+ Page 1 + ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Public-Access Computer Systems Review Volume 4, Number 5 (1993) ISSN 1048-6542 ----------------------------------------------------------------- To retrieve an article file as an e-mail message, send the GET command given after the article information to LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 (BITNET) or LISTSERV@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU (Internet). To retrieve the article as a file, omit "F=MAIL" from the end of the GET command. CONTENTS PAPERS FROM THE NINTH TEXAS CONFERENCE ON LIBRARY AUTOMATION, HOUSTON, TEXAS, APRIL 2-3, 1993, PART I COMMUNICATIONS Dreams, Devices, Niches, and Edges: Coping with the Changing Landscape of Information Technology By Walt Crawford (pp. 5-21) To retrieve this file: GET CRAWFORD PRV4N5 F=MAIL Although some technological visionaries would like us to believe that their predictions must come true, the future is not inevitable. We should honor the dreamers, but harvest their dreams selectively. "Technolust" is common, but it can cloud our judgement. It's important to remember that many innovations fail. There are no universal technological solutions, but there are many niches that different technologies compete to fill. By choosing the right niche, everyone can be on some technical leading edge, but there is often value in staying on the "trailing edge." If they don't temper their predictions with realism, prophets of the electronic library can do more harm than good. + Page 2 + The Virtual Library: Pitfalls, Promises, and Potential By Dana Rooks (pp. 22-29) To retrieve this file: GET ROOKS PRV4N5 F=MAIL The virtual library is not the ultimate answer to everyone's information needs. It is merely another step in a dynamic and evolutionary process. The traditional print library and traditional library services will not disappear. But, as librarians, we must accept and adapt to the introduction of new techniques and systems. We must recognize the enormous potential of the virtual library, address the issues involved in its creation, and take a leadership role in integrating these new systems and services into our libraries. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Public-Access Computer Systems Review ----------------------------------------------------------------- Editor-in-Chief Charles W. Bailey, Jr. University Libraries University of Houston Houston, TX 77204-2091 (713) 743-9804 LIB3@UHUPVM1 (BITNET) or LIB3@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU (Internet) Associate Editors Columns: Leslie Pearse, OCLC Communications: Dana Rooks, University of Houston Reviews: Roy Tennant, University of California, Berkeley + Page 3 + Editorial Board Ralph Alberico, University of Texas, Austin George H. Brett II, Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval Steve Cisler, Apple Computer, Inc. Walt Crawford, Research Libraries Group Lorcan Dempsey, University of Bath Nancy Evans, Pennsylvania State University, Ogontz Charles Hildreth, READ, Ltd. Ronald Larsen, University of Maryland Clifford Lynch, Division of Library Automation, University of California David R. McDonald, Tufts University R. Bruce Miller, University of California, San Diego Paul Evan Peters, Coalition for Networked Information Mike Ridley, University of Waterloo Peggy Seiden, Skidmore College Peter Stone, University of Sussex John E. Ulmschneider, North Carolina State University Technical Support Tahereh Jafari, University of Houston Publication Information Published on an irregular basis by the University Libraries, University of Houston. Technical support is provided by the Information Technology Division, University of Houston. Circulation: 7,527 subscribers in 57 countries (PACS-L) and 2,061 subscribers in 51 countries (PACS-P). Back issues are available from LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 (BITNET) or LISTSERV@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU (Internet). To retrieve a cumulative index to the journal, send the following e-mail message to the LISTSERV: GET INDEX PR F=MAIL. The first two volumes of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review are also available in book form from the American Library Association's Library and Information Technology Association (LITA). Volume three is forthcoming. The price of each volume is $17 for LITA members and $20 for non-LITA members. To order, contact: ALA Publishing Services, Order Department, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611-2729, (800) 545-2433. + Page 4 + ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is an electronic journal that is distributed on BITNET, Internet, and other computer networks. There is no subscription fee. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 (BITNET) or LISTSERV@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU (Internet) that says: SUBSCRIBE PACS-P First Name Last Name. PACS-P subscribers also receive three electronic newsletters: Current Cites, LITA Newsletter, and Public-Access Computer Systems News. The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is Copyright (C) 1993 by the University Libraries, University of Houston. All Rights Reserved. Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by academic computer centers, computer conferences, individual scholars, and libraries. Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their collection, in electronic or printed form, at no charge. This message must appear on all copied material. All commercial use requires permission. ----------------------------------------------------------------- + Page 5 + ----------------------------------------------------------------- Crawford, Walt. "Dreams, Devices, Niches, and Edges: Coping with the Changing Landscape of Information Technology." The Public- Access Computer Systems Review 4, no. 5 (1993): 5-21. To retrieve this file, send the following e-mail message to LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 or LISTSERV@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU: GET CRAWFORD PRV4N5 F=MAIL. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 Introduction As I was flying in to Houston Thursday afternoon, in my personal helicopter from the arcology that used to be Redwood City, I used my wrist computer to run some current statistics, with sound and full-color animation of course, on the final stages of the death of print. [1] It's pretty much on schedule. Books have already disappeared, and the last print newspaper will probably cease publication this July. Supermarkets still sell something called mass-market magazines, but they're mostly semi-pornographic VR cubes, except for the few old-fashioned 3-D rags on digital paper. Well, there is one exception: all the paper that used to go into magazines, newspapers, and books is being used for the 300 monthly, weekly, and daily magazines offering reviews and hints to make TopView and NextStep Pentium run better together. Awake now? Well, if you think any part of that opening view mirrors reality now, or is likely to within the next decade--or within my lifetime, for that matter--then you won't be happy with this talk. But then, why are you here in the flesh anyway? For full-blooded futurists, schlepping your body to a conference is hopelessly out of date. If it isn't on the network, it isn't worth bothering with. Right? But, well, you're here, so on with the talk. 2.0 Renouncing Inevitability I read a lot about visions of the information future; how can you avoid it? I look for one particular word when people write about the future. That word is "inevitable." To me, the word has three fundamental meanings: o First, it means that the case being argued is weak. If the logic and facts will sway reasonable listeners, there's no reason to claim inevitability. But when you don't have the facts on your side, it's always good to stop discussion by saying, "Well, it's inevitable." + Page 6 + o Second, it frequently means that the speaker knows that listeners may find the prediction unappealing. If something is desirable, we hardly need to be told it's inevitable. o Third, it usually means that the prediction will be very expensive, and that the speaker wants to take resources away from other things. In my experience, "inevitable" is usually part of a would-be self-fulfilling prophecy: something a speaker or writer wants to see for his or her own reasons. I find the word to be an almost irresistible invitation to start poking for the flaws in the prediction--and they're usually not hard to find. One of the slogans for this speech might be "Renounce Inevitability." Don't use it in your projections, and don't accept it from other people. Let's look at the four key words in the title: dreams, devices, niches, and edges. After that, I'd like to spend a few minutes on hopes and dangers. 3.0 Dreams We don't lack for dreams of the future, and that's probably a good thing. Prophets and visionaries can also be called dreamers. It's not an insult by any means. I believe in dreamers. We need them, and we should honor them. F. W. Lancaster began dreaming of a paperless future many years ago. Ted Nelson dreamed of hypertext years before there were personal computers; his vision of universal hypertext even carries the dreamlike name Xanadu. Way back in the late 1960s, Fred Kilgour left Yale to pursue his dream of a nationwide system of shared cataloging. Michael Hart dreams that a trillion texts will be used thanks to his efforts, with good old ASCII as the basis for the dream. Steve Jobs dreamed that the cute little Macintosh would become the universal computer--and, later, that NeXT computers would become even more universal than Macintoshes. There are many others, in and out of our field. We need dreams. We need dreamers. We need visionaries and prophets. But we also need to deal with dreams coherently. + Page 7 + 3.1 Harvesting the Dreams Ideally, we should be able to harvest the dreams: taking from them the best that they offer, while setting aside the chaff. For there is almost always chaff. Every dream constitutes a simplification; every dream focuses on one aspect of the future. Almost every dream carries with it the seeds of a nightmare. We need to recognize the simplifications inherent in most projections. We need to harvest the dreams, not adopt them on faith. Honor the dreamers; don't believe in the dreams without placing them in context. Take the most nearly realized of those dreams, that of a single national shared bibliographic facility. Would we really be better off if OCLC was, in fact, a single universal bibliographic network, the only source for bibliographic data? Would you be happy with the notion that OCLC's management had total control over that aspect of your budget--or RLG's management, for that matter? Probably not--and yet, OCLC is actually a very narrow dream from a quarter-century past. It deals with a little patch of the information landscape, certainly far narrower than the vast reaches projected for Project Xanadu or the universal scholar's workstation. The Apple dream of a graphical computing future really began with Lisa, and reached remarkable real-world fruition with the Macintosh--but it did not, and will not, sweep away other PCs. Is that loss of a dream a bad thing? You Macintosh users: do you honestly believe Macintosh prices would be lower if Apple dominated the personal computing marketplace? Would color monitors for Macs be cheaper or better if Macintoshes could not now use boring old VGA displays? I think not. Dreams tempered with reality produce progress: never simple, almost never linear, but frequently quite impressive. Honor the dreamers. Harvest the dreams. But always be aware that dreams-- or projections, or visions, or (God help us) new paradigms-- almost always ignore the complexities of life. If your own good sense says that a dream isn't plausible as it stands, or that it would in fact be a nightmare if carried out, believe in yourself more than in the dream. One person's utopia is another person's dystopia--and any utopia, frankly, would probably be a pretty unpleasant or boring place to live. + Page 8 + 4.0 Devices On to devices, the things with which we move. Not necessarily forward, at least not all the time, but we move nonetheless. I may spend more time on devices than they really deserve--but then, they're always fun. Technological dreams depend on devices to make them real--but we tend to place unwarranted faith in devices. 4.1 Technolust I call it technolust, and I'm prone to it once in a while, just like most people (particularly most men, I hasten to add). As a few of you know, I'm eating a little crow about trailing-edge computing and my dislike for Windows, since my new home computer is only trailing edge by Silicon Graphics standards and this talk was written using Word for Windows. And I must admit that I really, really like my new computer--CD-ROM drive, big high- resolution monitor, huge high-speed hard disk and all. But I'm basically a tool-user. An avid tool-user at times, but a tool-user. A true technophile would certainly bring a notebook computer to this conference--or, better yet, a Personal Digital Assistant like Apple's Newton. And the heart of the technophile was beating strong when PACS-L had suggestions that future library users would be wandering around with PDAs in hand, accessing the library's catalog through infrared links, scanning in pieces from books on the shelf, and so on. We can get rid of those clunky terminals! Of course, if some poor slob doesn't own a PDA--but then, libraries aren't really for the common folk. Are they? Apple's Newton is new enough so that it's only a little obsolete. It isn't on the market yet, and there's no firm date set for it. The price will be "something under $1,000," which certainly suggests that every library user should have at least one of them handy, doesn't it? Of course, Newton may be a poor example; as I understand it, it's basically a personal calendar and appointment book with room for note-taking. Personally, I use a DayTimer for calendar and appointment needs. Costs about $18 a year; then again, I could probably get by with a $4.95 Weekly Minder. I understand that there's now an electronic DayTimer program to run on pen-operated portable computers, actually developed with the company's cooperation. This $200 program, when combined with a $1,000 computer, will give you all the functionality of a $20 DayTimer, as long as you keep replacing batteries. + Page 9 + But why would you want to do that? If you suffer from terminal technolust, the answer is that everything's better if a computer is involved--as might be the case with the person who opined on PACS-L that it's better to have a thousand technical failures in the marketplace than do things the same old way. The heart of technolust is an unwillingness to deal with the real world. New is always better; technology is always a good thing; once something works, it's time to look for the next new wave. But we live in the real world. Some of you probably still use something less than 486 CPUs on DOS machines--or, horror of horrors, use DOS itself rather than Windows 3.1 or OS/2 2.0. Some of you Mac users don't have Quadra systems. My guess is that at least half of you don't have high-speed laser printers at home, that perhaps more than half don't have true-color printers; that one or two of you don't have V.32bis modems; and that oh, ten or fifteen of you haven't found it necessary to build a local area network for your home computers. Is it possible that one or two of you still live without color monitors at home, or even use something as crude as an AT-class machine, just because you don't seem to need anything more for home computing? Yes, I'm guilty. My trailing-edge budget suddenly caught up with leading-edge capabilities, thanks to some folks in South Dakota, and I took advantage of it. Of course I suffer from technolust once in a while. I read PC magazines. They try their best to keep readers in a buying frenzy. But given the realities of money, time, and other interests, I usually find it easy to keep under control. So should you. 4.2 The Half-Inch Car Surely all of you have heard the old chestnut about the pace of technological change in the computer field. It goes something like this: If cars had developed the way that computers have, a Rolls Royce would now cost $2.50 and get 1,000 miles to the gallon. Here's the reality check: that Rolls Royce would be one centimeter long. We all tend toward hyperbole and oversimplification--and we need to step back to place trends within broader perspectives. Technolust looks at each new device and projects all of its possibilities with none of the drawbacks. Technolust looks at a three-year growth projection and extends it across a decade, without noting that the resulting projections make no real-world sense whatsoever. Technolust makes no distinction between obsolescent--the state of most real-world devices--and obsolete, a different thing altogether. + Page 10 + You can plausibly say that anything that has reached the market is, to some extent, obsolescent: it is probably on the road toward being replaced by something newer. People are probably obsolescent; we're just not sure yet what will replace us. Certainly my new PC is obsolescent: it was available for sale, a sure sign. Obsolete is something very different: an obsolete item is no longer useful, having been wholly superseded by something newer. As one dictionary puts it, "No longer in use, or outmoded in design, style, or construction." New devices don't automatically make old ones obsolete. 4.3 Failures and Successes Here's an unnerving fact you need to remember whenever you consider marvelous new devices and trends. Most innovations fail. Sometimes before reaching the market; sometimes very shortly after; sometimes after a brief blaze of glory; and sometimes after apparently establishing solid markets. Libraries have been caught by failures in media, both mass media and specialized media; we may well be caught by failures in electronic techniques as well. Remember eight-track tapes, an apparent success that eventually failed? Remember Beta--or, more significantly, the half-dozen videocassette systems introduced before Sony marketed Beta? I'll bet there are libraries that established Cartrivision or SelectaVision or V-Cord collections, and many libraries still use U-Matic tapes. Videodiscs? At least half a dozen systems were attempted, dating back to 1928; the trail of failures pretty much ends in 1984, when RCA abandoned its dismal CED system. RCA managed to derail marketing efforts for LaserVision, keeping it from establishing an early large market share--but Pioneer stuck with it, and there's some reason to believe that LaserVision will be a long-term success. (Thanks to the industrial market, it already is.) 4.4 Information Technology Devices The record in information technology is no clearer than elsewhere. Remember ultrafiche and micro-opaques? How about Cauzin Data Strips, a technology so successful that PC World was publishing software using the strips for a couple of years? Seen many 8" diskette drives for personal computers lately--or hard- sectored diskettes of any size? + Page 11 + I mentioned digital paper in the introduction to this talk. I remember talk of this medium as the hot new thing something like a decade ago--and every year or two, we hear that it will revolutionize storage as soon as it really hits the market. If it ever does. Now, of course, there's holographic storage. Not quite ready for market yet, but it will replace everything when it is. It's inevitable. OK, CD-ROM was an instantaneous hit. Which is to say that the standards were established in 1983; the first products, for libraries, came out in 1984; predictions of instant mass-market success began in 1987; and those predictions are still being made. Meanwhile, libraries may still be the largest CD-ROM market--and we think, rightly, that they represent low technology. I think CD-ROM will continue to succeed (as a multiple niche medium, not a mass medium), largely because it rides on the shoulders of audio CDs, and those should have another ten to fifteen years left before they're supplanted. But how could you predict that CD-ROM, from little Philips with its lousy marketing, would be the successful optical medium? Around the same time that CD-ROMs came out, 3M announced OROM, with IBM also involved in its development; in 1988, it looked like a comer. So did DataROM, Sony's new system from the mid- 1980s. OROM seems to have disappeared without a trace; DataROM may have mutated into Sony's MiniDisc, a recordable audio medium that may or may not be suitable for data storage. (If it is, it will have much less capacity than CD-ROM; it gets its 75-minute audio capacity by throwing away most of the recorded information based on computer models of what you can actually hear at any given moment.) Drexel's LaserCard has been around for four or five years, at least, succeeding in niche markets and so far having no apparent mass-market impact. We have a plethora of sure things on the market now; predictably, not more than one or two will succeed in any real way. On the consumer side, there are four or five different incompatible consumer disc video technologies: VIS, CD-Video, CD- Interactive, whatever. For PCs, there are the 2.88 MB diskette drive (well, IBM's behind it, so how can it fail--just like TopView, the PCjr, Micro Channel Architecture, XGA, and IBM's other sure winners), the 21 MB floptical drive, several incompatible removable mass-storage devices (Bernoulli being the lowest technology and longest lasting of the bunch), and the list goes on. + Page 12 + 4.5 Survival: Not Always Predictable If you believed some prophets a decade ago, CRTs would be long gone by now--indeed, the imminent replacement of those old- fashioned vacuum tubes has been predicted for some two decades now. They are, to be sure, silly and archaic in terms of general technological development--but they keep getting better, making a moving target for replacement technologies. If anything, the gap between CRTs and thin-screen devices seems to be growing. Speaking of dead ducks, consider hard disks. I saw several well-considered projections half a decade back that showed solid- state memory, with its far superior speed and resistance to crashing, becoming cheaper than hard disks within five years. That's true: RAM is now much cheaper than hard disk storage was five years ago, and even the kind of stable RAM needed for solid- state disks is about where hard disks were five or six years ago. But, of course, hard disks are a whole bunch cheaper and faster now than they were then. I can almost hear the engineers who have brought down the price of durable RAM: "Well, we made it for $100/megabyte; what more do you want?" Hmm. Right now, I'm paying $2-$3 per megabyte for hard disk storage; that seems like a good target. A tough one, though. Oh, and today's hard disk drives are at least ten times as durable as those of a few years ago; indeed, it's now pretty rare for a contemporary disk drive to suffer a mechanical crash. 4.6 Keys to Dealing with Technolust I can suggest a few things to think about when dealing with new devices, new media, and the wonderful projections made for them: o First, by and large, the new complements the old. Print did not destroy the oral tradition, although it extended its reach. Radio news did not destroy newspapers. Television changed radio, newspapers, and movies--but didn't destroy any of them. Home video changed the motion picture business--but motion picture studios take in more money than ever. o Second, most new devices fail--and the ones that succeed aren't always the ones you'd predict. + Page 13 + o Third, new techniques can revive and sustain old technologies. That explains the continued success of CRTs and hard disks; it's also why start-up print publishers can produce fully competitive books far faster and less expensively than a decade ago. o Fourth, most people don't adopt new devices because they're there. They adopt devices because they fulfill some need, real or imaginary; devices are tools for scratching itches. If the itch isn't widely felt, or if marketers can't communicate that this is the best way to scratch it, the quality of the device just doesn't matter. 5.0 Niches The one thing we can be sure of is that the future will be at least as subtle and complicated as the present. That's not original, but it's true. The future is not one wave or one solid thing; it will be a complex set of niches, just like the present- -only more so. That complexity may be helpful if we recognize it for what it is. There are no universal solutions, at least partly because all such solutions presume relatively simple futures. For that matter, there is not one universal problem. By recognizing that we are dealing with many niches rather than a single edge, many currents rather than a single wave, we may be able to focus on smaller and more solvable problems. There's not much more to say about niches, except to note that there's nothing shameful or futile about being in a niche. A decade ago, LaserVision essentially failed as a consumer product--but it established a niche in industrial training. Thanks to that niche, the technology has survived and been profitable for firms that understood the niche. If LaserVision was only acceptable as a replacement for videocassettes, then it was a dismal failure. If I had to guess which smaller computer companies will survive into 1994, I would probably include Tri-Star in the list. They've become specialists, designing high-end systems for CAD workers and others who need 17" to 20" monitors and systems that will support them. It won't make Tri-Star a billion dollar company--but I suspect they know that, and would rather be a profitable smaller company. They are establishing themselves as leading suppliers to a niche market: that's a recipe for success, as long as the niche stays healthy. + Page 14 + Some librarians now decry a future in which libraries won't be the means by which most people get all of their information. But libraries have never been the sole, or even the primary, source of information for people. Good libraries serve many niches, but they never have served as universal sources, and they never will. If failing to do that means that libraries are obsolete, so be it--but nothing else will serve as a universal source, either. More to the point, the library is an absurdly simplistic formulation, as is the patron. The corporate library for a genetic engineering company has different needs, and serves very different patrons, than the library I use most often, the Schaberg branch of the Redwood City Public Library. The University of California at Berkeley Physics Library fills a very different niche than the Doe Main Library with its massive collections in the humanities and social sciences, and should allocate its funds differently between electronic and print media. So should the library at Foothill Community College-- which, again, serves very different needs and has very different patrons. 5.1 Niche Solutions Solve Niche Problems We need to recognize specific problems, so we can develop or evolve specific solutions. In the publishing field, for example, it's simply nonsense to say that "print on paper is too expensive" or "the economics of paper publishing don't make sense" or "it no longer makes sense to publish journals in print form" as generalizations. None of these statements are true in general. I'm not here to propose solutions to the problems of libraries. I have had some radical thoughts as to how you identify the true problem journals in STM, the ones that really need to be dealt with in some manner--but I won't bore you with those thoughts here. Certainly, many people with far more insight and experience than I can offer have been working on these problems, and a variety of innovative solutions have been suggested. When looking at the proposed solutions, I would suggest a few cautionary measures: o First, try to find specific solutions for specific problems. Some solutions can indeed be generalized-- but the more you generalize a solution, the more likely it is that you're solving the wrong problem. + Page 15 + o Second, look at all the implications of a solution, both short-term and long-term. For example, article delivery as a replacement for little-used subscriptions makes excellent economic sense--as long as the journals still have enough subscriptions so that the publishers don't jack up the cost of articles beyond reason. And if journals become purely print-on-demand operations, and are still in the hands of the big international publishers--well, they can pretty much charge whatever they want for the articles, can't they? o Third, think in terms of multiple solutions, not one massive agenda that succeeds or fails. Personal computers have succeeded so brilliantly because of multiplicity and competition. If all the focus had been on developing the CPU, with one dominant provider each for video, memory, and mass storage, today's PCs would be curious beasts indeed, with high-speed CPUs throttled back by slow displays, slow RAM, and undersized, slow, crash-prone storage devices. Instead, many threads of development, many solutions, many competitors have addressed many different specific problems of PC performance--with phenomenal results by any reasonable measure. Those results haven't always been easy, and many developers have fallen by the wayside--but the field as a whole has prospered. 6.0 Edges Let's talk just a bit about edges: leading edges, bleeding edges, and trailing edges. 6.1 Everyone Can Be at Some Leading Edge Everyone can be at some leading edge, at least in understanding a niche. The key is to define your niche appropriately, and to determine how important that leading edge is to you. You also need to understand that really staying on the leading edge in one field may hurt you in other areas, at least slightly, unless you can rely on others to stay well-informed in those areas on your behalf. + Page 16 + Can one person or institution really be at the leading edge of all information technology? Possibly, but I don't really see how; it's just too broad a field with too many distinct niches. Typically, institutions that assert themselves as leading-edge do so by careful definition: if they're not involved in it, it isn't leading edge. I'm probably not the right person to talk about the leading edge; it's never much occurred to me to worry about whether I'm there. Besides, the leading edge can get very confusing. If you're designing an information retrieval system to be used on campus-wide and library-wide information systems, using the Internet as a delivery mechanism, you need to understand the leading edge of character-based, non-graphic, command-oriented user interface design--which the hot new designers would tell you was obsolete a decade ago. It all depends. They call it the bleeding edge, and that's not just a joke. As they say, you can always tell the pioneers by the arrows in their backs--that is, the ones that didn't get eaten by other pioneers. To really get out there on the leading edge, you probably need to commit to one particular technology in a big way. God help you if you make the wrong choice. But, of course, if there are no pioneers, then the frontier will never be settled. If we never buy version one of anything, there won't ever be a version two. We need to take some risks-- and we need to expect some failures as a result. That's part of progress, too. 6.2 The Worth of the Trailing Edge Anyone here remember the last "Common Sense Personal Computing" article I wrote for Library Hi Tech? I concluded, correctly I believe, that it was no longer possible for me to claim that I could apply common sense to the personal computing field. Clearly, most of the full-time PC commentators had taken leave of their common sense in various ways; I couldn't even keep up with the field in its entirety, and had given up trying. Well, yes, that was partly an attempt to shut down the series of articles. It didn't work; I was convinced to come back in a new guise, that of a trailing-edge commentator. That freed me from having to keep up with all the newest developments. + Page 17 + My choice of the term trailing edge was a deliberate poke at those who believe the leading edge is the only game in town. By the time I started the new series, I had already moved to an AT- class computer; in 1988, that wasn't quite trailing edge, although it certainly wasn't leading edge either. Ditto the 386/20 I purchased in 1990: not the lowest of the low, but really in the fat middle. That said--and confessing that my current system is dangerously close to the leading edge, at least for Intel-based systems--I would also note that there's much to be said for the true trailing edge. When I travel, that's where I am. No notebook computer came on this trip; I don't own one. Fortunately, I don't travel every month, and I'm not such a hotshot that RLG can't do without my services for a few days. What do I take on trips? Well, that's when I catch up on science fiction magazines and, in heavy travel periods, paperback books as well. That's right; instead of a six-pound notebook computer, I carry a pound or two of magazines and books. Now that's the trailing edge. I love it. To say nothing of this speech, of course. It's not as pure as the one I did at the University of Southern California in February; there, I didn't even have a microphone! But here we are: electric lights undimmed, no video projection system, no computer-driven overhead, no slides. Just you and me, in the non-virtual flesh. How retro can you get? And if that bugs you, well, you shouldn't be at a conference. You should be on the Net, where the action is. Meanwhile, I'll stick with the trailing edge--when it works for me, and when it's all I need. I suggest you do the same; it frees your time, money and energy for the things that count. Sometimes, that means seizing the leading edge for a niche. Sometimes, it means taking a few days to watch the river run. 7.0 Dangers & Hopes But enough of that. I'd like to offer a few hopes and note a danger. First, the danger. + Page 18 + 7.1 Destroying the Library to Save It Until recently, I regarded predictions of the death of print and "electronic everything" as being amusing and annoying. They seemed harmful only to the extent that people were wasting energy discussing and analyzing the projections rather than focusing on finding real (albeit less grandiose) solutions to real problems. Then an incident occurred at a close friend's small liberal arts college library; a library that needs to increase its core print collection to serve the needs of the college's growing student body. My friend, the library director, has added CD-ROM and subsidized online searching as funds have permitted. She understands that the library can only serve its students fully through a combination of locally held material and strong access methods for everything else. The library was supposed to be on the campus development list to bring it up to reasonable standards. Now the campus development officer comes to her and says, "Why do you need to expand the library? I read in the Chronicle of Higher Education that the book is dying and everything will be electronic. Why should we waste our money on facilities you won't need in another five or ten years?" I'm sure this isn't an isolated incident. And, while I suspect that my friend can do a good job of explaining the realities, some librarians may not be able to do so. It isn't just small academic libraries; public libraries can also run into this problem when trying for bond issues, for example. How do you make the case for better funding, part of it to be used to build or expand a building, when supposed authorities seem to think that books will go away in a few years? Oversimplified projections of complete electronic access and the death of print pose clear and present dangers to our libraries. Projections of complete electronic access in the near term, disregarding or denigrating the long-term importance of print materials, also pose clear and present dangers to our libraries. + Page 19 + 7.2 Librarians: Think Before You Write Among knowledgeable library people who write or speak as though print is on its way out, the problem is frequently one of oversimplification and concentrating on one particular problem to the exclusion of everything else. The severe problem of scientific, technical, and medical journals (and the admitted reliance of top scientific scholars on electronic means for much of their information) tends to be generalized to the whole of large research libraries and to all library users, scientists, humanists, and students alike. As a whole, books in the humanities haven't increased in price at anything like the ruinous pace of STM journals--in a very real sense, they aren't the problem. Perhaps more to the point, large research libraries and smaller academic libraries (particularly those at liberal arts colleges or community colleges) have very different priorities and problems--and public libraries have yet another set of priorities and problems. But the people who publish come primarily from large research libraries, and tend to speak of "the library" as though all libraries are the same. When any smaller library, struggling to meet its users' basic needs, fails to gain adequate funding because of arguments coming from large research libraries, we all suffer. To those who publish and speak in the field, I would just say: think about what you're saying and its impact on all libraries, not merely your own. 7.3 Enemies of Print: No Friends of Libraries For the most fervid advocates of the death of print, this discussion will be meaningless--because to them, libraries are obsolete in any case. (So, from their perspective, are librarians.) Most such advocates really don't like books (or reading), and many really do seem to believe that the only thing that matters in any book is the independent paragraphs of information. Fiction? Why would you go to all the mental strain of reading (and creating your own images) when you can play a graphic computer game or watch television? These neo-barbarians will tell you that nobody reads anymore, anyway--and they're not really sad about that "fact." (Book sales continue to rise, albeit slowly.) I have nothing but contempt for this group--and sadness, as well. + Page 20 + And just a little fear, the fear that even one library could be damaged or destroyed because of such people. Not that they would care: more's the pity. 7.4 Hopes By now you know my hopes for the future of print and of libraries. I believe that print--books, magazines, newspapers-- will survive as important media for the indefinite future. I also believe that electronic publishing and dissemination will grow enormously, displacing print where electronic does it better, but by no means sounding the death knell for the book. A future with both print and electronic resources. I believe that people will continue to write linear prose and treasure its qualities, particularly for conveying knowledge, wisdom, and enlightenment and for entertaining. I also believe that hypertext will find more use where it serves best, not only in help systems but also to convey independent pieces of data and information and follow links among such pieces. A future with both prose and hypertext. I hope that funding will improve for libraries, and particularly for strong support of the true expert systems in libraries: the wetware, the stuff between the ears of good librarians. I believe librarians will continue to serve their two key missions, to serve their users and preserve the culture. I also believe many users will get much of their information without the mediation of librarians--and there's really nothing new about that. A future with both librarians as intermediaries and direct access. I believe that most libraries, except for some in specialized areas, will and must continue to maintain and build strong collections of print and other media, to serve the essential needs of their users. I also believe that libraries will and must rely more heavily on access to materials (and non- material information) that they don't own, and that they must find ways to share the risks, costs, and benefits of such access. I hope that librarians won't accept monolithic solutions to access problems; therein lies disaster. A future with both collections and access. I believe librarians will reach beyond the walls of the library, providing some services electronically and gaining much information in that manner. I also believe that the library will stand, in the future as in the past, as the heart of every good academic institution and the soul of every city. I believe in the library beyond walls, but not the library without walls. A future with both edifice and interface. That's what I believe, and what I hope for. + Page 21 + Notes 1. This paper was presented at the Ninth Texas Conference on Library Automation, Houston, Texas, 3 April 1993. About the Author Walt Crawford, The Research Libraries Group, Inc., 1200 Villa Street, Mountain View, CA 94041-1100. Internet: BR.WCC@RLG.STANFORD.EDU. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is an electronic journal that is distributed on BITNET, Internet, and other computer networks. There is no subscription fee. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 (BITNET) or LISTSERV@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU (Internet) that says: SUBSCRIBE PACS-P First Name Last Name. PACS-P subscribers also receive three electronic newsletters: Current Cites, LITA Newsletter, and Public-Access Computer Systems News. This article is Copyright (C) 1993 by Walt Crawford. All Rights Reserved. The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is Copyright (C) 1993 by the University Libraries, University of Houston. All Rights Reserved. Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by academic computer centers, computer conferences, individual scholars, and libraries. Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their collection, in electronic or printed form, at no charge. This message must appear on all copied material. All commercial use requires permission. ----------------------------------------------------------------- + Page 22 + ----------------------------------------------------------------- Rooks, Dana. "The Virtual Library: Pitfalls, Promises, and Potential." The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 4, no. 5 (1993): 22-29. To retrieve this file, send the following e-mail message to LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 or LISTSERV@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU: GET ROOKS PRV4N5 F=MAIL. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 Introduction The virtual library, this vision of the library of the future, conjures up a variety of images to each of us. [1] To some, the virtual library connotes the ultimate fear: obsolescence of the librarian. To others, the virtual library offers the promised land: the utopia of information access to all. We have all heard the term virtual library used in a widely varying set of scenarios, with equally diverse concepts of what it is, how it will come into being, what it will mean for each of us as librarians, and what it will mean for our patrons. But what exactly does the virtual library encompass? For the purposes of this paper, I'm going to confine my definition to the more generally accepted components of the emerging virtual library. The most fundamental precept of the virtual library is the universal application of advanced high- speed computing and telecommunication capabilities to the access and delivery of information resources. Carried to its ultimate end, the virtual library offers a universe of information to any user, anywhere in the world, at any time of the day or night through the power of a personal computer with telecommunication capabilities. While none of us would suggest that the virtual library is a fully realized concept today, I would argue that it is more fully developed than many of us realize and that many of you are contributing to the advancement and acceptance of the virtual library. 2.0 Evolution Not Revolution The virtual library is not something to be feared, nor is it the ultimate answer. It is another step in a long evolutionary process in which librarians, publishers, the scholarly community, and others have made information available for the advancement of knowledge, the joy of learning, and the mere satisfaction of human curiosity. After all, this is why we all became librarians, this is what librarians do, and this is what we will continue to do in the future. The virtual library is merely another tool to assist us in our goal of serving our patrons. + Page 23 + Librarians have a long history of adopting technology to enhance services. They were early users of typewriters to produce catalog cards, then they photoduplicated card sets to replace individually typed cards. OCLC introduced the exchange of cataloging data and computer-printed catalog cards, then OPACs eliminated the production of catalog cards altogether. Today, LANs, cooperative networks, and Internet access to OPACs, around the nation and the world, have provided instant access for users, whether they are in the library or in a living room half way around the world. Electronic information systems followed a similar evolutionary path. Mediated online searching of SDC, Dialog, and BRS complemented the long standing use of print indexes and abstracts. Direct end-user searching in libraries started with vendor systems such as BRS After Dark and stand-alone CD-ROMs, then added tape-loaded citation databases and networked CD-ROM databases. Computerized access to bibliographic information led to the next logical step of evolution--electronic document delivery. Full-text products on CD-ROM, such as UMI Periodicals OnDisc, and rapid delivery through telefacsimile technology and, in limited cases, electronic file transfer, utilized by such services as CARL UnCover2 and Faxon Xpress, have brought us one step closer to the virtual library. Today, a growing body of citation, full-text, numeric, and statistical databases are available to the user without ever entering the hallowed confines of a library building. Just think about it: no freeway gridlock; no parking hassles; no opening or closing hours; no missing, lost, or misshelved information; and no due date. What a world! 3.0 Weaknesses of the Virtual Library Concept So where's the flaw in the system? The first weakness of the virtual library is the lack of information on how to access or find the specific information needed by the user. This is often referred to as "navigating" in the electronic world. The problem is that most of the time we're left without a compass or a map, and often we're navigating under a dark overcast sky with no stars. In the traditional library, patrons can avail themselves of printed guides, library instruction opportunities, and the old standby, the reference desk, to help them navigate the admittedly complex world of library tools and services. Skill levels of library patrons vary from novice to self-proclaimed expert, and librarians adjust to each along an unending continuum. + Page 24 + So how well do current library service patterns and behaviors translate in the world of virtual libraries? The skills of information seekers will be equally disparate in the electronic environment as they are in the traditional library. The complexity of access mechanisms and protocols will not necessarily diminish. Help screens may substitute for print pathfinders and guides. Books and workshops offered commercially by the private sector may be a partial replacement for library instruction classes. But what mechanism will supplant the reference librarian at the desk? Will libraries establish help lines or user-support 1-800 numbers? Will we staff terminals for e-mail questions? I say why not? We are librarians! We help our patrons search for, locate, and obtain documents and information. We've adapted our skills and our services to microforms, online information, and CD-ROMs--now we will adapt to the Internet, the NREN, and whatever other form information takes. This is nothing new, it's not terrifying, it's what libraries and librarians have done for centuries. We adopt, we adapt, and we continue to serve our clientele. The second critical element to the success of the virtual library is the willingness, and probably more importantly, the ability of libraries to contribute to the shared resources and services of the virtual library. The concept of the virtual library is just that--a concept. It's lifeblood is the network of libraries and information providers that agree to provide access to the information resources within their control. This allegiance, partnership, or cooperative constitutes the "virtual collection," which is the composite of all the information available in all of the libraries on the network. Again this is not an alien concept to librarians. Cooperation and resource sharing are long-standing traditions among libraries. The concept of interlibrary loan has progressed from an informal process between librarians, to ILL standards and request forms, to the OCLC ILL subsystem, with over six million transactions per year. Library resource sharing has incorporated such concepts as cooperative collection development, reciprocal borrowing, and document delivery systems within local, state, and regional networks of member libraries. The local library has long established mechanisms to provide its patrons with access to resources outside its own walls. The mechanisms have changed in some cases from mail to UPS to fax, but the principle remains the same: to meet the information needs of our clientele as efficiently and as thoroughly as we can. The emerging virtual library is merely another step in the same direction. + Page 25 + Not surprisingly, the third major pitfall of the virtual library is cost. Establishing and maintaining network services involve major commitments of resources, both financial and human. Internetworking incorporates a plethora of highly complex technical issues that must be resolved through standardization, compromise, and cooperative development. As the network is expanded from a LAN to a WAN and eventually to an NREN, its cost grows exponentially and in parallel to its benefits, as a growing circle of users are provided access to this virtual collection of resources. Funding the hardware, software, maintenance, and staffing needs of the network is a major issue, but it is no different from funding the cataloging, shelving, and preservation of paper resources. 4.0 Implementation Challenges So what are some of the issues we, as librarians, need to address? First of all, we need to effect a transition or a transformation of how we think about what it is we do. How do we serve our users now and how will we serve users of the virtual library? Most of the early computer systems in libraries were developed for librarians' use. From bibliographic utilities to computerized online searching to automated ILL systems to online acquisitions systems, the end-user was primarily librarians and library support staff. With the advent of OPACs, CD-ROMs, and campus LANs, the focus of use shifted to the patron. However, with few exceptions, the user of these systems was expected to be in the library, using library hardware and software with assistance from library personnel. The advent of the virtual library will effect a major transition in how we deliver library services. We can no longer expect users to be present in the library to ask for assistance or to be available for traditional library instruction. The delivery of services to a primarily remote group of users through a networked system will mandate a fresh look at how libraries are organized, staffed, and funded to deliver services and information. + Page 26 + The concept of the NREN as an "electronic superhighway" that will instantly connect users to the information they seek, regardless of its location, is a popular concept. However it overlooks a major barrier to widespread use--the user's ability to identify the appropriate electronic resource in this vast sea of information and then retrieve needed information from it. How will we train service staff who interpret the system for the public? What format will library instruction programs and educational materials take and how will they be delivered to our users? The role of the librarian in this process will only increase in importance. What we must resolve is how that role will be implemented in the virtual library. The final two areas that mandate our involvement in the emerging virtual library are the intellectual content and the technical design of this electronic library. Who is going to decide what resources will be included in the virtual collection? How will these resources be organized? How will they fit into an overall collection development plan within a library, a consortium, or a larger user community? Will profit rule the decisions, or will librarians influence the balance in electronic information sources as they have always done in developing balanced print collections, reflecting all interests of their user population? What about technical issues? How will the network be configured? Who will decide on the appropriate system architecture? As librarians do we shy away from highly technical considerations, or do we utilize our extensive knowledge of how information is best organized and accessed? How many of us have tried to use CD-ROM searching software that seemed to follow no logical searching pattern? It is imperative that librarians become involved in the technical design issues of the virtual library, or we and, most importantly, our users will pay the price of our failure. The problems confronting the continued development of the virtual library are not insignificant, but they are also not insurmountable. The key is that librarians must assume a leadership role in this development. We cannot totally abandon the shaping of the future of information access, retrieval, and delivery to the commercial sector. Great progress is being made in libraries around the country through innovative and groundbreaking projects that are attempting to define the future of the virtual library--how it will operate, what it will include, who will have access, and of critical importance, who will have control. + Page 27 + 5.0 Virtual Library Projects A brief overview of a small selection of virtual library projects will convey not only the importance of these projects and what they are achieving, but also convince you that we all can and must become involved in this vital process. One of the best known of these projects is a joint effort of Carnegie Mellon University and OCLC, called the Mercury Electronic Library. [2] Begun in 1987-88, Project Mercury is using modern distributed computing to provide users with access to a wide variety of textual databases, including citation and abstract databases, as well as basic full-text reference sources. Project Mercury is exploring the technical design issues and working to expand available content through partnerships with journal publishers such as Elsevier and IEEE. The University of Iowa Libraries Information Arcade is focusing on how best to support the "use of information technologies for research, teaching, and scholarly communication." [3] The system incorporates text, data, software programs, graphics, music, and digital video files, as well as capabilities for electronic mail and access to other library catalogs, electronic journals, newsletters, and academic discussion lists. [4] Cornell University and Xerox Corporation have formed a partnership with support from the Commission on Preservation and Access. The goal of the CLASS project is to test a prototype system for recording brittle books as digital images and producing, on demand, high-quality and archivally sound paper replacements. [5] In addition to the obvious preservation issues, the project also seeks to "investigate some of the issues surrounding scanning, storing, retrieving and providing access to digital images in a network environment." [6] In a final project, North Carolina State University, the National Agricultural Library, and eleven land grant university libraries are collaborating in the NCSU Digitized Document Transmission Project. [7] The aim of this project is to explore "techniques for electronic receipt, display, distribution and output of digitized library research materials." [8] These four projects represent only a small sampling of the efforts of libraries around the world to explore, enhance, and shape the future of the virtual library. They are doing what librarians do: seeking new ways of providing information to their users. + Page 28 + 6.0 Conclusion The virtual library is not the ultimate answer to everyone's information needs. It is merely another step in a dynamic and evolutionary process. The traditional print library and traditional library services will not disappear. But, as librarians, we must accept and adapt to the introduction of new techniques and systems. We must recognize the enormous potential of the virtual library, address the issues involved in its creation, and take a leadership role in integrating these new systems and services into our libraries, for our own good and for the good of our users. Notes 1. This paper was presented at the Ninth Texas Conference on Library Automation, Houston, Texas, 2 April 1993. 2. William Y. Arms et al., "The Design of the Mercury Electronic Library," EDUCOM Review 27 (November/December 1992): 38-41. 3. "Arcade Provides Internet Access," University of Iowa Libraries Information Arcade Bulletin (February 1993): 4. 4. Ibid., 3. 5. "Cornell/Xerox/CPA Joint Study in Digital Preservation-- Progress Report November 2," The Electronic Library 10 (June 1992): 155-163. 6. Ibid., 155. 7. Tracy M. Casorso, "NCSU Digitized Document Transmission Project: Improving Access to Agricultural Libraries," The Electronic Library 10 (October 1992): 271-273. 8. Ibid., 271. About the Author Dana Rooks, Assistant Director for Administration, University Libraries, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-2091. Internet: LIBL@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU. + Page 29 + ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is an electronic journal that is distributed on BITNET, Internet, and other computer networks. There is no subscription fee. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to LISTSERV@UHUPVM1 (BITNET) or LISTSERV@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU (Internet) that says: SUBSCRIBE PACS-P First Name Last Name. PACS-P subscribers also receive three electronic newsletters: Current Cites, LITA Newsletter, and Public-Access Computer Systems News. This article is Copyright (C) 1993 by Dana Rooks. All Rights Reserved. The Public-Access Computer Systems Review is Copyright (C) 1993 by the University Libraries, University of Houston. All Rights Reserved. Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by academic computer centers, computer conferences, individual scholars, and libraries. Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their collection, in electronic or printed form, at no charge. This message must appear on all copied material. All commercial use requires permission. -----------------------------------------------------------------