The Final Disintermediation: Are Libraries Marked for Death?
November 9, 2021
Brewster Kahle founded the Internet Archive, but according to the Time article: “I Set Out To Build The Next Library Of Alexandria. Now I Wonder: Will There Be Libraries In 25 Years?” he is pondering if he did the right thing. Kahle wanted the Internet Archive to preserve Web sites and television as well as digitize books. Out of necessity, libraries have become more digital.
While digital information has a multiple benefits, there is an extreme downside tied to corporate control:
“But just as the Web increased people’s access to information exponentially, an opposite trend has evolved. Global media corporations—emboldened by the expansive copyright laws they helped craft and the emerging technology that reaches right into our reading devices—are exerting absolute control over digital information. These two conflicting forces—towards unfettered availability and completely walled access to information—have defined the last 25 years of the Internet. How we handle this ongoing clash will define our civic discourse in the next 25 years. If we fail to forge the right path, publishers’ business models could eliminate one of the great tools for democratizing society: our independent libraries.”
The problem is the larger book publishers, not the small prints. The larger publishers limit the number of digital copies available to public libraries. Publishers are extorting money from public and academic libraries over every small thing related to books. It hinders the freedom and dissemination of information.
The Internet Archive doubles as a lending library. It lends out digitized books one user at a time, works with independent publishers to ensure their rights are respected. This is the proper way to manage “controlled digital lending.”
This happened in 2020:
“Last year, four of the biggest commercial publishers in the world sued the Internet Archive to stop this longstanding library practice of controlled lending of scanned books. The publishers filed their lawsuit early in the pandemic, when public and school libraries were closed. In March 2020, more than one hundred shuttered libraries signed a statement of support asking that the Internet Archive do something to meet the extraordinary circumstances of the moment. We responded as any library would: making our digitized books available, without waitlists, to help teachers, parents, and students stranded without books. This emergency measure ended two weeks before the intended 14-week period.”
The publishers’ lawsuit demands that the Internet Archive delete all the digital copies of books it acquired legally. Many states have reacted against the publishers’ demand as harmful to libraries. The publishers counter that it is unconstitutional.
Kahle believes libraries will still exist in twenty-five years in the current argument between publishers and libraries is handled well. He is right, but he is also discounting that libraries are technology media centers, provide free Internet, have free community programs, are meeting centers, and do much more than check out books.
Will libraries be disintermediated? Good question.
Whitney Grace, November 9, 2021
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