AALL invited Harvard Professor of Law Jonathan Zittrain to be the Keynote Speaker at its 102nd Annual Meeting. The theme of Professor Zittrain’s speech was “The Future of the Library – And How to Stop It.” He drew on his experiences as a cyberlaw scholar to develop a talk about how the role of the library is changing, mostly due to the increasing use of the Internet.
Professor Zittrain began by explaining “library” as noun – his traditional impression of what a library is: a medieval fortress surrounding a collection of books in order to defend them from users “messing them up.” He said it is now more akin to a bomb shelter, keeping books hidden away in case disaster strikes, with the vast majority of collections only serving a “just in case” purpose. When commenting on the growing ubiquity of computers in library reading rooms, he said libraries are now becoming destinations for “get[ting] on the Internet.” This is certainly the case in public libraries, and somewhat so in many academic libraries, but perhaps a bit less common in law libraries due to many legal resources either being available only in print, or having online versions that are difficult to use. Law is still heavily a print-based profession, which helps to stem the primacy of the Internet in terms of legal research.
This mindset also influences wireless devices such as Amazon’s Kindle, which Professor Zittrain noted is in contact with Amazon constantly. A person can download a book to his or her Kindle, but Amazon retains the ability to delete that book even though the customer has already paid to purchase it – the recent (and somewhat ironic) example being Amazon’s removal of George Orwell’s 1984 from Kindles, illustrated quite well by Professor Zittrain’s graphic of a Kindle’s screen giving the middle finger to the reader. He made the point that infringement of copyright is not the only way to make works inaccessible; the government can choose to classify information that was previously freely available. This creates the conundrum of having vast amounts of information on the Internet, but its access is controlled by various parties, and not always by libraries themselves.
He then shifted to the concept of “library” as a verb – when libraries and librarians are viewed as information repositories for users to mine. The familiar problem with this characterization is when users assume that they have more researching ability than they actually do, and don't believe they need to engage in a reference interview until they go through several frustrating dead ends. Librarians also have to contend with the hesitation that users feel about approaching them in person to ask questions, along with the proliferation of search engines and databases that allow unrefined, question-style searches in natural language. Professor Zittrain gave several examples of these, such as Ask Jeeves, Lexis, and Westlaw.
The final aspect of “library” discussed in the keynote was that of “library” as an adjective – what makes something a library? Most organizations have a mission statement that defines them. Professor Zittrain quoted parts of AALL’s Mission Statement, concerning, among other things, AALL’s view that libraries are “central to society,” and that AALL members “work toward fair and equitable access to authentic…information, and educate and train library users.” The success of that mission relies on the continued availability and accessibility of information both in print and online. Problems occur when commercial entities become involved, and Professor Zittrain turned to the history of the Internet to illustrate that.
The creators of the Internet constructed it as a way to share information without commercialism, and that feeling of community can still be found in sites like Wikipedia. Censorship and vandalism sometimes appear, but there are also people who watch out for problems and work to either fix them or prevent them from happening. Professor Zittrain compared it to your house being on fire in a place with no organized fire department, but people will suddenly come and put it out for you. He also repeatedly made the point that most human beings have an innate wish to help others, which manifests in some ideas like the Internet Archive – documenting previous versions of websites to keep an archival record of what those sites looked like at a particular moment in the past.
Because the professor felt that being able to get help from a librarian in person has been the key part of his library experiences, the close of his speech noted that kind of interaction between librarians and users should be preserved, despite the increasing changes taking place in both libraries and society at large. The challenge for librarians is emphasizing the value and usefulness of in-person interactions to users who increasingly turn to texting and social networks as ways to foster relationships.
Professor Zittrain was a very dynamic and entertaining speaker, and was well-received by the audience. He gave the attendees several thought-provoking concepts to consider as they began their 2009 Annual Meeting experience.