Digital Futures: Strategies for the Information Age

Citation

Yeates, R. (2003), "Digital Futures: Strategies for the Information Age", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 37 No. 1, pp. 58-59. https://doi.org/10.1108/00330330310460590

This general strategic guidebook is aimed at anyone with a concern for whether libraries and librarians have a future in the digital environment. Assuming little prior knowledge in its readership, it is primarily for library practitioners and related government, corporate, museum and archive professionals, but it is also for students. All will find a coherent review of issues and practice in creating and collecting electronic content through delivery to methods of longer‐term preservation and management.

The first chapter looks at the current global and historical context of information handling, storage and data creation. It also reviews printing and publishing from the library perspective, pointing out that the printed word still appears to have a future. The chapter charts the rise in automation in libraries, leading to networks and co‐operation for mutual benefit. It examines what a digital library is, referring to earlier extensive discussions and concluding that the World Wide Web is not a digital library, although it has many features of one. The Web is not managed, lacks collection development principles, and much content is not perceived as having durable value. Outstanding issues for libraries trying to deliver something better include interoperability, funding, infrastructure, scalability and sustainability. It is suggested that improving resources and services is now more important than using technology to save costs and human effort.

Each of the nine chapters and the concluding section on “digital futures” begins with a thought‐provoking quotation or two and a very brief introduction, listing the issues as bullet points that are then amplified one by one. This approach helps the general reader not to become lost amidst complex discussions that vary from the general to the technically specific. Another useful feature is the sprinkling of case studies and examples, which are not merely listings of Web addresses, but woven skilfully into the narrative. Thus the question “Why digitise?” is addressed through examples illustrating a wide range of content types and project scales designed to reduce risks in future projects. Collection development issues have their own chapter, including issues surrounding e‐journals and e‐books. This is made to lead neatly to discussion of economic justification for digital libraries, looking at cost‐effectiveness, cost factors and sustainability.

The book then descends a level or two to consider more practical issues surrounding resource discovery, description and use, with a reasonably up‐to‐date, UK‐slanted presentation of concepts and techniques for creating rich and usable resources. This is followed by a chapter on developing and designing systems for sharing digital resources, covering high‐level models and principles as well as standards such as Unicode character encoding. Moving from the general to the personal, end‐user access and service delivery are considered, including various notions and examples of portals.

Having suggested that preservation has been secondary to access in many digital library projects, the authors review preservation in more detail, looking at justification and methods, considering it as “of crucial significance to civilized society”.

After all the new technology issues have been raised, the skills and role of librarians and libraries themselves come under scrutiny. New management, technical and subject skills will be required. From this the final section takes a historical evolutionary perspective and states some principles adapted from Ranganathan for sustaining healthy digital libraries by demonstrating added value and ensuring that services are embraced and appreciated by communities served.

With a bibliography, adequate glossary and index, this is a useful and readable introduction, management overview or textbook on digital libraries. It is not a guide to the future, however, although it does prepare the reader well. It suggests that we have the power to create the futures we want, but does not really clarify or define one, or even a range of future scenarios to which we might aspire. It does suggest some key roles, opportunities and issues, but there is no clear pathway laid out for addressing them. As such the book may not have the influence that the clearly knowledgeable authors might have achieved. One angle that is perhaps insufficiently addressed is how librarians with large legacy collections should deal with the general societal shift to a culture based more and more on the moving image and audio than on text. Also, one may question some of the conclusions here. If libraries have developed models of economic and intellectual efficiency as claimed, why have these economics not been studied more widely and why is there not better evidence for increased funding? There is also an un‐highlighted paradox of why, at a time when the long‐term value of digital resources and methods required are not yet certain, we need to or should preserve them. Libraries certainly need preservation strategies, but cannot preserve everything just in case, even if they so desire. Traditional collection preservation methods may work best until we clarify the future more thoroughly. We should look forward to the future books in the planned Digital Futures series to address such matters