Karl Miller wrote:
So what is the library's primary function? They don't have the expertise
or the salary base to provide first class digitisation. They can't mount
their holdings for downloads unless they have copyright or if it is public
domain. If a library is about books, then you
probably need a building. If it is about information, you probably don't
need such a big building.
This seems straightforward, even simplistic, but I suggest that it is not.
What is the information contained in a book? As I tried to point out with my quote from GBS, a book is more than the text it contains. It is typography, illustrations, binding and more. The Book of Kells is a volume of information but it is more a work of art independent of its content.
Sound preservation provides a more extreme case; much of the discussion on this list is of the form: what information is to be preserved about this instance/recording? That, too, is on two levels: the information inherent in the recorded sound and that about the recording. It is not immediately obvious that the volume (say on CD) required to store the information on an LP is less than the volume of the LP itself. A similar case in books would be one of those microscopically engraved volumes whose content and full description might well be larger than the pinhead on which it is written.
The library as a lending institution is about information, not about books. The historic medium of lending was the book, but that has been changing over recent decades. Here is the first place where copyright becomes a key issue in both books and recordings. The library is also a repository; in that sense it is only about books, sound recordings and other physical media. The library is also a research institution and as such is almost exclusively about information. Even for a work of art, such as a book, the researcher is seeking its properties, not its esthetics per se. In audio, the corresponding properties may be recording and publication data.
None of the above will be news to the subscribers here, but it may clarify what seem to be differences of opinion. In my judgement, they are at most differences of emphasis which can confuse because simple terms such as "library" are used in different senses.
Mike -- mrichter@xxxxxxx http://www.mrichter.com/