universal library – ETEC540: Text Technologies

Universal Library

I chose to write about the universal library because this topic has been close to my heart since I was 12 years old. My biggest dream was to read all the books in the world in all the languages in the world. Many of my friends were eager to point out how ridiculous that dream was – after all I only spoke Ukrainian and Russian and a bit of Polish and German – the basics I learned from my Grandmother. I would not let these naysayers dissuade me from my dreams. How difficult could it be to get a foreign book in translation? By then I had already read all of Dumas’ adventures of the Three Musketeers and Jane Eyre as well as other classical writers. Some books were typed on a typewriter and shared among trusted friends and you learned early on that those books were not to be talked about with people who you did not implicitly trust.

O’Donnell asserts that “[the] main features of this vision are a vast, ideally universal collection of information and instantaneous access to that information wherever it physically resides.” This idea appeals to me tremendously I would love to be able to have access to all of Tolstoy’s works and be able to read my favorite passages whenever I like without having to dig through boxes or travel to the library. This is not to say that I would not rather have a book in my hand but since it is not easy to find some books in their original language, especially the rare first editions, I would love to see a copy on line. O’Donnell characterizes this as a

The dream today is weighed down with silicon chips, keyboards, screens, headsets, and other cumbersome equipment — but someday a dream of say telepathic access will make today’s imaginings suddenly as outmoded as a daisy-wheel printer.

It may be so, but where would we be without our imaginings? The idea of a virtual library is a noble one. As Hillis points out in the Brand article,” we are now in a period that may be a maddening blank to future historians–a Dark Age–because nearly all of our art, science, news, and other records are being created and stored on media that we know can’t outlast even our own lifetimes.” True as this may be, should we stop all scanning projects because we are worried about being able to retrieve data.

I will tell you this- when I was doing the readings, and exploring the virtual libraries, I found books of songs and stories that my Grandmother sang and told me when I was a child. What a gift from people who these books probably meant nothing to! Where Stewart Brand prophesizes, “there has never been a time of such drastic and irretrievable information loss as right now” and blames the computer industry’s production schedule for the rapid advancement of standards, it must be pointed out – since the process of standardization really took hold, we have seen technologies last many years. HTML is nearly twenty years old.(Wiki) The JPEG picture format was defined as a standard in 1992. (Wiki) The Portable Document Format (aka PDF) is over sixteen years old (Wiki) and is now an open standard. And a file created with the first version of these standards can still be read on computers today. He remarks “civilization time is in centuries” but how many of us can understand the earliest books in the English language? Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or even the works of William Shakespeare are only a few hundred years old, but they seem to be an entirely different language!

While it is true that the media will probably not outlast our lifetimes, I’m sure that was apparent to the authors of medieval manuscripts. However – they did not stop copying out illuminated sheets of manuscript simply because they might not survive a fire. The fires in Alexandria marked a huge blow to the body of knowledge of the time – but one fire in one city will not wipe out a universal library. There will be backup to tapes, redundant hard drives, and redundant locations to store data. Sure, if the power goes off that information will just sit there – but think about how it sits there. Each hard drive is created as a sealed environment and the data could well be readable in 100 years. The motor that drives the plates inside the drive may have failed, but the platters and the data they contain, could last a very long time. Under ideal conditions, to be sure – but what book left outside on the table will last beyond the year? The reason books have been such an efficient method of passing information across the ages isn’t because they are inherently better. There have simply been so many of them written that a few were bound to make it. Really, the body of knowledge we inherited from three hundred to two thousand years ago is remarkably small. I do not know if a universal library will work better for longevity, but it will give more people access to books they might never have otherwise seen. I do not advocate the end of all print media – it is good to have an alternative to the electronic versions, but I think the electronic versions will become the ones that people make use of.

References

Brand, S. (1999). Escaping the Digital Dark Ages. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=7&hid=4&sid=d441a38a-9c6d-4085-80a4-b520f38fe9ac%40sessionmgr14&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=tfh&AN=1474780

Kelly, K. (2006). Scan This Book! Retrieved from http://www.journalism.wisc.edu/~gdowney/courses/j201/pdf/readings/Kelly%20K%202006%20NYT%20-%20Google%20Print.pdf

O’Donnell, J. J. The Virtual Library: An Idea Whose Time Has Passed. Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20070204034556/http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/virtual.html

O’Donnell, J. J. (1998). Avatars of the World: From Papyrus to Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1998. 44-49. Retrieved from http://www.public.asu.edu/~dgilfill/speakers/odonnell1.html

Captain’s Log Stardate 5938.3 – The Universal Library

As I read Kelly’s article “Scan This Book” I was struck by its utopian outlook. It felt almost like it had a Star Trek feel to it. With that in mind I thought that I would discuss the arguments for and against the Universal Library in the form of a “Captain’s Log” from Star Trek:

Captain’s log- Stardate 5938.3:

I have been enjoying reading the novels of 21^st century Earth held within Unilib (our Universal Library). It is hard to imagine that people of that time were opposed to the digitization of all books. Concerns over copyright and advertising revenue seemed to dominate the debate over whether or not it would be a good thing to have free access to all books ever written. Now it seems unthinkable to live without Unilib. Just imagine what would have happened to great countries like Somalia and Afghanistan had they not been given the free access to these documents in their language. No doubt their populations would have remained impoverished and unenlightened, forever looking for help from the countries who were wealthy enough to learn from the books they purchased and which their poorer cousins were unable to afford.

What if Unilib failed to emerge? Our world would be vastly different. We would not have developed the deep collaborative spirit that emerged among all readers as they linked, tagged and bookmarked. The vast mashups of reading material would have never materialized. A greater sense of understanding and authority arose as more and more knowledge was linked and connected to each other. Cures for cancer, diabetes and heart disease would not have been imagined because there would not have been the interconnectiveness of the vast scientific wealth.

Thank goodness the differences between the copyright holders and those interested in digitizing the world’s books were able to be settled. Authors whose works lived in obscurity began to become more popular as social book networks virally distributed links to their works. Universities were able to expand their libraries overnight because the cost of a digital book was miniscule compared to the cost of hardcover text.

Not only did universities increase their collection of human knowledge, the entire world did as well. Man’s history was more accurately depicted once governments and publishers no longer asserted and inserted their view of historical events. A more complete picture arose as readers from all walks of life, ethnicity and nationality added links and tags to historical documents. This collective and connected account of man’s story helped foster a better understanding between nations which ultimately led to the formation of our world government and a redistribution of the earth’s resources.

Our universe would be dramatically different had the United States Congress not passed their controversial copyright law of 2100. This law extended copyright indefinitely. The outcry and revolt that followed led to the great consumer boycott of 2112. This boycott, which was organized by Jim Gates (Bill Gates’ great, great grandson), called all consumers to refuse to purchase any product that was covered by copyright law. The resulting economic crash brought the mega corporations of Sonysonic and MicroApple to their senses. They soon were able to work out an agreement that allowed consumers to use intellectual property and at the same time reward those who created the content.

With opposition due to copyright removed Google, Carnegie Mellon University, Microsoft, Yahoo and other interested parties were all able to pursue their digitization projects. It soon became apparent that they should combine forces in order to create a single project that would amount to the world’s single book. With copyright no longer being a concern Google’s practice of having authors opt out of the digitization project was no longer in effect.

Google’s original strategy of having authors opt out had some legacy issues. It is interesting to note how this practice transferred to other segments of the society. Employers used this model to gather sensitive information on their employees if the employees did not opt out of the human medical data base initiative. Governments collected confidential information on the citizens who did not opt out of the Big Brother data bank.

The Unilib movement did have its critics. There were those who claimed that “scanning books and chucking their poor innocent words into a vast, searchable database will only create massive intellectual fraud and confusion” (Keen, 2007) They argued that “taking a few words out of one text, replacing them with a few words from another, is the surest way to undermine the coherence of any textual argument” (Keen, 2007) and that “(re)mixing great books like Plato’s Republic with Hobbes Leviathan will create intellectual garbage.” (Keen, 2007) Fortunately these fears proved to be unfounded as readers fully engaged in the process of reading. The concern that readers would not chose to read entire books was unfounded. Not only did people read complete works but they then created remix anthologies that linked works of a common thread. It was from these threads that humans have been able to evolve to where we are today: a united species seeking self-improvement over financial gain. Without the Universal Library this would not have been possible. Thank goodness mankind was able to work together to create the cornerstone of our society.

References:

Birt, Y. (n.d.). Wisdom and the Universal Library. Retrieved September 22, 2009, from Yahya Birt: http://www.yahyabirt.com/?p=60

Dyson, G. (2005, November 30). The Universal Library. Retrieved September 20, 2009, from Edge The Third Culture: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dyson2.05/dyson2.05_index.html

Google’s Book Scanning Hits Snag. (2008, May 12). Retrieved September 26, 2009, from Wired: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/08/68513

Grafton, A. (2007, November 5). Onward and Upward With The Arts. Retrieved September 19, 2009, from The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/05/071105fa_fact_grafton?currentPage=all

Keen, A. (2007, March 6). Why Google’s universal library is an assault on human identity. Retrieved September 22, 2009, from Blogs ZD Net: http://blogs.zdnet.com/keen/?p=107

Kelly, K. (2006, May 14). Scan This Book. Retrieved September 17, 2009, from Etec 540 website: https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/urw/lc5116011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct?JSESSIONIDVISTA=5D50KDDPcHTpY10GpYpyjhCc1NYhlkMXYvhjqwsG2LwJjJHplQBH!-1842142989!node07.vista.ubc.ca!20001!-1!-1938337275!node08.vista.ubc.ca!20001!-1

Manjoo, F. (2009, May 6). Your Search Returned 12 Million BooksGoogle’s goal of a universal online library would be great for humanity. It can still be great for authors and publishers, too. Retrieved September 25, 2009, from Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2217804

O’Donnell, J. J. (n.d.). The Virtual Library:An Idea Whose Time Has Passed. Retrieved September 25, 2009, from http://web.archive.org/web/20070204034556/http:/ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/virtual.html

Prpick, S. (Composer). (2009). The Great Library 2.0. [C. R. Ideas, Performer] unknown, unknown, unknown.

Sherman, C. (2006, May 18). Building the Universal Library. Retrieved September 21, 2009, from Search Engine Watch: http://searchenginewatch.com/3607081

Unknown. (2009, June 22). ITC Library. Retrieved September 23, 2009, from ITC: http://www.itc.nl/library/General_info/million_book.asp