Bibliotheken sterven als mensen vergeten wat ze bevatten

Afgelopen week heb ik veel gesproken over de (online) zichtbaarheid van bibliotheekcollecties, het gedrag van mensen op het internet en de potentie van gedigitaliseerde collecties.

Weinig nieuws onder de zon maar voorlopig zal het nog wel even een ‘hot item’ blijven.

In dit verband is het wel aardig om te verwijzen naar een artikel van Ben Macintyre, in de Times:
The biggest library ever built.

The internet is not a place for prolonged reading or profound research, but for tasting, trawling, and exploring. Just as no one should treat Wikipedia as gospel, so, I suspect, few will plough through a black-and-white, on-screen version of a library book when the genuine article is easily available. The internet is only the first stage of discovery, not the end.

Libraries die when people forget what is in them: they thrive when we are reminded of their riches, and so far from eroding our physical contact with ancient books, the great online library currently amassing its collection will surely revive that relationship.

There is still no tactile pleasure to compare with opening an old book: the gust of vellum and parchment, the knowledge of countless eyes tracing the page before you, the marginalia, the chance to hold some knowledge in your hand.

The internet will never replicate that experience (just as no technology has been able to supplant the paper book, of which we are reading more than ever), but it can help, immeasurably, to lead us to it.

And it can do so without any danger that some disapproving Assyrian librarian will set the dogs on us if we fail to return a book from the online library on time.

Zie ook de achtergrondartikelen uit het archief, waar Macintyre naar verwijst.

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