Audiences for Asian collections

As it is an ambition of mine to work with Asian collections in the future, I was delighted to be invited to NACIRA annual conference, topical on “redefining the audiences for Asian collections”.

I was really surprised to hear the interesting projects such as the conservation and digitization of the Lewis-Gibson Genizah collection between Oxford and Cambridge (which still sounds weird given their history).  However, Oliver Urquhart Irvine from the British Library Qatar Foundation Partnership Project is one that really caught my eye.

The idea of creating a completely online digital repository rich with content about the history of the Gulf and Arabic Science, with bilingual searches and metadata in English and Arabic, is something that hasn’t really being thought of before on such a scale. Utilising project management skills with digital humanities knowledge within libraries, I saw how the project was split into phrases to include aspects of the library catalogue, functionality via platform, and OCR software for search capabilities and embedment for sound and GPS mapping (for digitalised maps).  Followed by, the creating contingency plans for challenges in public and staff communication, awareness and advocacy, plus internal problems in spending alternations that affect technology and staff turnover.

This ambitious project has really got me thinking about what I could do with a qualification in librarianship. Simply from combining traditional librarianship with digital means to not only conserve material through data management from cataloguing, appropriate digitalisation, translation, creation of authority files to content delivery, but also ensuring the use of such information to encourage teaching and education e.g. changes in politics, trade and global communication. This therefore means creating a longer shelf life for digital libraries, from changing the culture of its use and adapting to user social needs in web compatibility, simplicity in architectural design and information content without overload.

Other projects into creating awareness for Asian collections was also highlighted with projects for the Clay Sanskrit Library for classical Indian literature and the Jainpedia project for the Jain faith.

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.