The Golden Age of libraries

Journal of Academic Librarianship

Volumn 27, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 256-259

  Bennett, Scott ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035402291     PISSN: 00991333     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0099-1333(01)00212-9     Document Type: Article

References (12)

1. ARL Statistics indicate a 39% increase in the mean of total staff employed at ARL libraries, based on the means of the figures for 1972-1974 (i.e., 193) and for l997-1999 (i.e., 269). Most of this growth occurred in the 1970s.
2. In testifying on behalf of publishers and other rights holders, Steven J. Metalitz emphasized the breadth and the particularity of control that rights holders might secure through encryption: "The effects of access control measures are not simply initial binary permissions or denials of access; they can also allow the management of who can have access, when, how much, and from where." See the May 19, 2000 testimony to the Copyright Office's Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyright Works, Docket No. RM99-7, p. 21.
3. On "shrink-wrapped" licenses see the briefing by the Association of Research Libraries, "UCITA: Summary and Implications for Libraries and Higher Education" [Online]. Available: http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/ucitasum.html (accessed 29 May 2001).
4. See John Murray, Observations and Experiments on the Bad Composition of Modern Paper (London: G. and W. B. Whittaker, 1824); Permanence/Durability of the Book (Richmond, VA: W. J. Barrow Research Laboratory, Inc., 1963-1974), Vol. 1-7; and Verner W. Clapp, "The Story of Permanent Durable Book-Paper, 1115-1970," Restaurator (suppl 3) (1972), pp. 8-35.
5. I believe we are beginning to understand that digital preservation cycles will be measured in just years, unlike the centuries-long preservation cycles achievable for paper and many other information carriers.
6. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 creates a safe harbor for the preservation of digital content by making such preservation activities no violation of the copyright law, so long the library's archival copies are not made available beyond the library premises. But libraries embrace digital information services because readers find them immensely convenient. One of the most important dimensions of this convenience is that of not having to visit the library physically to use its resources. It is unlikely that libraries will engage in the systematic preservation of digital information when one of the primary values of that information (its online omnipresence) cannot also be secured. The restrictions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act essentially impose the limitations of print formats on digital content. In such conditions, libraries will surely continue to focus their preservation efforts on print rather than on digital content.
7. See, for instance, the description of the studio model of teaching at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the interview of Carol Twigg, "Common Sense," University Business (December 2000/January 2001): 28-29.
8. William Bowen, "How Libraries Can Help to Pay Their Way in the Future," Logos 7 (1996): 238. See also William Bowen, "JSTOR and the Economics of Scholarly Communication," paper presented at the Council on Library Resources conference held in October 1995. [Online]. Available: http://www.mellon.org/jsecs.html (accessed 29 May 2001).
9. "Economic crises and catastrophes [in the 1990s] on the African continent pushed libraries, which in most cases only served a scant three percent of the population, further to the periphery of governmental concern." See Betty A Marton, Revitalizing African Libraries: The Challenge of a Quiet Crisis, (New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2000), p. 2.
10. See World Education Report 2000 (UNESCO, 2000), Tables 1 and 8 ; and Scott Berinato, "Educating China," University Business 3 (8) (October 2000): 54.
11. Robert Heterick, "The Silly Season," The Learning MarketSpace 1 (November 1, 2000). [Online]. Available: http://www.center.rpi.edu/LForum/LdfLM.html (accessed 29 May 2001).
12. Richard Lanham, "Literary Study and the Digital Revolution," in The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 22-23.