The Disappearing Books

Posted on May 19, 2005 by sheila

This post on Photon Courier, about university libraries getting rid of books, reminds me of something my dad said once. My dad is a university librarian. We were all talking about Google, and how Google has pretty much changed our lives. My dad said, “I don’t know what librarians will call themselves in the future … and what their job will actually be anymore … but it sure won’t be what it was in the past.” There was a pause, and then my dad added: “I feel like I’m a blacksmith in 1910.”

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5 Responses to The Disappearing Books

  1. skinnydan says:
    May 19, 2005 at 10:09 am

    “Information Management Specialists”

    I suspect this isn’t quite the trend the Times think it is. It’s clearly true for journals and other periodical literature, but most research still depends on physical books. Maybe I’m a luddite, but I’d be shocked if books disappeared completely.

  2. red says:
    May 19, 2005 at 10:22 am

    skinnydan:

    Don’t think my dad was actually looking for the answer – I’m sure he already knows it. It was a contemplative moment, thinking about the future of his own profession.

    And I’m a luddite, too. I can’t imagine books going away.

  3. Scott Janssens says:
    May 19, 2005 at 11:22 am

    Books won’t go away, they’ll just become very expensive.

  4. David Foster says:
    May 19, 2005 at 11:24 am

    It’s interesting to trace what *did* happen to the blacksmithing trade, in the sense of where the comparable work went:

    1)Some of it remained with traditional blacksmith: horseshoeing and some small-scale businesses.
    2)Some of it (making of various metal products) went to factories, resulting in a splitting of skill levels–some lower than the traditional blacksmith (stamping machine operator), some comparable or arguably higher (tool & die maker), and some more of a symbolic/knowledge-work nature (industrial engineer, production scheduler)
    3)Some of it took on an entirely different nature–horses replaced by cars, ergo a need for auto repairmen–general skill levels problably comparable but more dependent on literacy (reading of manuals) and ability to learn new things

    Not sure how this plays out with the librarians…I do think, though, that librarians in general are being far too eager to give up on books.

  5. dad says:
    May 19, 2005 at 1:49 pm

    Dearest: I might as well weigh in on the situation written up in the ‘newspaper of record’. The library that was closing [in Cal state system I think] was an undergraduate library–which often function in the same way that Children’s rooms do in public libraries–a place to keep the kiddies quiet. They also have ‘reserve’ collections for heavily used course materials. Much of that type of material is now available online–undergards can have access to this stuff without actually going to the library–thus there was less need for a special duplicative service. There is, however, no evidence, anywhere, that anyone would actually seek out a book to read on line, rather than the traditional print version. The librarian quoted in the article is a fool. love, Dad