I just had a very unsettling personal experience. Relatively late in my life, but recent enough to be clear in my memory, I graduated from the University of Florida in December, 2002. To take the remaining few classes needed for my degree, I extensively used the UF Library West and its academic journals. Even by this time, some of the journals I needed articles from were on-line and restricted to those with the needed passwords and accounts (i.e. authorized scholars and students). But I could still freely access their valuable microform collection of newspapers that went back into the nineteenth century by simply finding the spool I was looking for, loading it into one of the simple machines provided in the microform room, and viewing it.
Since 2002, Library West was completely rebuilt and redesigned to be more compatible with our digital era. This past Monday evening, I went there for the first time since its recent reopening. And got thoroughly blasted with culture shock. Every student there, I mean EVERY student, had a laptop with them and was doing their work on it. That in itself was a major change in the span of six years for me. But the most unsettling and disturbing thing was that I could no longer access the microform collection since the machines were all now computerized and demanded user IDs and passwords. Except for one dilapidated old machine, the type of which I had never used and I would have had to stand at.
Digitalizing of our academic knowledge should be a liberating, not restricting experience. But nowadays, it seems that one either needs permission from the uppity muckity-mucks in academia or has to be willing to pay through the nose just for being able to read current academic journals or research microforms. Sure, I’m a UF alumnus and I can apply for the privilege of checking out books (for a fee) from UF libraries. And maybe with this I’ll be able to access the microforms as well. But before, I could just have walked in and viewed them “for free” (although my tax dollars are supporting UF) and now I need to apply for someone’s permission.
This reeks of academic elitism in its worst form. In the Old Testament accounts of the Israelites, their priests, and the tabernacle, only the high priests were granted access to the inner chambers of the tabernacle. In like manner, the state of our academics is becoming such that the general population is not only suffering from a vast gap of understanding and knowledge between them and the learned: they are now being physically denied access to that knowledge! This must change!
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OK, so...
ReplyDeleteAs I’ve been sitting here at the IETF meeting — not an academic conference, but somewhat related — I’ve been thinking about how I want to respond to this. So I’ve let it mull for a day, first.
I wonder whether you might be saying that they should tighten things up a bit, if books and microfilms were disappearing to theft, or being damaged by those who use them, either through vandalism or carelessness. Those are both big concerns for libraries, especially those with old, delicate items, especially in academic environments. There’s some value in setting up a gate, so they know who’s using the materials.
Now, consider:
— You can’t search books or microfilm. You can use manually generated indicies to try to find what you’re looking for. Beyond that, time — sometimes hours — spent paging through microfilm, looking from newspaper page to newspaper page, from day to day, month to month, possibly missing important references, until you happen on the article you need... can now be replaced by seconds — literally, seconds — with an indexed digital library and some well-chosen search terms.
— Searching or browsing through digital media is a benign process. It does not damage the material, and that’s a critical issue for libraries.
— Digital documents can easily be copied and shared with other libraries, giving your library access to a great many materials that they couldn’t possibly have in their own stacks.
— Related to that, digital documents don’t take up physical space, a significant limitation in making hardcopy materials available.
— Your digital library likely has subscription access to many journals and magazines, allowing you to read (and print copies of) articles and papers you wouldn’t otherwise have access to — and which they couldn’t possibly stock on paper.
And, of course, there’s much less need to use the library at all, since a great deal of research material is now freely available on the open Internet, and you can just search for it.
There’s tremendous value in moving to digital libraries for research. There’ll always be a place for books, and I certainly share any concerns you have about digital media replacing hardcopy material to too great an extent.
How much did you look into getting access? Many libraries will provide temporary guest accounts if you ask at the desk. Yes, some do charge fees to users, which goes a small way toward covering some of their expenses. In general, they rely much more on donations than on either usage fees or tax money. It’s expensive to run a library, a fact that’s no less true in the digital age than before.
If you’ve already talked with the appropriate people about getting access, and you already have the answers, ignore that last paragraph. If you haven’t, do check into it and see what all the options are.
Also, I often hear the argument, in many contexts, that “My tax money is paying for this,” and therefore I shouldn’t have to pay to use it. That’s missing an important point: taxes can’t fully fund most of these sorts of things; they only provide a basis for support. The existence of libraries, schools, public transportation systems, publicly funded hospitals, and the like benefits the community greatly.
We give tax money to those sorts of organizations in acknowledgment of those benefits, but that’s not enough. Donations bring in more, and usage fees top that off. Few would really say, “My tax money pays for the train system, so I should be able to ride it for free.” By the same token (um, sorry), it’s not reasonable to demand free access to the library just because it’s partly tax-funded.
Thanks for your helpful comment, Barry. I did contact the library, and sure enough, they do have a "guest account" policy for non-UF-affiliated visitors.
ReplyDeleteAs long as the journals that would normally have been on the library shelves are accessible "on-site" to the general public as they were before digitalization, I totally agree with you. I don't expect to be able to access these journals from my home (unless I personally subscribe to them or have a UF account that permits access).
The microfilm at UF is still stored on spools in boxes, arranged by date and publication in several long rows in a large room. Using them in the new system is almost the same as the old system: You have to find the correct box, take the spool out, and thread it like you're threading an old-style film projector or tape deck. But the difference now is that the images are digitally displayed on a computer screen.
As for the "I pay taxes" reference, my purpose was to point out that UF is a public, not private institution and as such has more of an obligation to meet the needs of the public at large, as long as they don't interfere with the primary academic functions involving students, faculty, classes, and research. And making sure that material is still generally accessible on-site was my chief concern in this regard. And it still appears to be accessible! Hooray!
Interesting about the microfilms. So they didn't actually digitize the films... they just got a new kind of projector. That's too bad, but it makes sense: I guess it'd be very expensive to digitize and index them all.
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