ABSTRACT
| In the past, cooperation between libraries that are separated by vast distances has been difficult to achieve, but with the remarkable growth and availability of the Internet new avenues for cooperation have opened. The Intemet represents a new game for cooperative activities since it dissolves the obstacle of distance and the physical barriers of paper-based information. The Intemet also may redefine the meaning of information since most Intemet information is free and contradicts the notion that information is a commodity. Increasingly, the Intemet appears to be the most significant revolution in human communications since the advent of the printed book, and as a result we, as librarians face a increasingly uncertain future. By proactively attempting to contribute "rules" to this new information "game," however, we can create conditions that encourage and reinforce the adoption of traditional librarian values and perspectives on information access. The Intemet is global and we have to act globally. Cooperation, therefore, is critical if we wish to be participants in the formation of the new world information order. |
However much librarians may desire cooperation, the reality of cooperation remains elusive. There are simply so many problems associated with international cooperation that genuinely successful instances of cooperation shine like diamonds in a coal mine. International library cooperation is particularly difficult to achieve because geographical distance is an obstacle that often blunts even the best of intentions. This is especially true when it comes to cooperation between two distant giants, the US and China.
Geography is not, however, the only
obstacle to library cooperation. High hopes and good intentions
can collide with the seemingly universal library condition of
underfunding and understaffing. A successful experience in cooperation
requires the expenditure of money and staff time, and unless the
benefits of cooperation can be proven to skeptical library administrators
and others, the lack of necessary resources can reduce even the
most robust program of cooperation and exchange to a shell. Essentially,
it is critical that all participants
in a cooperative arrangement feel that they are accruing a proper
level of benefit.
Efforts toward cooperation can easily
get bogged down in decision-making processes and in processes
not intended or designed to deal with the special requirements
of international activity. Timeliness is an important factor -
especially with respect to materials exchange. The failure to
meet deadlines can be corrosive to the whole cooperative operation.
Similarly, the channels of communication must be kept open between
cooperating partners - even if cooperative activities are episodic
or minimal - because cooperation, like all relationships, will
wither and die without input.
It is not my intention, however, to
examine the successes and failures of past library cooperation.
The rocky road to cooperation, that I've just outlined, is the
prelude to looking at a new avenue for cooperative
activity. This avenue, is the Internet, and our previous experiences
with library cooperation may simply no longer apply. In short,
there is a new game, and there seems little doubt that this game
has different rules. It is imperative that we look closely at
the Intemet.
Librarian views of the Intemet and what
the Intemet means for the library profession are dearly mixed.
This is understandable for a range of reasons, but most notably
it's just plain difficult to gain accurate perspective on a revolution
while being located in the eye of the revolutionary storm. Nonetheless,
I think the Intemet is a godsend for international cooperation
and an especially beneficial godsend for cooperation between US
and Chinese libraries.
IF
THE INTERNET REPRESENTS A NEW GAME. WHAT ARE THE NEW RULES ?
At this point in time, the Internet
is, in the best sense, a global experiment in information communism.
With respect to the Intemet, the approach is to take what you
need and to give what you can. Much of the information that is
available on the Intemet is free, put there by volunteers who,
wonderfully, have no economic gain in mind. This nonprofit tradition
extends beyond just data and information. At least for those involved
in academia, the two most important Web browser, Microsoft's Intemet
Explorer and Netscape's Navigator, are free.
Even powerful corporations have had
to make allowances for the economic peculiarities of the Intemet
and have had to realign the focus of their profit-generating activities.
The most notable example of this phenomenon occurred when a defect
was revealed in the first Pentium chips. Initially, the chip maker,
Intel Corporation, attempted to deny the problem and then
chose to ignore demands that flawed chips be replaced. Eventually,
however, Intel relented and, at no cost to consumers but at great
cost to the corporation, replaced the flawed chips and gave a
profound apology specifically to the Intemet.
If Intemet information will not remain
free, it ought to be very low-cost. (Esther Dyson, "Intellectual Value." .
(0riginally appeared as an article in Wired, (July, 1995), pp.136-141, 182-184.)
Once the networking infrastructure is in place, the expense of electronic information is minimal.
There are no significant distribution costs or reproduction costs.
What this means for cooperating parties which use the Intemet
as their base of operations, is that the information they are
sharing is far less costly than if the same information were printed
and shipped thousands of miles. Equity in terms of library cooperation
should not be a major problem. Each library has its own unique
materials that can be offered to the public domain, and in the
context of free or almost-free Intemet information, an hour of
data input time in China is equivalent to an hour of input time
in the US.
The Internet Dissolves Distance
Distance between China and the United
States is not of consequence if the Intemet is used as a cooperative
medium. The advantages of using the electronic medium to carry
out joint projects is fairly evident. Large volumes of paper do
not have to be transported half way around the world. In terms
of materials exchange, if electronic materials are lost in transit,
they can simply be re-transmitted. In contrast, the loss of paper
materials is potentially fatal. Fax, telephone, and microform
are all possibilities for information transferal,
but none can approach the Intemet vis-a-vis immediacy, resources
conservation, and retrievability.
The Internet is Instant
The above statement may seem extravagant
in view of slow connections and old modems, but a reasonably well-endowed
electronic network reduces time and distance to a matter of seconds.
Time is of little consequence as long as we remember that we should
not turn off our computers at night (one country's night is another
country's day). The swiftness of the Intemet presents interesting
possibilities for library cooperation. The world is no longer
a global village; the world is together in the same room.
The Intemet - and particularly the World
Wide Web - is a Broadcast Medium
Most web sites exist as a publishing
vehicle, whether it be for individuals, organizations, or commercial
enterprises. Ordinary people do not need to own a printing press
or a television station to broadcast their views across the planet.
Indeed, it is the democracy of the Intemet that is most cherished
by its users and information providers. The lntemet abounds with
bad ideas and dangerous information (such as directions for the
construction of nuclear bombs and computer virus construction
kits). Yet by a very wide margin, Intemet information is innocuous
and well-intended (if not always useful). It is virtually impossible
to filter out the good and the bad, and despite the efforts of
many governments to do so, the Intemet is likely to remain what
has made it so popular: an international forum of people communicating
with other people.
Web sites may consist entirely of links
to other web sites or may offer unique materials. The good sites
will offer a mix of both. The name of the game, at least with
respect to Web site management, is to attract as many users as
possible. The immediate payoff is in prestige - an often-visited
site is considered a good site. The secondary payoff of a good
web site is sometimes difficult to understand in terms of marketing
capitalism since the payoff is indirect. The prestige of an often-visited
site will open doors to activities with profit potential such
as advertising or the sale of ancillary services and goods. In
the case of nonprofit organizations, a good web site opens the
door to outside funding. Understanding how profit and marketing
is accomplished on the Intemet is not intuitive, but fortunately,
there are a number of good books aimed at showing business people
how the Intemet works vis-a-vis commerce. (One good book on the commercial aspect of the Internet is that by Jim Sterne. World Wide Web Marketing. New York: Wiley, 1995).
Because the Web is a broadcast medium,
library cooperative projects that utilize the World Wide Web are
projects that benefit everyone and not just the cooperating libraries.
To give away information seems contrary to good economic sense.
Yet libraries do this everyday by making their online catalogs
available over the Intemet. Libraries provide cataloging data
without charge or fee to large cooperative cataloging databases.
In turn, the large bibliographic databases provide the same donated
information to other libraries but for a fee. While the logic
of this information transfer baffles me, it does illustrate that
libraries presently do generate content (as cataloging records)
and provide it to others freely. The Intemet fits nicely with
the library tradition of not charging users, and not charging
for very good and humane reasons.
The Intemet is about Full Text rather than Catalogs and Indexes of Resources
Unquestionably one of the most difficult adjustments that we, as librarians, must make vis-a-vis the Intemet, is to recognize that the value and focus of the Intemet is full text rather than a catalog of bibliographic information. This is not to say that the cataloging of printed materials will not be an important aspect of library work, but it is to say that providing full text content will be more in step with developments occurring in the larger realm of information. As much as we might like to fantasize about cataloging the Intemet, the truth is that software robots are doing a reasonably good job of classifying knowledge on the Intemet. At this juncture in time, there is an urgent need for content on the Intemet, and this is something that we need to carefully explore as the focus of cooperative projects. (Kawamura Hiroshi. Building a Public Domain: a Proposal for Library Networking" [Networking the Pacific: an International Forum, May 5-6, 1995, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada).
The Intemet Creates a Level Playing Field
The rapid growth of the Intemet sometimes obscures the fact that the Wortd Wide Web is, for all practical purposes, just a few years old. At the moment, the United States and English language are dominant. But there are notable exceptions: Chinese language discussion groups are among the largest of all Intemet discussion groups. Until recently, I would say that Taiwan rather than Japan was the dominant electronic information power in East Asia. Singapore has consciously geared itself to become a major force on the Internet, and Hong
Kong is a focal point of highly sophisticated Intemet activity.
While small, Macau has a dedicated and quite innovative group
providing information on the Internet. China is clearly poised
to become an information superpower, and it's entirely reasonable
to assume that she will succeed. The point that I wish to make
is that the gap between China and the United States is probably
much smaller in terms of Intemet information than we might be
inclined to think. The playing field is fairly level, and we are
basically, looking as equals at a new phenomenon, the contours
and direction of which no one can be sure. Therefore, the equality
that we enjoy in cyberspace should underlay the cooperative ventures
that we choose to pursue.
POSSIBILITIES FOR US-CHINA LIBRARY COOPERATION ACROSS THE INTERNET
It is extremely difficult to discuss
the possibilities for anything related to library work when there
is so much flux in our field. I am far from convinced that libraries
and librarianship - as we currently know it - will survive into
the twenty-first century. Granted that there will always be books
stored away in warehouses called libraries. People will always
need to retrieve these printed artifacts. Yet this function is
what Stanley Katz describes as "the inventory mode",
in a paper presented in 1992, to a conference called "Japan-U.S.
Collaboration in Enhancing International Access to Scholarly Information:
Looking Toward the 21st Century.". (Japan-U.S. Collaboration in Enhancing International
Access to Scholarly Information: Looking Toward the 21st Century.
Tokyo: University Academic Press, 1993, p. 42 (English section). Katz
contrasts this to a "knowledge management mode," in
which librarians (or their successors) are directly involved in
the process of creating knowledge. I take this to mean that librarians
will be content providers as well as content authorities. We will
be the gatekeepers as well as the guides and knowledge creators rather
than managers of a print matenals warehouse. If Katz (who is not
a librarian) is correct, it seems far more reasonable for us to
conduct the greater portion of our cooperation electronically
rather than to focus on traditional print-based approaches.
One apparently successful electronic
cooperative arrangement is one signed between the National Library
of China and Australian National University in December, 1994.
Under the terms of this agreement, the
National Library provides romanized and English translations of
tables of contents for as many as one hundred journal titles.
In turn, the Australian National University has put the tables
of contents pages on a web site entitled: "Chinese Serials
Database" . Researchers using the database can locate needed journal articles
and then request document delivery from the National Library of
China (at the rate of US $9.00 per 10 pages or "parts thereof,"
so 11 pages would cost $18.00).
This arrangement benefits everyone.
The National Library of China acquires a new (if very minor) source
of revenue; the Australian National University builds its prestige
as the major source of academic information pertaining to Asia
on the Web; and thousands of individuals worldwide gain access
to information that previously would have been difficult - if
not impossible - to locate and acquire. The next logical step
in a cooperative arrangement of this sort would be to make the
document delivery
service available entirely via e-mail
or the Web. As it presently stands, the ordering of and payment
for documents is conducted via standard mail, and, of course,
the process is slowed considerably even though it is possible
to receive an article via fax for an additional US$36.00.
Joint Electronic Journals
The Intemet will undoubtedly provide
us with many new opportunities for collaborative work once we've
acquired a great awareness of the Net's possibilities. One potentially
very attractive area for cooperation is, I feel, Intemet electronic
journals. This conference, for example, could provide more than
enough material for the inaugural issue of a journal. Joint electronic
journals can open the way for higher levels of collaboration,
but as a first step, a jointly-managed journal is an excellent
way to explore common issues and common problems.
The cost of producing an electronic
journal would be minimal if contributors submitted their articles
in HTML format. Both Chinese and English would serve as official
languages since both command a large readership. With production
costs extremely low, it would be difficult to justify any sort
of subscription fee, and this leads to an ulterior motive that
I have for suggesting a cooperative journal.
As we are all painfully aware,
many American and European and some Japanese print journals are
astonishingly expensive and beyond the means of many libraries.
Eventually, the publishers of those journals will migrate their
publications to the Intemet, where - I am convinced - they will
attempt to impose similarly outrageous subscription rates. We are early enough
into the Intemet game, however, that it is possible to blunt over-priced
electronic journals, and in doing so, we may thwart efforts to
turn information into a commodity that only the rich can afford. (Some librarians do, in fact, raise the issue of
treating information as a marketable commodity, This is understandable inasmuch as most libraries are continually searching for funding.
See Alison Crook, "Re-Inventing Libraries for the 21" Century." Proceedings of the International Conference on
National Libraries -- Towards the 21st Century, p. 988.)
By encouraging scholars and researchers at our own institutions
to publish their works in non-subscription electronic journals
we can help usher in a new era of inexpensive information. The
role that I envision for librarians is basically the role of publisher.
We can create the mechanisms for electronic publishing, whether
they be journals or monographs, that will have as their basis
need rather than greed. Since charity begins at home, free electronic
journals in our field are a logically starting point.
Preservation and identification of artifacts
and all forms of information
Images, sound, and video are storage-intensive
and the cooperative possibilities for distributing graphical data
across as many sites as possible seems far better than a single
storage location. A single site is likely to feel the burden of
big storage requirements rather quickly. Burden-sharing is probably
one of the best ways to build cooperation since it is based on
common misery. Efforts to build electronic archives such as the Museum of the Paciific are extremely interesting projects by virtue of the ground that they break. I would humbly
suggest, however, that since images, audio, and video are part of the larger information scene, the proper terminology for all
collections of electronic data is "library." The joint construction of Intemet libraries strikes me as an intriguing
notion that deserves serious consideration. Libraries, obviously, do not need collaboration to build electronic lntemet libraries. But cooperation has
extreme benefits in terms of time and energy. The more participants
that are involved in a project, the faster a project will reach
a critical mass of usefulness. Since the Intemet library is a
resource available to all, the issue of parity is not a major
issue in electronic cooperative projects.
CONCLUSION
The Intemet presents libraries with
great potential for cooperative arrangements -providing we are
willing to explore notions and ideas that would, just a mere year
years ago, seem absurd. We need to be proactive because if we
do not actively intervene in the new world of networked information,
others will decide our fate. The entire nature of information
is undergoing the greatest change we've seen since the invention
of print, and the change is swift. The Intemet phenomenon is characterized
by rapid, often breathtaking, evolution; which means that we need
to respond to change much more quickly than we have in the past.
If we fail to colonize the sectors of cyberspace that should be
ours by virtue of our traditional role as information experts,
others will do so. If we fail to move to establish our position
as quickly as possible - and cooperation should allow us to accelerate
the establishment of our position - then we have put ourselves
at risk. We not only need to vigorously participate in the new
information "game," we need to be in the position to
suggest the "rules" by which the game is played.
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