8-31-10 Reading Notes

Digitization: Is It Worth It? - by Stuart D. Lee
The author has spent years digitizing documents, yet still feels compelled to ask if it is a worthwhile task.  Considering the high cost of digitization, it's a question worth asking.  The obvious benefits of digitizing materials is that it makes them more accessible and easy to distribute.  But since digitization is so expensive, it means that less funding is available for traditional acquisition of new monographs and journals, as the author points out. In an ideal world, a library would have enough funding for both digitization and purchase of new content.  As someone who uses both online materials and print books and journals, I can't say that I support one over the other.  I find them both equally valuable.  It really comes down to each individual library's mission statement -- what will they choose to fund?  Digitization or new content?  Libraries are finding it harder and harder to commit to both.  Libraries have long collaborated on collection development.  It would make sense to collaborate with regard to digital content as well. 

European Libraries Face Problems In Digitizing - by Doreen Carvajal
This article also refers to the massive cost of digitizing materials.  The author points out that there simply isn't enough funding for large digitization projects to accomplish their goals.  I wonder to what extent we are collectively too attached to the notion of preserving everything from the past.  Is a culture that spends vast resources preserving past artifacts at risk of ignoring the relevant issues of the present?  Since libraries fail to purchase new content in order to make copies of existing content, this is a valid question.  Other questions that come to mind:  Is it possible to save everything?  Is it necessary?  We have the capacity to save for posterity more information than ever before, but should we save it all?  In psychology, excessive hoarding is a sign of mental illness.  I'm not suggesting that history be discarded.  I'm merely contemplating the difference between what is wanted by the keepers of culture versus what is realistically possible. 

A Few Thoughts on Google Books Library Project - by Charles Edward Smith
The author supports making the past accessible online.  He suggests that the less effort it takes to access history, the more likely people will be to conduct research.  Presumably, this can only lead to a more intelligent and information-rich society, which is a good thing.  The author also points out that many books will "reach obsolesence" if not digitized and that society's methods of accessing the past have changed.  I agree that we risk losing a lot if we don't digitize materials.  However, once again, I think the sheer amount of information makes mass-digitization difficult.  I dislike the idea of an archivist filtering information for others, given that it results in inevitable bias, but I don't see any other way.