When we first began batting around the idea of the Chicago Underground Library, digitizing the collection was a major component of our plan. We didn’t think of it as distributing e-books at all. Taking our cues from libraries across the country (the Chicago Public Library included) and online databases like Find Articles and JSTOR who already offer the text of certain periodicals with registration, it’s true that we approached this more from the perspective of what would benefit researchers. We had this vision of creating an UbuWeb for Chicago where obscure, strange, and overlooked but important works could find a home where they would finally be accessible. Commerce, marketing, and promotion weren’t on our minds.
As with every plan that circulates within our library, we bring it out into the public before we even consider implementing it. Often before we’ve entirely thought it through. It’s been a little awkward, kind of like showing your sketchbook or journal to a wide audience before it’s been edited and all those drawings of your favorite hair-metal crush have been erased from the margins. Such was the case with our plan to digitize. We had no idea what a huge tempest it would stir up. Perhaps being someone who’s a bit (okay more than a bit) of a collector, the idea that digital copies would replace print and render books obsolete always seemed like the equivalent of colonies on the moon replacing Earth -— a little too sci-fi and way too impractical for anything other than long, drawn out arguments at a bar.
So I was a little blindsided by the response to our digitization plans. After interviewing so many publishers and writers who told me over and over again that their biggest hurdle was distribution, we thought we’d stumbled on the perfect way to not just make the obscure and long-gone accessible, but also to make the obscure and vital and contemporary accessible. To me, free works online, whether text, music, or video, have always meant an inroad to something I could follow further and further to more things I’d be interested in, gathering onto my overflowing shelves the incredible things I’d find along the way. An e-book or mp3 is never the end of the road or the result I’m looking for. Even with the format Randy chose, which was providing the full text, I still consider that a taste, compared to the full experience one can only get holding a book and spending a few days (or weeks) actually absorbing it.
The reason we bring these half-baked ideas out so early, despite their underdevelopment, is precisely because of my example above. That only represents me, and the way I feel and interact with the internet. When you’re building a community-based project, you can’t rely on yourself to know what the community wants and needs. Even if you have the best of intentions, you’ll find that there really are a lot of people out there who are still terrified of the internet. That’s not meant to be a dig at those people, just to acknowledge that it’s a fact. Randy Richardson isn’t one of them.
The overwhelming response, though, was fear. And while we aim to inspire, fear wasn’t what we were aiming for. We put the entire idea on hold, sat down with an intellectual property law student, read the entire 108-page document on libraries and digital copyright law and got a little scared ourselves. We did have the best of intentions, but were we actually seriously wrong?
We put some safeguards in place, like written permission from authors and publishers, and hoped that would encourage more people to share their work. It didn’t. (It also prevented us from putting our very obscure works online, the ones we could never ever hope to get permission for and the ones to which we had most hoped to provide access. This is an ongoing legal issue, known as the Orphan Works debate. Google it, it’s fascinating).
So there are two ways, then, that you can help people become less terrified of the internet and help them take advantage of it. You can try to educate and argue and bring out example after example and tell them your personal stories about how wonderful the internet has been to you, or you can amend your idea. The former takes a lot more effort. In combination, however, these two options can work beautifully together.
The CUL was initially hesitant to get into anything that had even the slightest hint of commerce or promotion; we didn’t want to create a system that could be abused by people who were rabid self-promoters, or set ourselves up to be accused of promoting certain works over others. We have strived from the onset to be wholly independent of any agenda or affiliation. And while we couldn’t think of precisely how the catalog system could be abused, we didn’t even want to open the door in the smallest bit, lest the Big Bad Wolf be waiting to knock in the whole thing. See, when I talk about people being afraid of the internet, realize that the CUL itself is not immune to paranoia.
At a meeting a few months ago, Randy and a number of other of our volunteers and advisors tackled the question of how we could deal with the issue of Digiphobia (as I have just this second decided to call it). They believed, as we do, that there really is nothing inherently wrong in making works available online. I really enjoyed reading the discussion that ensued on Randy’s post over whether this devalued the work; it’s great to see a lot of the arguments already made at the library meetings (and elsewhere) put into words here.
The results of that meeting were some great solutions which teetered on commerce, but weren’t like hanging a big slab of beef in front of the cracked door. From there, we have since added links on every catalog page to where one can either buy the book, or if it’s no longer in print, at least glean more information on the author or publisher. A lot of the publications in our collection have left no trace of their existence, so many books have no links. If I could link to a blank webpage somewhere that just said “ether,” I would. Another option was to allow people to choose to just put a selection from the publication or its cover online. It doesn’t do much for the researchers, but it helps the writers have a larger presence, and then it’s up to them how they use it. I appreciate Randy’s efforts both to promote his work, but also the philosophy behind this method. It’s the compromise between education and commerce at its finest.
Visit the Chicago Underground Library. [ NOTE: Currently the site does not display properly in IE on a PC -- the info is there, scroll to your right! The CUL is aware of the problem and is working on it. ]
