On Buggy Whips

Gmail - [Aaup] How a world university dies, not with a bang but many whimpers - stephenm.schwartz@gmail.com: "Ira

It is not obvious that the librarian profession or the libraries are apt for the new technology. This may be a labor and professional issue as much as it is a budget issue.

The budget issue goes beyond campuses and libraries. Both publishers and professional societies have made their way around income tied to the book/library model. Despite the obvious (to me) fact that new technologies make reference works and textbooks obsolete, they continue to be a big cost because publishers make profits and librarians are employed.

Subscriptions are a great example. As web publications there really would be no technological reason not to have open access .. as Larry Yaffe suggested. Access is restricted because someone is making money off of the restriction. Google and even better tools are qualitatively different than the disciplines we think of as ,libraries and the profession of librarians.

Leaving aside the corporate and society money issues, imagine a world where all science and even humanities and social science was published via the web. With no one to control subscriptions or access, why would there be libraries?It seems to me that new instituions and professions are beginning to evolve as we speak."

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.