Library Hard

密西根大学董事长Mary Sue Coleman女士近日受邀在美国出版商协会做了一次演讲，主要讲述了为什么该校会和Google合作，成为Google Print图书馆战略的合作伙伴。CNet.com有9分钟的视频资料。另外网上还能查找到她全篇演讲稿（PDF，可点击直接下载）。

Mary Sue Coleman演讲内容包括数字化图书的重要性和意义，密西根大学图书馆的概况。我认为最为核心的莫过于她解释密西根大学为什么会信任Google并与Google合作。

我将部分内容翻译如下，这部分演讲在视频资料中也有。

正是该项目的争议性促使我接受你们的邀请来此演讲并解释为什么我们相信这是合法、合乎道德的、崇高的行为并且这种行为会改变社会。

合法是因为我们相信版权法能使我们合理使用数以百万计的正被数字化的图书。

合乎道德是因为知识的储藏和保护对人类社会进步十分重要。

崇高是因为这项计划的提出适逢时机，符合未来趋势，对整个世界图书出版大有益处，所有人都能受益。

密西根大学培养了无数学生，他们致力于非凡的研究工作。我们代表着密西根大众、来自于世界其他国家地区的人民。我们体现出致力于成为杰出的大学，进行社会研究寻找答案、解决方案。

这些责任和义务足以使我，作为一名校董，意识到对于一个将使命定为创造、交流、保存和应用知识的大学来说，Google这项计划是绝好的契机。

简单地说，这也就是我们要做的和我们立身之本。

It is this criticism of the project that prompted me to accept your invitation to speak —and explain why we believe this is a legal, ethical, and noble endeavor that will transform our society.

Legal because we believe copyright law allows us the fair use of millions of books that are being digitized. Ethical because the preservation and protection of knowledge is critically important to the betterment of humankind. And noble because this enterprise is right for the time, right for the future, right for the world of publishing, right for all of us.

The University of Michigan educates tens of thousands of students, and is home to faculty engaged in extraordinary work. We represent the citizens of Michigan and the citizens of the world. And we embody the aspirations of a society that looks to great public research universities for solutions, cures, and answers.

Those responsibilities and obligations make it abundantly clear to me, as president, that the Google project is a remarkable opportunity – and a natural evolution – for a university whose mission is to create, to communicate, to preserve and to apply knowledge.

This is, simply, what we do and why we exist.

还有下面这段话，

我们允许Google扫描所有藏书（包括在公共领域和仍有版权的图书）并提供给我校图书馆数字化版本。我们坚持这样做出于一个非常重要的原因，那就是，我们的图书馆必须像一些出色的研究型图书馆所作的一样，使读者能够发现知识。

We are allowing Google to scan all of our books – those in the public domain and those still in copyright – and they provide our library with a digital copy. We insisted on this for one very important reason: Our library must be able to do what great research libraries do – make it possible to discover knowledge.

A lot of his discussion surrounded who is blogging and why they are blogging, found through the survey results. The answers are varied. Almost 63% are, surprisingly, women. Age is primarily 25-34 (44%) with the 35-44 age range coming in next (almost 27%). His survey did not include people under 18. Most started blogging in 2004 or later (only 30% blogger before this; only 18 were blogging 2001 or earlier). This was interesting to me–where people are employed:

Academic libraries - 41.53%
Public libraries - 24.58%
School libraries - 5.08%
Special libraries - 8.05%
(there were a number of other categories including vendor, consultant, and LIS student).

This was surprising in that he expected public libraries to outweigh academic libraries. Apparently blogging hasn't yet proliferated in the special libraries arena! Special libraries = specialized libraries for you non-librarians. All the private law libraries would be considered special libraries. I know, I know, I am very "special".

Overall, blogging librarians tend to reveal a lot of personal details. Someone from the audience asked what librarians did to express themselves before they had blogs. It was speculated that chatboards and conferencing communities such as The Well filled the gap. I didn't mention listservs but that would have been my answer for sure…

Overall, blogging should be as easy as you want to make it. It is about being part of a conversation, part of a community. It is a very inclusive thing, and should not depend upon one's level of technical knowledge. You can delve into the fancy things like podcasting and video blogging, but that is not necessary to be heard or to get your message out.

Related: poster by Michael Stephens, "Who Are the Blog People?"

Seattle Public Library (SPL)

Ann Arbor District Library (AADL)

St. Joseph County Library (SJCPL)

University of Huddersfield

正如John Blyberg在文中所说，图书馆技术开发能够让其他图书馆得益。我们看到从Library Lookup开始，SPL将其简化变成轻巧的插件实践于自己的图书馆，接着后面的图书馆相继改写使代码更适用于自身。本着2.0共享重用的精神，运用开发源代码为读者提供便利绝对不是难事。特别要学习的是这些优秀图书馆人的意识和行动力。