who believe 'well-educated' means being able to search Google, read a blog, and search Wikipedia, then may God have mercy on your soul.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
should public money be used for this? Can't it go to feed the homeless instead?
No! Public libraries can and must continue their roll as repositories of verifiable information. Copyright law in it's current form makes this impossible and must be changed. It is not good enough for us to trust primary historical documents such as newspapers to their original publisher. We must allow libraries verbatim copy, and distribution. If we don't, what we will have is an Orwellian memory hole instead of a library. The same kinds of things can be said about all periodicals, journals and even books. We as a whole must never allow private interests to control information. Information must remain free and it will have to be truly liberated if it's going to be that way. DRM and dissapearning media have no place in free societies. Don't worry, if publishers don't want to play ball authors will. Universities are full of people working on "labor of love" textbooks and other material they expect no financial return on. B and N can keep their paper and coffee shop megaplexes, the rest of us want knowledge. Free societies require it.
The good news is that libraries of the future will be cheaper than those of the present. When you liberate yourself from paper you eliminate most of the costs of libraries - shelving, circulation and all that. The difference will be put to good use and free economies tend to minimize financial ruin.
1. It is much more difficult for a nefarious entity (be it a government agency, a political opponent, an underhanded corporation) to "edit" to data with the printed page as opposed to the internet. 2. Information does not accidentally get deleted after 30 days with a bound book. 3. Have you ever held a rare book in your hands? Touched the history? See the margin notes from hundred of years ago? Marveled at the hand colored pictures? Can't do that with the internet.
Saying "the internet" will make libraries obsolete is like saying "tools" will make factories obsolete. The internet has allowed even the smallest libraries near-instant access to information they'd never have dreamed of having even ten years ago.
Say you're Brock Sampson and you need a copy of the Chilton's repair guide for your '69 Dodge Charger, since your copy was destroyed when the Guild of Callamitous Intent assaulted the Venture Compound. Used to be there was no way in Hell a local library would have something that specific. Maybe a book on general auto repair, but no way you get detailed info. If you were really lucky, maybe you could mail-order a copy from somewhere, get it in 4-6 weeks. Now, even the smallest library can have access to *every single Chilton's manual every published.* EVER. Every revision, every edition. Not only that, but the authors/publishers are properly compensated for their work, and not one tree had to die.
(and yes, you could probably buy the Chilton's guide through Amazon, eBay, etc, get it overnighted. That still doesn't trump free (nothing out of pocket) and instant.)
Even if that particular library doesn't have access to the data pimps....er....publisher's databases, the inter-library loan system has advanced to a point the local librarian can tell you if any library in the state / region / sometimes nation has a copy, or if the copy is available and probably get it to you within a few days.
The internet has "answers", Libraries have reference materials, sources, and most of all hard data. Digitization is nothing but a boost to libraries and Librarians. (Real Librarians anyway. Not bespectacled old bitties with their hair in a bun, a pocket full of "Shush", and an axe to grind because someone took away their perfectly good card catalog and replaced it with a solitaire machine.)
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.