So I had a great blogosphere-style conversation with Walt today, and what a pleasure. I freely admit that I committed a real communication blunder — instead of paying close attention to what Walt was saying and speaking to his points, I addressed

Walt’s note: This one shouldn’t have been flagged for moderation (no internal link, and I approved a previous lbr post), but it was. Here’s the lbr post. (lbr: You should be able to include that link. At worst, it will cause the same moderation delay…)

I do see it as a tension, particularly when some people arguing for more attention to digital futures (not necessarily the ones cited here) argue, implicitly or explicitly, that little or no attention need be paid to existing services. That’s when I get cranky, and maybe I’m tending to pick up that sense where it’s not intended.

When you say a library’s web presence should be viewed as another branch, I’m with you all the way. When I hear implications that, for most people who count, in just a few years, the web presence will be the only aspect of the public library that’s of any real interest, I’m no longer on board.

As you may (or may not?) know, I’ve spent a fair amount of words on the Creative Commons and the various pieces of open access. (Less on open access recently partly because Peter Suber and Charles W. Bailey, Jr. do such outstanding jobs, partly because I find Stevan Harnad so infuriating.) I’m an optimist by nature–drives my wife crazy–and I’m hopeful, but it is indeed an uphill battle.

This is one of the more remarkable conversations in a blog where I’ve been delighted by the level of conversation, perhaps the more so because the blog entry that seems to have kicked it off was such an idle comment…

The post is a pretty slender foundation for all that’s followed. That calls for a better post or series of posts, I suppose–except that to some extent those posts would be repeating stuff I’ve written over the past 13 years. I’m good (or bad, if you will) at repeating myself, but…

Maybe I’m temporarily tone-deaf on what was implied by a couple of posts. Maybe Blake’s screed, which I still haven’t had time or patience to process properly, set me off on somewhat unrelated posts that didn’t deserve to be lumped in with it.

[OK, there's also my inclination to believe that 2010 is a pretty optimistic projection for truly ubiquitous use of high-quality e-paper and for anything like a "ubiquitous digital information" environment in any but a few highly-privileged enclaves of certain first-world nations--but that's a separate set of issues. I think.]

Your response drove me to some more self-examination, and as I have now noted in the blog, I realize some of those “other people” are voices from whom I’ve heard echoes of these arguments in the past.

What I’m perceiving from your post and responses is a sense that this is somehow a zero-sum game:
- inferring that “while building new services… the current bookstock and continuing building of the ‘long collection’” would be viewed as “peripheral”
- understanding “ubiquitous digital information” as “marginalizing everything else”

Do you view this as a zero-sum game, where efforts placed toward building and enhancing digital services will inevitably subtract from the ongoing enhancement of print collections and offline service?

Personally, I’m with you if we’re talking about “AND not OR”. Is that really what we’re talking about?

Finally, w.r.t. “I also have trouble believing that such ‘ubiquity’ is… likely to happen in a way that libraries can deal with effectively, since those who control the copyrights are pretty intent on seeing that fair use plays no part in digital usage and that as much as possible is pay-per-use or ongoing rental…” That’s absolutely an issue we need to address, I agree. Certainly we need to address it from within the system, making consumers aware of their fair-use and first-sale rights and actively opposing rollbacks in those protections — but of course, that’s an uphill battle. I guess part of the reason I’m more optimistic about the future is that I’m inclined to cast my lot with the folks on the outside of that cabal — the consumers and the creators who are using and working on other models that make those rights harder to rescind, such as Open Access and the Creative Commons. “Ubiquitous digital information” is in part a result of a read-write environment, where direct connections between information producers and consumers will gradually erode the power of “those who control the copyrights” — at least, the ones who try to use them against us.

I would apologize for saying “can’t curl up in bed with it or read it in the bathtub” — except, of course, that I’ve never said that. Ever.

And, you know what? I’ve never said that libraries and librarians should be “sitting back and keeping the dead trees company” (amusing that lbr says “print will thrive,” but then proceeds to assume “dead trees” will and should be marginalized–but maybe I’m reading into the comment). Ever.

I have said, and will continue to say, that print resources are and will continue to be vital for public and (the social sciences and humanities portions of) academic libraries, and that while building new services and understanding new media are also vital–and I’ve done a lot of writing to try to introduce and explain new media over the years–there’s a considerable danger in treating both the current bookstock and the continuing building of the “long collection” as peripheral activities.

To lesser or greater extents, the posts I indirectly referenced struck me as arguing that digital information will soon be the only really important aspect of libraries, including public libraries–that that’s all librarians should be paying attention to. Maybe I overinterpreted. As noted twice so far, it was an offhand, preliminary comment–and, after all, if blogs aren’t noted for hasty overinterpretation, no medium is.

So, lbr, you’ve turned me into a straw man, arguing that we should just treasure those books and ignore everything else. Which I don’t believe (and never have).

I still have trouble reading “digital ubiquity” as not marginalizing everything else, at least by implication. I also have trouble believing that such “ubiquity” is either right around the corner or likely to happen in a way that libraries can deal with effectively, since those who control the copyrights are pretty intent on seeing that fair use plays no part in digital usage and that as much as possible is pay-per-use or ongoing rental. Now there’s a set of issues librarians need to address…

Okay, now this is a blog about digital/virtual reference, so we spend a lot of our time and electrons talking about new modes of reference activity that occur online, and how important it is that libraries and librarians understand the options and in

Note from wcc: This oddly-truncated comment, which dropped into the “hold for moderation” slot, appears to be an attempt to simulate a linkback to this post (and W.a.R. doesn’t show linkbacks). I’m adding this note so that you can go read lbr’s accusation that I’m raising straw men–oh, me and “so many other people,” but the others aren’t mentioned by name. I’m apparently a convenient target.

Walt, I was still in college in ’92, and what I’m doing now wasn’t even a gleam in my eye, more’s the pity.

Dan, that wasn’t aimed at you, and I’m sorry it came across so poorly. Much of what I remember of the promises of the late ’90s and early oughts is bound up in the dot-com boom, when lots of people were saying stupid things. I believe now, as I did then, that e-text has potential that we’ve barely begun to realize, but we’ve got to be a lot more patient about working out the design and production problems than we’ve heretofore been.

And that was it, really; that’s what happened. Nobody had any patience with the tech people; nobody would listen long enough to what the blocks were and how long it would take to get past them. Sorry to have perpetuated the cycle.

Apologies for the delay in that comment showing up: It was flagged for moderation. I have no idea why. (Well, it’s the first time you’ve left a comment, and sometimes that is an instant flag.) I approved it the second I got the email, of course.

As for the potential velocity of net-based “conversations,” that is indeed an interesting and sometimes disturbing concept (which I’ve written about and will probably write more about). In this case, you’ve also seen the party-line effect: I “misquoted” you by probably overinterpreting a third party who had quoted you, and you interpreted the second comment (it wasn’t the first, from Fiona) as an attack on you–which I wouldn’t necessarily conclude.

I know better than to interpret third-party statements. One problem with a blog is that it’s too easy to do something even though you know better… (I suppose I could start composing blog entries in Word instead of directly within WordPress, but if I’m in Word, I’m working on C&I or a column or a book or a speech or…)

OK, here’s my mini-off-hand-prediction for 2010:

Public libraries will be healthy in the U.S. (with exceptions, as always) and will be massively used as sets of services (many of them remotely available), as collections of print books and other media, and as places. Given what’s happened with Kepler’s here (where a long-standing independent bookstore closed, at least in part because the landlord raised the rents too high–and the bookstore has now reopened thanks to massive customer response), I believe print books themselves will be doing just fine as well. And I believe etext of various sorts will be used significantly more heavily than it is now, just as it’s used a lot more heavily now than it was five years ago–but I don’t believe the increase in that use will be geometric over that ten-year slice.

And this is WAY too much to put in a comment-on-a-comment. If we’re at the same conference in 2010, I’ll buy the second round.

If nothing else, you have to admit that the sheer velocity at which we’ve had this little conversation is disturbing.

Regards, -Dan

Since I’ve always made my living through library technology and mostly, in the past, written about technology, I might qualify as a geek as well. (Well, I never wore a pocket protector and only carried two pens for about a year, but…) And “geeks” have always been on all sides of this set of issues.

Fiona: Thanks for the useful comment. Oddly enough, most evidence and surveys seem to show that public libraries (at least in the U.S. and, I guess, in Australia–I can’t speak for the UK) are likely to continue to see huge and complex use. Every time library patrons are asked directly, they say they want books. Print books (and audiobooks and…).

Anyway: Some day I might do a proper commentary…

Well, you know what? I wasn’t saying that. The other ebook geeks I worked with weren’t saying that. We bloody well knew better, since we lived on the ragged edge of “but the tech won’t DO that.” Frankly, nobody asked us. Too busy listening with bated breath to hype-hype-hype marketing droids and obstinately clueless journos.

I’m glad that institutional repositories and open access are largely an academia-internal phenomenon. I couldn’t take another idiotic hype wave.

You want to talk about why digital text is cool? I’m your gal. You want to talk about why digital text has a long way to go? Ditto. You want to talk about differences between print and digital text, or readers’ experience of same? Sure thing. You want to talk about how libraries are participating in (not just reacting to) the creation and dissemination of digital text? Honey, I’m living it.

You want me to issue proclamations despising print and welcoming its supposed death? Go AWAY.