Library News for the Faculty

From University Librarian Gary E. Strong

Over the summer you may have seen the announcement that the UC system has become the newest partner in the Google Books Library Project, which was launched in December 2004 to digitize books drawn from the libraries of the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University, and the New York Public Library.

Google's project has attracted a great deal of media attention and has been the subject of some concern among authors, publishers, and libraries. One concern is regarding copyright. We have been assured that the project respects copyright law and has been designed to comply with it. This means that anyone will be able to freely view, browse, and read UC holdings in the public domain, including special collections materials; for items still under copyright, users will get the item citation and information on where to borrow or buy it. In addition, if publishers or authors don't want their items digitized, they will be excluded.

Participating in this project supports several of our strategic goals. It makes our collections accessible to anyone, from faculty working at home to a member of the public looking for information on a specific topic and thus drives the scholarly research engine while also enhancing the UC system's role as a public institution. In addition, in a world where natural and human disasters occur with alarming frequency and little or no warning, preserving our holdings in multiple formats is essential.

This is only one of many digital initiatives in which the Library is participating. The UC system announced last year that it had joined the Open Content Alliance, a partnership with other universities, content providers, and technology companies including Yahoo to digitize out-of-copyright library holdings. The Library also has its own active Digital Library Program, which is in the midst of a number of major projects including the digitization of the Caro Minasian Collection of Arabic and Persian Manuscripts, photographs from the Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive and the Los Angeles Daily News Photographs, and selections from the papers of the Orsini, one of the oldest and most prominent families in Italian history.

These initiatives are all important and exciting. However, the attention to digital content threatens to overshadow our physical holdings, and I'd like to address this imbalance.

In September 2005 the Library announced the acquisition of its eight millionth volume. That was more than a celebration of a landmark; it also reinforced the vital place print materials have in our collections. In fact, circulation figures continue to grow, from 1.9 million in the 2002/03 academic year to 2.05 million in 2003/04 to 2.4 million in 2004/05. Vastly more scholarly content is created and published each year in physical than in virtual form, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Digitizing rare and unique materials improves access to them immeasurably. But for a scholar, viewing digital surrogates helps focus research because it helps him or her decide what to spend time working with when visiting the library; it doesn't replace coming to the library and viewing the actual items. Seeing digital surrogates can entice undergraduates to visit special collections, but it can't replicate the thrill they feel when they touch a centuries-old document and the possible impact that may have on their careers.

Digitization gets all the headlines these days, and it offers possibilities that we're tremendously excited about. But as the users walking out our doors every day with piles of books constantly remind us, our physical collections are the heart of the UCLA Library.