| Web browsers now perform the functions
that a number of different tools once did, and do so in a manner that requires
little technical know-how. The web has become so ubiquitous it has become
difficult to imagine using a library without it. In a few short years the
web browser has become the library's portal to the catalog, government
documents, databases, digitized primary sources, journal literature, the
popular press, and even books. Full text journal articles and electronic
access through databases delivered through web browsers have become standard
in libraries; monographs have been another matter, but projects at Columbia
University Press and an entrepreneurial venture called NetLibrary have
made significant gains in finding ways to put digitized books on the 'net
in ways that make them useful to scholars without compromising copyright
protection.
The library is a hybrid thing, these days. It is a place where knowledge
is organized, but the rules keep changing. It is a border culture where
the boundaries are fuzzy and the inhabitants, by necessity, are fluent
in print and electronic modes of communication. It can be a confusing place
since there are now so many routes open, so many options to choose from.
But in a way, the browsing and hyperlinking we've come to think of as features
of electronic research are not that different than the way we find our
way through print resources. Scholars citing one another's work creates
a web of knowledge, interconnected through points of shared |
meaning, a not-so-hyper link. The
arrangement of books on the shelf promotes the happy serendipity that sometimes
happens while searching on the web. And the catalog is the original limited
search engine.
Libraries for years have shared information through interlibrary loan
arrangements between libraries. The internet, a ubiquitous part of our
lives though only thirty years old, has made it possible to share more,
more quickly, and with more routes to finding information. It is confusing
at times, with interfaces changing every few months, new collections and
databases available all the time, and upgrades offering new and, often
enough, unnecessary bells and whistles every few months. But it only takes
a power outage to remind us of how closely woven together the internet
is with our library.
Courts v. Congress Redux The National
Writers Union has won a round against the New York Times in what
may be a precedent-setting copyright case. In a decision handed down by
the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on September 24th, 1999,
the court found that the Times had violated the rights of copyright
holders when it republished their work in electronic form without prior
approval. Writers hail this as a victory in an ongoing skirmish to assert
their electronic rights; publishers and database producers are shaken by
the implications. At stake: the content of many of |