BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google

  • John Palfrey
Basic: 2015. 9780465042999 | ISBN: 978-0-4650-4299-9

John Palfrey loves libraries and is optimistic about their future. In BiblioTech, he describes that future. In his vision, public libraries, as a mainstay of informed democratic societies, will share access to online material as well as to the physical books and spaces that resonate emotionally with users.

Palfrey — who helped to set up the Digital Public Library of America at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts — shows that most libraries are facing a “perfect storm”: waning use, inadequate resources and users satisfied with easy personal access to online information. Although the book does not focus on academic libraries, US research libraries saw a 69% decline in the number of queries handled between 1991 and 2012. US research librarians answer some 7 million questions each year; Internet search engines handle that many every two minutes. Academic-library budgets are shrinking: spending has dropped from 3.7% of the total budget of a typical US university in the early 1980s to 1.8% in 2011.

Roughly half of an academic-library budget is spent on acquisitions, and that is increasingly consumed by journal-subscription prices. However, open-access publishers such as the Public Library of Science (PLOS) provide information with no reader fee, changing the economics entirely.

As Palfrey notes, school libraries — which still have a key role in teaching scholarly habits and propelling children towards a life in science — are suffering, often losing their staff. The 2010 Google Map 'A Nation Without School Librarians' is a grim indicator of the trend, showing the districts that have eliminated certified school-librarian positions. As for public libraries, the Pew Research Center reports that only about half of people in the United States used one in 2013. Palfrey is fearful that in the future, not everyone will have access to reliable information, and he is unconvinced that poorer people and nations will have equal access to information online.

The increasing commercialization of information raises further barriers. Palfrey is especially concerned about the copyright status of out-of-print books. Nobody makes money from them, but legal problems such as the dilemma of 'orphan books' (volumes in copyright, but for which the owner is unlocatable) prevent libraries from providing such volumes online. Finally, Palfrey, echoing the concerns of Google vice-president Vint Cerf among others, feels that digital preservation of library holdings is riskier than traditional methods. In my view, this is not entirely accurate: a single paper copy can fade or go up in smoke, whereas multiple digital copies can stay safe and affordable.

The school library should be as important as the school sports team.

At a time of austerity and belt-tightening, will governments recognize the importance of libraries and librarians? The school library should be as important as the school sports team, I feel. Political will is essential, as is innovative energy among librarians. Palfrey hopes that conventional and new library technologies will sit side by side. This is not common in technological change: car-rental companies do not run livery stables. I suspect that a more likely future is that libraries (and museums) will be divided into the 'wholesalers' that have large historic collections, such as the US Library of Congress or the British Library, and the 'retailers' such as university libraries, which serve faculties.

Anyone interested in the future of libraries — and whether there is one at all — will find much to mull over in this book. I hope its effectiveness will match its enthusiasm.