Disposal of Special Collections

It was thoroughly invigorating being able to attend the Historic Libraries Forum Annual conference on Tuesday. It is not every day you can attend a conference on the topic of “guarding against the disposal of collections” with a long list of guest speakers from special collections.

We had a Pressi presentation from Katie Flanagan (who was ill and couldn’t attend but still sent a copy of her speech) setting the scene about the need to build awareness of inappropriate disposal of special collections and the need for libraries to become watchdogs of this active through increasing social media campaigns. Also highlighting the idea about having a more pragmatic approach to ensure that there are less secretive sales of books and keep collections together in the public domain, if they do indeed need to change hands. 

After such an introduction I just knew I was in for a good debate. A lot of problems that libraries face is the need for more storage and space and the lack of money to invest in core library collections. I was therefore completed enthralled by the following speech from David McKitterick, keynote speaker on this topic. After speaking at length about the University of London blunder to sell several Shakespeare’s folios to where public opinion through newspapers and social media mobilised to act on the provocation of such a valuable collection, David laid out some truths that some libraries try heavily to avoid or are in denial about.

Whether it is the story of Wigan Public Libraries or Birmingham Law Society, quite simply all libraries have to discards books! However, he pointed out that libraries change with each generation and it is important for collection policies to be updated to reflect this. Lastly, he pressed the matter that we as librarians should remember that libraries are not museums. Where museums have “one-off” special items that can never be duplicated or found anywhere else in the world; books have a contextual value in a holdings collection. Therefore, it is important to avoid bulk selling decisions without consultation as it is most likely result in wasteful mishandling by the library and antiquarian booksellers that acquire them or lead to auctioning in fear of scarcity of space which may only raise funds and create space for the short-term. 

Google's Digitalisation Project: Good or Bad?

Recently, I was introduced to TEDtalks and I came across a library related podcast called "What we learned from 5 million books".

TEDtalk Podcast: What we learned from 5 million books

After four years of research, Harvard’s Erez Leiberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel states that a picture isn’t worth a 1000 words. It is worth 500 billion words. To understand human culture in which we have changed the way we use words and record them from the past to the present; one would read a lot of books but it isn’t very practical. Google’s Digitalisation project on the other hand has made it very practical and easier to find the information (specifically words and phrases) that you are looking for in the click of a button.

This made me think about:

How does Google’s Digitalisation project affect modern day libraries?

In modern times, libraries have to be able to provide the best service to users which would mean having the most convenient access to information anywhere in the world, which is regularly updated and available 24hours 7 days a week. Clearly the best answer would be the internet! It allows the preservation of large library archives, where physical space to store them in running out and the risk of damage by fire or flooding is reduced significantly. This was one of the reasons why the Google Print Library would set up in 2004, to store large in-house libraries whether it is manuscripts, books, journals etc from 5 different US universities.

The internet has become a necessity to keeping libraries alive, simply because the cost to run them has greatly increased over the years which have had a knock on effect on the amount of qualified librarian hired to run them. Not to mention due to the value of the printed resources, the amount of security needed to ensure the safety of priceless one-time items.However, for anyone dealing with digitalisation you would have to quote the disadvantage of copyrights law and issues related to digital information security and confidentiality. One would say that they are public records so there shouldn’t be any problems, but what happens when a non-subscriber to digitalized information acquires a copy? How does this affect future negotiations with authors?

Furthermore, one has to think of the managerial and financial issues related to libraries and technology. A lot of libraries have been stuck in their ways about not modernising and refuse to adopt digitalisation. That is all well and good for libraries that have good budgets, government funding and great sponsors. However, the libraries that don’t have such support, they need to be able to adapt while still retaining managerial control over licensing and policy making. This is where E-libraries have developed, as you do not need a lot of technical support and can be updated regularly at the speed in which collections are acquired. Donations can be used as a method to constantly fund them without digging into the day-to-day funding of primary activities.

This completely, disputes statements that librarians become useless with digitalisation as it takes a continuous team effect to update the online library around daily activities. Furthermore, this also improves librarians IT skills for further development in content management systems. Thus, improving upon the delivery and means to which information is available in the coming future.

I am curious however, to know what others think about this subject in terms of pros and cons of digitalisation on modern day libraries.