A friend who is a professor at a university in New York had this to say about it:
====== Oh that news is terrible! Just read it. Digitizing collections for backup purposes is an EXCELLENT idea. Using digital copies as replacements for real brick-and-mortar libraries is a TERRIBLE idea.
Way back when I was earning my PhD, the university library converted to a digital indexing system. I remember showing up one day and could do no research because the system was down and they did not have the old card system still in place.
There's something really nice about having a physical copy of a book in your hands to read, it's so easy to remember that it was actually made and written by a human being. I don't get that same sense from a digital copy of a book or article. In fact, if I am reading a PDF I often don't really read at all - I hit the search button and find only the exact information I need.
I fully expect books to be deleted from records, and various other monkey business to occur.
The nicest thing about a library is that they actually have LIBRARIANS who are oftentimes some of the highest educated and most knowledgable people around. I remember needing books on different hobby topics (such as photography or sound recording) and having librarians recommend books on the topic. They were exceptionally helpful, and even the best search engine can't compete with that, except in price.
Everyone who loves digitization claims that it's really democracy in action, that it lets even the smallest town have a world-class library etc. But that argument is basically bullshit from my perspective. You'll have access to a series of books that hae been digitized and a lot of interesting stuff will fall by the wayside. I really can't glorify this. ========
That's not a slashdot comment, it's a horror story!!
Especially the part about THROWING AWAY those special collections. [shudder]
That was one of the reasons behind the Open Library project -- some of these obscure old novels, old journals, and suchlike are down to a bare handful of surviving copies, and we don't really know how many have been entirely lost (remember that most pre-1920 or so will not have a copy in the Library of Congress collection, either.) Digitizing was the last ditch attempt to save them. But digital editions are relatively ephemeral, and far more easily lost to technical misadventure. Dare we destroy all our paper copies? I think not... unless the true objective is an eventual dark age.
I had similar thoughts involving someone's buddy the IT contractor. NEW! SHINY! MAKES SOMEONE A LOT OF MONEY! But in the process loses the single most critical anchor point of ANY institution of learning and scholarship -- the physical library, with the myriad advantages that come only with real books.
Books get "brodarted" (adding those protective plastic covers) ONCE, at a cost of around a dollar apiece (including labour). And it's fairly rare that a book needs to be rebound, but it must be cheaper than replacing them, or it wouldn't be done at all. And they don't require any ongoing maintenance other than a grunt to reshelve them, nor any particular environment for storage and use other than a normal weathertight building with normal lights (and you'd need all that, plus a network admin, for an ebook system with any sort of public access, so where's the savings??)
So -- one-time and occasional costs vs. ongoing 24/7/365 costs in a market where energy is increasingly expensive -- I think that's a no-brainer, myself. Especially since the hardcopies are already PAID FOR, as is the building and incidentals. But firing the librarians... that will probably even out the ongoing costs.
But if you're a student doing obscure research, there is nothing quite like a savvy librarian for locating what you need. NOW who has that job??
I think I smell a contractor and a lucrative backroom deal...
I think you are right, despite the ubiquity of the internet and digital copies of stuff. When I hear of an institution as fundamental as a school disposing of their durable paper library in favour of a relatively-ephemeral digital format, I think of where we'd be if all information were digitized -- then *lost*.
It could happen. And that would result in a dark age indeed.
You can't just browse an ebook -- or at least it's a lot harder to do.
I've also found that a work I just couldn't get into as an ebook, I find quite readable as a real book. (And I'm quite accustomed to ebooks, so unfamiliarity with the medium is not the issue.)
I think this will quite effectively discourage casual reading and fuzzy research, by limiting it to what is readily available, AND happens to fit the search terms you can remember at that moment. No more "that looks interesting" and "I thought I saw something like that over yonder" moments.
Personally, I wouldn't want to attend a school that lacked a real library. Ebooks have their uses, and can sometimes be just what you needed, but they are not and do not replace real books.
As to the comparison with scrolls... I guess they won't be teaching archeology or history at this school anymore, either.
"You should not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered."
-- Lyndon Johnson, 36th President of the U.S.
That's a good point... what if the goal IS to shut down the economy? Seriously, I think it's worth investigating, given the unbelievable spending hikes we've seen in this administration's first few months.
The question to ask is, WHO *benefits* from the collapse of the U.S. economy? "FOLLOW THE MONEY" is *always* good practical politics.
Upon RTFAing, I had the thought that this sounds like a thinly veiled excuse to simply seize control over the internet, mainly to limit communications among "unauthorized persons" (that would be We The People and our disagreeable notions about individual liberty). I'd guess when (probably not IF, should this pass) that happens, control will never be entirely returned to the private sector.
It used to happen, tho. See my post above re Byron's output. And he wasn't exceptionally wordy for his day, just got better-preserved than most and with more idle time to put quill to parchment.
People like to talk. Lacking face to face or voice communication, they will talk through writing, ie. letters. Hell, look what we're doing right now!
A curiosity in my personal library -- an 1847 complete works of Byron, including ALL of his letters and journals. I swear, the man's pen NEVER shut up. It's 625 crowded double-column pages in 3 or 4 point type. Imagine his output with the greater speed of a computer and keyboard instead of a quill and inkwell!!
"The Stanford students were almost always less enthusiastic about their in-class writing because it had no audience but the professor: It didn't serve any purpose other than to get them a grade."
Simple solution: have the entire class grade each paper, and use that "class grade" to substantially weight the final grade as given by the professor.
Would doubtless put a quick brake on lazy or plagiaristic writing, too, since in the way of such an audience, any such flaw will be seized upon and flayed without mercy.
The downside? Pretty soon no one would write a paper that didn't substantially conform to the current class groupthink, lest they be flayed in public. Sometimes there are reasons why your grade comes from a professor and not your peers.
I guess that's fine if you never buy more at once than you can fit in a backpack.
And I don't know what home delivery costs where you are, but in my part of SoCal it averages about $50, if you can get it.
I detest malls myself, but I remember how crippled my ability to shop *anywhere* was when all I had for transportation was bicycle or bus or the shoe-leather express.
I think you could probably find a good correlation between "areas that hire good cops" and "low crime area", tho methinks the causation runs the other direction (ie. low crime areas beget better cops than high-crime areas).
If CCTVs are piped out as a reality show so civic-minded volunteers can help "catch crime in the act", then your interpretation will be equally valid:/
But consider the, uh, quality of most of the people with so much time and so little life that watching a CCTV feed would be attractive... pretty much the same crowd mass CCTV is meant to discourage, come to that.
Which gives me an idea. Since it's been brought up that there aren't enough cops available to watch the CCTV output, let's offer it as a Reality Show (a REAL one!) on public television, so everyone can be a cop! Offer rewards for those who report a crime as it happens! A few shillings for a jaywalker, a thousand pounds for a murderer!
Welcome to the snitch society, where every neighbour is watching you and every man is your enemy... and the new cottage industry of staging crimes for the camera so your accomplice can get a payout.
Slashdot Mirror
Meanwhile, cellphone use had skyrocketed. Maybe their radiation prevents brain cancer?? Sounds just as good, anecdotally ;)
Actually, there could be something to that, if some incipient tumours are sensitive to it. I don't suppose it's ever really been looked at, tho.
A friend who is a professor at a university in New York had this to say about it:
======
Oh that news is terrible! Just read it. Digitizing collections for backup purposes is an EXCELLENT idea. Using digital copies as replacements for real brick-and-mortar libraries is a TERRIBLE idea.
Way back when I was earning my PhD, the university library converted to a digital indexing system. I remember showing up one day and could do no research because the system was down and they did not have the old card system still in place.
There's something really nice about having a physical copy of a book in your hands to read, it's so easy to remember that it was actually made and written by a human being. I don't get that same sense from a digital copy of a book or article. In fact, if I am reading a PDF I often don't really read at all - I hit the search button and find only the exact information I need.
I fully expect books to be deleted from records, and various other monkey business to occur.
The nicest thing about a library is that they actually have LIBRARIANS who are oftentimes some of the highest educated and most knowledgable people around. I remember needing books on different hobby topics (such as photography or sound recording) and having librarians recommend books on the topic. They were exceptionally helpful, and even the best search engine can't compete with that, except in price.
Everyone who loves digitization claims that it's really democracy in action, that it lets even the smallest town have a world-class library etc. But that argument is basically bullshit from my perspective. You'll have access to a series of books that hae been digitized and a lot of interesting stuff will fall by the wayside. I really can't glorify this.
========
I really can't put it any better than that.
That's not a slashdot comment, it's a horror story!!
Especially the part about THROWING AWAY those special collections. [shudder]
That was one of the reasons behind the Open Library project -- some of these obscure old novels, old journals, and suchlike are down to a bare handful of surviving copies, and we don't really know how many have been entirely lost (remember that most pre-1920 or so will not have a copy in the Library of Congress collection, either.) Digitizing was the last ditch attempt to save them. But digital editions are relatively ephemeral, and far more easily lost to technical misadventure. Dare we destroy all our paper copies? I think not... unless the true objective is an eventual dark age.
I had similar thoughts involving someone's buddy the IT contractor. NEW! SHINY! MAKES SOMEONE A LOT OF MONEY! But in the process loses the single most critical anchor point of ANY institution of learning and scholarship -- the physical library, with the myriad advantages that come only with real books.
Books get "brodarted" (adding those protective plastic covers) ONCE, at a cost of around a dollar apiece (including labour). And it's fairly rare that a book needs to be rebound, but it must be cheaper than replacing them, or it wouldn't be done at all. And they don't require any ongoing maintenance other than a grunt to reshelve them, nor any particular environment for storage and use other than a normal weathertight building with normal lights (and you'd need all that, plus a network admin, for an ebook system with any sort of public access, so where's the savings??)
So -- one-time and occasional costs vs. ongoing 24/7/365 costs in a market where energy is increasingly expensive -- I think that's a no-brainer, myself. Especially since the hardcopies are already PAID FOR, as is the building and incidentals. But firing the librarians... that will probably even out the ongoing costs.
But if you're a student doing obscure research, there is nothing quite like a savvy librarian for locating what you need. NOW who has that job??
I think I smell a contractor and a lucrative backroom deal...
I think you are right, despite the ubiquity of the internet and digital copies of stuff. When I hear of an institution as fundamental as a school disposing of their durable paper library in favour of a relatively-ephemeral digital format, I think of where we'd be if all information were digitized -- then *lost*.
It could happen. And that would result in a dark age indeed.
Indeed... and right now I wish I was close enough to score some volumes from the massive book sale they'll probably hold.
You can't just browse an ebook -- or at least it's a lot harder to do.
I've also found that a work I just couldn't get into as an ebook, I find quite readable as a real book. (And I'm quite accustomed to ebooks, so unfamiliarity with the medium is not the issue.)
I think this will quite effectively discourage casual reading and fuzzy research, by limiting it to what is readily available, AND happens to fit the search terms you can remember at that moment. No more "that looks interesting" and "I thought I saw something like that over yonder" moments.
Personally, I wouldn't want to attend a school that lacked a real library. Ebooks have their uses, and can sometimes be just what you needed, but they are not and do not replace real books.
As to the comparison with scrolls... I guess they won't be teaching archeology or history at this school anymore, either.
I've also seen a lot of women whose brains fall apart when they're attracted to some male, so ... my guess is this works both ways about equally.
Wow. That's one effective video. Thanks for the link.
"You should not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered."
-- Lyndon Johnson, 36th President of the U.S.
Worse, a lot of critical infrastructure is in the hands of private for-profit FOREIGN corporations.
That's a good point... what if the goal IS to shut down the economy? Seriously, I think it's worth investigating, given the unbelievable spending hikes we've seen in this administration's first few months.
The question to ask is, WHO *benefits* from the collapse of the U.S. economy? "FOLLOW THE MONEY" is *always* good practical politics.
Upon RTFAing, I had the thought that this sounds like a thinly veiled excuse to simply seize control over the internet, mainly to limit communications among "unauthorized persons" (that would be We The People and our disagreeable notions about individual liberty). I'd guess when (probably not IF, should this pass) that happens, control will never be entirely returned to the private sector.
Change that our new (recycled) masters can believe in, anyway...
http://i573.photobucket.com/albums/ss174/nomadiyak/Socialism.jpg
That's an interesting thought -- *could* the ham networks function as an internet replacement??
Was Ford quoting Jefferson by any chance??
(BTW I consider Ford an underrated President)
I hope you are a teacher. Your enthusiasm is downright infectious! :D
It used to happen, tho. See my post above re Byron's output. And he wasn't exceptionally wordy for his day, just got better-preserved than most and with more idle time to put quill to parchment.
People like to talk. Lacking face to face or voice communication, they will talk through writing, ie. letters. Hell, look what we're doing right now!
A curiosity in my personal library -- an 1847 complete works of Byron, including ALL of his letters and journals. I swear, the man's pen NEVER shut up. It's 625 crowded double-column pages in 3 or 4 point type. Imagine his output with the greater speed of a computer and keyboard instead of a quill and inkwell!!
From TFA:
"The Stanford students were almost always less enthusiastic about their in-class writing because it had no audience but the professor: It didn't serve any purpose other than to get them a grade."
Simple solution: have the entire class grade each paper, and use that "class grade" to substantially weight the final grade as given by the professor.
Would doubtless put a quick brake on lazy or plagiaristic writing, too, since in the way of such an audience, any such flaw will be seized upon and flayed without mercy.
The downside? Pretty soon no one would write a paper that didn't substantially conform to the current class groupthink, lest they be flayed in public. Sometimes there are reasons why your grade comes from a professor and not your peers.
I guess that's fine if you never buy more at once than you can fit in a backpack.
And I don't know what home delivery costs where you are, but in my part of SoCal it averages about $50, if you can get it.
I detest malls myself, but I remember how crippled my ability to shop *anywhere* was when all I had for transportation was bicycle or bus or the shoe-leather express.
I think you could probably find a good correlation between "areas that hire good cops" and "low crime area", tho methinks the causation runs the other direction (ie. low crime areas beget better cops than high-crime areas).
If CCTVs are piped out as a reality show so civic-minded volunteers can help "catch crime in the act", then your interpretation will be equally valid :/
But consider the, uh, quality of most of the people with so much time and so little life that watching a CCTV feed would be attractive... pretty much the same crowd mass CCTV is meant to discourage, come to that.
Which gives me an idea. Since it's been brought up that there aren't enough cops available to watch the CCTV output, let's offer it as a Reality Show (a REAL one!) on public television, so everyone can be a cop! Offer rewards for those who report a crime as it happens! A few shillings for a jaywalker, a thousand pounds for a murderer!
Welcome to the snitch society, where every neighbour is watching you and every man is your enemy... and the new cottage industry of staging crimes for the camera so your accomplice can get a payout.