rebound
The easiest discredit of the typical monograph in a research library is that it is never used. Any assumed obsolescence of print in comparison with digital delivery only adds to such devaluation. But what if print in context of digital delivery is actually an engine of its new relevance? Even though few physical books are actually read, each and every one of them is needed to authenticate the screen simulations. The entire physical collections back-up, master and authenticate the validity of digital research.
Another discredit of the physical book is even more suspect. This is the fantasy that digital copies can be more easily preserved. Physical deteriorations pose risk, but the multiple hazards afflicting digital preservation favor long term survival of the print book. Digital preservation has yet to assimilate the well established premise of print preservation; that persistence should be built into a format before, not after, scholarly transmission is committed to it.
Print preservation is also a time vector of access. Search results are delivered in centuries as well as in micro-seconds and it is appropriate to consider how many searches of different kinds can occur and recur over the longer periods. Here again print books in association with their electronic finding aids, scan-on-demand and print-on-demand options present an efficient transmission system.
two-bit, ink on paper
“Side-by-side, the K1 text is bolder and jumps out at you. It’s as if the low fidelity, dot-matrix-like typeface of the K1 is better suited for the reading experience than the feathered, crisp, 16-shades of gray of the K2. After 30 minutes of reading on the K2, my eyes get tired and I actually experience mild dizziness, headaches. Never experienced that with the K1.” (from
Kindle blog)
FotB on continuing role of print book collections
Evolving and emerging digital delivery of books has prompted re-evaluation of print collections in research libraries. Are the physical book collections experiencing research displacement and devaluation? Or have appreciations of the role of print books been accentuated by their screen delivery? Or, both? Such questions will be discussed in the ALA/ALCTS/PARS 2010 program, “The Future of the Physical Book”.
We begin the discussion with an annotated bibliography of recent reports and publications that verge on and begin strategic evaluation of relations of print and digital book collections in research libraries.
reality check
“Abandon all technology and live in the woods for a week and see if it’s your laptop you miss most.” Bob Seidensticker, “Future Hype: The Myths Of Technology Change”
scholarly communication news
“In 2008, nearly 480,000 books were published or distributed in the United States, up from close to 375,000 in 2007, according to the industry tracker Bowker. The company attributed a significant proportion of that rise to an increase in the number of print-on-demand books.”
The news portal at UI Libraries is a well sifted link list for momentum toward the authentication role of libraries and the continuing role of print.
(link)