Information Age

I have the pleasure of working part time at the University Library where I work in the Serials Department - basically I just check in a few newspapers a day and attempt to demonstrate to confused students how the microfilm machines work (always a challenge, as they seem to work when they want to). This is not really where I want to spend the rest of my library career but I figured it was a foot in the door. Well, as change has a habit of occurring, with more and more research material becoming available online, there just are not that many newspapers to check in any more. It seems the library director is running head strong into the winds of change and insisting that the entire library go "new age". I'm not the kind of person who refuses to change, although I will admit to being a little slow. Still I'm not against it and it is futile to pretend that it is not happening. But while this change can be a good thing for 95% of the population, there are those among us who will argue that it means the end of the library as we know it. See the link below for how one University is handling this change:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/05/24/for_harvards_library_an_arduous_digital_shift/?camp=obnetwork

Here is another one that is in favor of the change: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2010/05/28/make_way_for_the_libraries_of_a_new_age

Now all of this is well and good for the larger places that have the money and the capacity to archive all of the older volumes. My admiration goes out to these places, especially since I might be going there looking for a job in a few years. However, for the smaller Universities, such as where I work, the quick fix answer is "throw it all away". Throw it away? Not archive it somewhere, just throw it away. That might be OK for the newspapers where the information is just duplicated elsewhere, but throw away journals and periodicals going back 25, 50 years if not more. The questions arises, "what if someone needs it for research" - answer, "we will order it in from somewhere else" ... let's just hope that not everybody takes the rash approach of throwing it all away, or there will be nobody left to order it in from.

As I said, I'm not against change. I do not entirely trust computers yet, they have a bad habit of loosing the information I choose to store. Granted some of it is operator error. But I never had a book crash and loose all of its information on me like my computers have done - at least twice. I have even, as of late, started saving interesting articles in certain folders. My "green" side thinking I'm saving paper by not printing them out (not to mention space in the file cabinet)... but working with at least three separate computers, I sometimes forget which computer I saved what article on. - Yet, something occurred to me yesterday. I have a book checked out from the library, and I received a notice that it was due back. I have a bad habit of checking out several at a time and never really getting around to reading all of them. So, I have barely started this one and now they want it back. For me to get the book originally, they had to order it in from another library and policy will not let me renew it more than once. I start thinking, I'm hip, I'm cool, I know how to scan and save this book so that I can go back and read it at my leisure .... I'm sure there is a copyright infringement in there somewhere, nevertheless I start scanning this book - and it occurs to me, this is exactly why all of that other material is being thrown away. Nobody uses the real thing, they just want it quick and easy. I will admit to considering just keeping the book I have borrowed, why not if they are just going to throw it away as well, right? I wonder if I would get fired for that??

Besides, the scanning every page was a bit cumbersome and time consuming on my little home printer. Thinking my time can be better spent - actually reading the book, I start looking for the book elsewhere, online ironically. "Google Free books" did not have it, it seems there are still copyright laws attached to it (oops ... delete what I had saved) ...Then I finally found it, on one of the larger book-chain web sites and for $4.71, plus shipping, the book can be mine. So physically buying the real book will not cut down on the space-clutter issue. But I like to think that I am doing my part in saving the the older books which are just being thrown away. The book is already out-there and printed so it's not like I'm killing another tree just to have it printed, if anything I am recycling and saving it from the trash dump... and my world will continue to be a strange mix of new and old, not so bad really! I think I'm going to remember this for when I get yelled at for buying too many older books - I'm not just buying books, I'm recycling!! Until next time, Happy Recylcing, I mean Reading .... Patty