Scott Sherman (3)

how some rich dudes tried to ruin The Library, and how members of the public said oh hell no. Well-researched and a reasonable suggestion of how to approach the can of worms that is digital information. I seem to have missed most of the drama coverage of the threatened NYPL remodel but I felt like Sherman covered the timeline very well. If you too had library blinders on from 2013-15, this book's for you! Not a totally balanced look at the situation, and left me curious about what really was going on behind the trustees and investors closed doors. But if you're going to attempt a radical stripping of a *public* library with no public hearings, well, can you expect to have fair and unbiased coverage of the events??

The conclusions drawn by the author and the groups supporting the NYPL imply that we should wait and see what happens with ebooks and digital rights before sending entire historic research collections to NEW JERSEY and maybe losing half of them in the process. Sherman and NYPL supporters also concur that libraries and other cultural institutions "shouldn't aspire to be bleeding edge," and success of such institutions can't be based on metrics. Rather, success for libraries is intangible and hard to quantify and revolves mostly around quality of collections and levels of public trust.

There are ways to use new media tools, maintain existing collections, and still build fantastic digital collections while enabling totally free access to information to any citizen. That's what libraries exist for. Not to race Google to the end of the internet.… (más)

Interesting inside look at the fight over the future of the New York Public Library and it's future. Interesting to see how things panned out and how an idea that was well thought out at the time could fall victim to interests and changing concepts of the trust. Much of it resonated with some of the debates going on where I work too.

Much of this was progress for progress' sake rather than actual upgrading a system to make it good. There was also a lot of neglect over time that lead to the need for some drastic renovations and sales of some sites to help pay for them. A situation where an essentially private company runs a public service and the public have little say when it's being changed. A warning for privitasation of libraries and other public services!… (más)