The Alexandrine Dream – and Dilemma

Posted on | December 7, 2008 | 5 Comments

A big thank you to Jenny Luca for pointing me to a great article from Marc Pesce entitled: The Alexandrine Dilemma.

In a superbly written and tightly argued piece, Marc ponders the divergent fortunes of Online Britannica and Wikipedia. He spins a tale of lost opportunities (Britannica) and the “modern birth of crowdsourcing” (Wikipedia). His verdict on Britannica is damning:

“Today, we don”t even give a thought to Britannica. It may be the gold-standard reference work in the English language, but no one cares. Wikipedia is good enough, accurate enough…..and is much more widely available.”

And on Britannica’s early decision to hide itself behind a ‘paywall’, he writes:

“It’ also clear that arbitrarily restricting access to factual information simply directs the flow around the institution restricting access. Britannica could be earning over a hundred million dollars a year from advertising revenue – that’ what it is projected that Wikipedia could earn, just from banner advertisements, if it ever accepted advertising. But Britannica chose to lock itself away from its audience. That is the one unpardonable sin in the network era: under no circumstances do you take yourself off the network. We all have to sink or swim, crash through or crash, in this common sea of openness.”

The Main Message

But Marc’s article carries a much more important message than mere comparisons between Britannica and Wikipedia.

In a time when the possibility of a universal library, ‘coextensive with the net’, is fast becoming a reality, mainly through Google’s massive project to index, search and display all the world’s books, Marc warns:

“It’ interesting to note that books.google.com uses Google’ text search-based interface. Based on my own investigations, you can”t type in a Library of Congress catalog number and get a list of books under that subject area. Google seems to have abandoned – or ignored – library science in its own book project. I can”t tell you why this is, I can only tell you that it looks very foolish and naÃ¯ve. It may be that Google’ army of PhDs do not include many library scientists. Otherwise why would you have made such a beginner’ mistake? It smells of an amateur effort from a firm which is not known for amateurism.”

And he goes on:

“People believe that because we”ve done with the library, we”re done with library science. They could not be more wrong. In fact, because the library is universal, library science now needs to be a universal skill set, more broadly taught than at any time previous to this.”

The Alexandrine Dilemma, then, is a heartfelt plea for library science to be given its rightful, and essential, place in the data-driven world of the 21st century. As Marc says: “….the value of a library is not the books inside, but the expertise in managing data…”

This is an article that really has to be read in full.

Technorati Tags: jenny luca, marc pesce, britannica, wikipedia, library of alexandra, google, library science, crowdsourcing

Category: books, knowledge, networks

Comments

5 Responses to “The Alexandrine Dream – and Dilemma”

Jenny Luca
December 8th, 2008 @ 12:49 am

Such a great article John. It has me thinking I can tell you.
Joe Nutt
December 8th, 2008 @ 2:46 pm

John,
I really enjoyed the clarion call to librarians to sell their skills and absolutely agree but I just can”t take the Wikipedia eulogy. Does anyone ever actually read it? It took me 10 mins just to find these examples of dire “scholarship.” First four on Donne…too easy. One on Marlowe and a gem of supreme banality on Thomas Hardy.

“Despite his great education and poetic talents he lived in poverty for several years.”

“Some scholars believe that Donne’s literary works reflect these trends, with love poetry and satires from his youth and religious sermons during his later years.”

“Donne spent much of his considerable inheritance on women, literature, pastimes and travel.”

“He never remarried; this was quite unusual for the time, especially as he had a large family to bring up.”

“Marlowe was reputed to be an atheist which, at that time, held the dangerous implication of being an enemy of God.”

“Hardy’ stories take into consideration the events of life and their effects. Fate plays a big role as the thematic basis for many of his novels.”
John Connell
December 8th, 2008 @ 3:13 pm

So, Joe, you will already have edited out the banalities you found in Wikipedia?

I might look for some banalities in Britannica and then see how long it takes, if ever, to get rid of them.
Joe Nutt
December 9th, 2008 @ 2:45 pm

John,
If you can find anything to match the none-sense, inanity and guesswork in my Wikipedia list, in Britannica, in ten minutes, I’ll treat you to a serious Scotch at BETT : )
Google Books: “…a mishmash wrapped in a muddle wrapped in a mess…” : John Connell: The Blog
September 15th, 2009 @ 7:11 pm

[...] I wrote back in December of last year about a piece by Marc Pesce on The Alexandrine Dilemma. Amongst a number of important and related issues, Marc spoke of the ever-greater need for solid and authoritative library science in this age of information deluge. He wrote: Google seems to have abandoned – or ignored – library science in its own book project. I can’t tell you why this is, I can only tell you that it looks very foolish and naïve. It may be that Google’s army of PhDs do not include many library scientists. Otherwise why would you have made such a beginner’s mistake? It smells of an amateur effort from a firm which is not known for amateurism. [...]