David Pogue, tech enthusiast for the New York Times, is shocked, shocked that Amazon yanked Orwell’s books from the Kindle. But as Tim Spalding pointed out over on Web4Lib, it’s naïve to focus on Amazon and the Kindle.
“People need to get over the idea that ebooks are ‘just’ books,” Tim wrote. “Just because you can read it, doesn’t mean it’s the same thing. Books are socially and legally situated. You can’t change the delivery and legal structure, and expect everything else to remain the same.”
E-books are disruptive in ways we can barely comprehend, and all the self-congratulatory nattering at conferences about trends and digital humanities and big-ass repositories doesn’t change that a bit. It’s easy to laugh off early efforts at e-books, but is there anyone who really thinks the future of publishing—if not five years, then ten or fifteen—is not primarily digital?
And none of the current big players —Amazon, Google, not even Pogue’s beloved Apple—are in it for the passion of connecting books and readers. No matter how much they posture otherwise, the bottom line for them is profit, pure and simple.
As an author and librarian, I am greatly ambivalent. The writer in me sees opportunities I don’t have in the paper world. I am considering publishing a chapbook of essays via the Kindle and seeing if Kindle-readers—a community who by definition read heavily—will buy what is essentially unpublishable in the paper-based publishing economy.
But the librarian in me is worried, both on behalf of libraries—the bulwark of free speech in an open society—and on behalf of readers everywhere. And the writer with her eye on the future of writing — not for the next year or two, but the next century or two — is bothered as well. I worry that post-paper reading will become an event as closely and expensively metered as parking in downtown San Francisco. It’s doubtful that writers, journalists, and the rest of us in the writing trenches will benefit.
And if you agree that publishing is moving to a digital mode, you are also tacitly agreeing that the traditional role of libraries will soon be made obsolete. The delivery of reading to the next generation will be managed by digital mammoths who will control what and how we read to a fare-thee-well.
Since Pogue’s article was published, the Times added an “Editor’s Note” that comforts me not a whit:
EDITOR’S NOTE | 8:41 p.m. The Times published an article explaining that the Orwell books were unauthorized editions that Amazon removed from its Kindle store. However, Amazon said it would not automatically remove purchased copies of Kindle books if a similar situation arose in the future.
But these books weren’t removed “automatically.” They were removed by humans, who were following orders — just as some human, somewhere, chose to alter Amazon’s search results to hide GLBT titles. Each time, a well-publicized kerfuffle reversed Amazon’s decision, but the point is that the decision was made at all.
What we are learning is that the same technology that makes a book conveniently available on your Kindle in a manner of minutes can easily change that content or entirely remove it. Barbara Fister commented on my Facebook page, “I’m waiting for a little libel tourism to lead to books edited before your very eyes. How efficient!” Sadly, I don’t think we have to wait very long. Like the e-gov-documents that magically morphed and vanished during the Bush administration, the unseen silent workforce at Amazon will obediently carry out the mandate of the company.
Perhaps—to shift from Orwell to Bradbury—the ending of Fahrenheit 451 is prescient in other ways. Once the digital world has taken over — perhaps with legislative support, the way that track-building and trains yielded to automobiles and highways through the influence of energy lobbies — there will be outliers hiding in forests who are the voices of freedom and reading, while the rest of the world follows the dictates of the blinking screen.
We’ve long needed a video on how easy it is to set up LOCKSS –software for digital preservation, called Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe. (I wrote about LOCKSS for Library Journal this summer.) Angela Slaughter of Indiana University pounced on this idea and has produced a video everyone should watch.
Around these parts, for hurricane prep we stock up on water, packaged food, and instant coffee. Simple stuff, but without it, riding out a storm could be rough. (Especially the coffee. Oh, and to heat it up? The gas grill. Though I’m tempted to buy some Starbucks “shots” in case the grill runs out of propane, because it’s one thing to be hungry and another to be out of coffee.)
LOCKSS is that simple. Get a checklist, write down what Angela shows you on the screen, download LOCKSS, and get going. Start a local LOCKSS network. Talk up digital preservation with your colleagues. Start having those discussions!
It may not be sexy or all that visible; you can't download it to your iPod; it's not right under your nose every day. In fact, you may not be aware of one of the most important activities where librarians have engaged their values and skills for the last decade.
Nevertheless, please sit up and listen. Close to a decade's worth of digital preservation efforts just took a major hit in House Joint Resolution 20, which zeroes out $47 million in appropriations for crucial work in this area.
In fact, if you added up all the NDIIP projects, I'd bet you'd have over a century of blood, sweat, toil and tears dedicated to preserving cultural memory.
As a freshly-minted project investigator on an ongoing multi-institutional project where MPOW is a participant, I was at the NDIIP partners meeting held in San Diego this January, and I have but one word to say about the many projects I witnessed that week: "Wow."
From efforts to preserve public television to LOCKSS archives to the many successful projects designed to protect our digital brain trust for many generations ahead, I felt jazzed and excited and quite proud. We librarians play key roles in many of these projects. It was also one of those times when I felt that my taxation was getting excellent representation.
Post-9/11 and post-Katrina, you'd think our gummint would get that you can't put all of your cultural eggs in one basket--that we absolutely must come up with trustworthy methods and protocols for ensuring we preserve our digital heritage. Then again, with such minimal adult supervision at the helm for these past six years, while the world heats to a boil and we foment war with hostile nations, maybe the assumption is we won't be around much longer to appreciate the fruits of our labors.
It stings that much more that the House also whacked LC's new catalog and even its furniture. But at least we know where the money's going.
A couple of the participants in the "emerging leaders" program at ALA commented to me that in their one-day workshop, they had been asked to create plans for projects that would never see fruition. I agree that's dumb (though on reflection, it does sound depressingly like some places I've worked for...). If any of you ELs are reading this, my own project to you would be to read up on digital preservation, write something on your own blogs, and get activist about this central issue by speaking out on its behalf. (Hey, put it on YouTube, and I'll dance to it.)
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Comments on this Entry:
(Peter Murray on
Feb 12, 2007 9:33 AM)
Hey, Karen --
The Trackback to your blog didn't seem to work, but inspired by you and another person who e-mailed me privately, I felt compelled to add my two cents:
U.S. House Votes to Rescind NDIIPP Funding; Bill Now Under Consideration by Senate in Disruptive Library Technology Jester
I get the distinct feeling that this is a long shot, but figured I was in that classic position of not being able to complain without at least tossing my options to our elected leaders.
(Daniel Cornwall on
Feb 13, 2007 12:57 AM)
The saddest part about the zeroing out of these projects is that their cancellation will only fund 4 hours, 15 minutes of our Iraq occupation at the current rate of our hourly spending. See more at http://whatiraqwarbuys.blogspot.com/2007/01/hour-in-iraq-or-end-teacher-shortages.html
