Bibliobabble? The surge towards a print→less e‐library recasts academic librarians as “rare book engineers”

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to address the dangers for a highly trained group of professionals – academic librarians – in responding to the challenge of divesting their libraries of a very large amount of printed material.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach takes the form of a general view of the current state‐of‐play in library management vis‐à‐vis the e‐revolution, in terms of the corresponding preservation of printed materials.

Findings

Traditionally, the majority stock of any library, rarely used printed books and journals seem to have become a liability and a burden in this web‐spun, e‐raddled world. Academic librarians are becoming active participants in the rush to achieve a “print→less” heaven. For the first time in history on such a scale and in any period of war or peace, the next 20 years could witness a huge and deliberate global dispersal and even destruction of a substantial portion of the printed word in university, college and research libraries. This Fahrenheit 451‐equivalent event would be carefully planned not by ruthless despots and capricious censors riding roughshod over the bodies of librarians to re‐write historical records, but by … the librarians themselves. This is not just “bibliobabble” – defined here as the reactionary ravings of the bibliophile against a tidal wave of e‐books and digital content. Given librarians' innate professional ability for organized thoroughness, a series of small local projects, largely unremarked in the wider world, would be very speedily executed, leading to global and possibly uncoordinated weeding. This sustained dispersal or destruction of printed material from the protective walls of universities and colleges, without the usual finesse or adequate time or resources, will re‐classify “ordinary” works into titles of “relative” or even “absolute” rarity worldwide. Academic librarians will have created a new profession for themselves – “rare book engineers” – by massively reducing the number of copies held in the world's libraries and relying on private book collectors (if they still exist in 2060) to acquire any of the millions of discarded titles and preserve them for posterity.

Practical implications

Librarians need to consider carefully how and where lesser‐used printed materials will be disposed of and sent.

Originality/value

Using practical examples from many years of experience in librarianship, the author states some strong personal opinions on this matter.

Citation

Storey, C. (2011), "Bibliobabble? The surge towards a print→less e‐library recasts academic librarians as “rare book engineers”", Library Management, Vol. 32 No. 1/2, pp. 73-84. https://doi.org/10.1108/01435121111102593