The Scholarship and Libraries in Transition symposium that was held at the University of Michigan has the archived webcasts available now. They’ve actually been available for some time but I just finally got the time to watch one of them. I watched the keynote by Tim O’Reilly so far, which was quite good. I recommend watching that if nothing else. It gives a nice overview of some of the issues involved and why online access to books is important. A few notes:

  • One of the benefits of moving content online in a digital form is the ability to reuse it in custom ways that just aren't as easy with print media. Many of these benefits are only possible once you have a critical mass of content online. An example given is SafariU which allows you to build a custom technical textbook from parts of books and articles that are out there. Think course-packs but easier to build and more sources available. I think this has potential in the education realm
  • Related to this was the idea of the book as a database, not a single entity. There has been debate in the library world about reading whole books vs. snippets but the fact of the matter is that there are cases where parts of a work are more important that the work itself. Having the ability to easily find and use this data is important
  • It's important to archive human output. I think this is one of the great things about Wikipedia. There are many topics that a print encyclopedia just can't include. This doesn't make them unimportant and having that information written in a place where people can use it in the future is important. Libraries can help prevent some printed works from disappearing but having things in digital form can help make access and preservation more robust.
  • Back to the critical mass idea. Things start free and then economies can be built around them. The iPod and iTunes likely would not have been possible without sharing. Many other services are also coming about with music such as recommendations which likely would not have been possible otherwise. There needs to be a lot of content available to be able to build new services such as the SafariU mentioned before
  • The long tail. Google the term and you'll find plenty to read up on. In this case books that barely see any use (or none) in print can benefit greatly from online use/search.
  • Artifact vs Service. Back to the idea of the book as a database. The book itself may not become obsolete but the idea of what a book is may change. User collaboration and input may also become increasing important,