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6. The Library of Congress and the World, Beyond Its Walls
Pages 144-162

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From page 144...
... 6 THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AND THE WORLD BEYOND ITS WALLS No library is an island. Even the isolated monastic libraries of the late antique world, clinging to handfuls of books garnered at great cost and effort, knew of a world of books beyond, cautiously lending titles or having copies made, ardently seeking additional titles by famous authorities.i The notion of institutional collaboration was, to be sure, still weak, but its seeds are visible nonetheless.
From page 145...
... The categories of material are as follows: · Born-digital Under this heading fall materials containing socially valuable and interesting information created in electronic form. Typi3For an elaboration, see The Vanished Library, by L
From page 146...
... Nonartifactual: Increasingly, digital information does not appear in forms that lend themselves to physical collection by libraries. Web sites increase the number of sources where information of the highest social value may be found, but it is often functionally impossible to ',acquire" a Web site even if one copied all the public pages of a site, substantial additional bodies of material that lie behind it (e.g., databases that are accessed by commands issued from the Web pages)
From page 147...
... The digitization of its own existing collections can give it, to be sure, tremendously rich and exciting materials for a new digital collection. But no matter how aggressively LC collects digital materials, achieving a truly universal collection will now increasingly mean recognizing that not everything can be collected, because the volume of digital information is so great.
From page 148...
... . Indeed, the committee believes that LC's inward focus during the past two decades has resulted in a decline of trust and confidence in the research library community In the United States.
From page 149...
... RLG's and OCLC's joint representations to the committee suggested that they see the value and necessity of working with each other in productive ways and with LC.6 Collaboration of this sort may not prove easy for LC, because decisions taken two decades ago led to the creation of a highly successful system whereby OCLC distributes catalog records to a wide variety of libraries, and these records include the very substantial body of cataloging created by LC. The results for users have been overwhelmingly positive, however, and the cost savings to the library community extraordinary.7 Great things have been achieved by LC, OCLC, and RLG, and it is time to look to the future in a trusting and collaborative spirit.
From page 150...
... Such an event would be promoted to interested stakeholders in the Washington metropolitan area, from federal agencies and congressional staff to the library community and industry associations, which would include local information industry people and researchers. The committee is suggesting not that LC totally neglects such outreach initiatives (for its bicentennial in We year 2000, it planned a number of such See Making IT Better: Expanding Information Technology Research to Meet Society's Needs, by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2000)
From page 151...
... The argument over whether the mission of LC should be adjusted to make it more nearly a national library will continue and is beyond the scope of this report. It is important, however, to understand that a number of the Library's func10Another promising development was the Library's high profile at the spring and fall 2000 meetings of the Coalition for Networked Information Task Force in Washington, D.C., and San Antonio, Tex., respectively.
From page 152...
... Finally, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) incorporates a crucial dimension, "the American Memory," the archival record of American government and some of the nation's most precious national treasures.
From page 153...
... Finding: The Library has been too little visible on the national and international stages, particularly in the digital arena. Recommendation: The Library needs to be more proactive in bringing together stakeholders as partners in digital publishing and digital library research and development (such as the Digital Libraries Initiative)
From page 154...
... ~.,r-e,,~`,~mo~,' the..B'.omedimI.4~.bm~ Revie 2:~' ~~-. n,~Ope~ions ~:Divis~on, :the-~Lite~um Se~l~e~io:n~ Te es~adv~ce~ payout the- kinds: ~ou~rn-~:s~:that~sho~uld~ Ibex A-: Recommendation: The Library of Congress needs to develop a regular working relationship at the senior policy level with federal institutions such as the National Library of Medicine, the National Agricultural Library, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the Smithsonian Institution.
From page 155...
... [~Y ~ CHESS ~ ~ COLD BEGAN ~ AGES ] Nabonal Science Foundation and the Department of EducaHon)
From page 156...
... "American Memory Collections Available, National Digital Library." Available online at . Library of Congress.
From page 157...
... The National Digital Library Program, discussed above, has been frank and direct in making American schoolteachers and students the primary audience. The committee views these pragmatic priorities with mixed feelings.
From page 158...
... At most, a scholarly user will get from that project a sense of what might be worth pursuing in the collections, but the digital collections are not themselves useful as scholarly instruments. The committee be..
From page 159...
... There is today no easy replacement of paper with digital materials, and comparatively few cost-saving benefits will be reaped from automation per se: those days are largely over.~3 (Where opportunities now arise, they go beyond the walls of any single institution, comprising, as they do, the aggressive use of networked technology to for example acquire goods and services online in a business-to-business setting.) We live in a time when libraries will see their missions expanded as they continue to collect and preserve analog materials while at the same time participating wholeheartedly in the digital revolution.
From page 160...
... Insofar as LC remains committed to the business of disseminating its collections to a broad public, and in particular to schoolchildren, it should look for neither a core congressional allocation nor charitable contributions to support that commitment. Rather, LC should seek to disseminate its collections to a wider public by means of a mutually beneficial partnership with the private sector a partnership that goes beyond the contribution of funds or equipment by using the partnership to develop the technical and marketing expertise of the Library (i.e., to effect technology transfer)
From page 161...
... It is unlikely and undesirable that such activity would become a major source of funding and the committee cannot emphasize too strongly that such revenues should never be taken as an excuse for limiting or reducing government funding for the core missions of the Library- but room must be made for experimentation and partnership. Finding: Year-to-year operating funds and traditional capital funds will be inadequate sources of funding for new Library initiatives for the foreseeable future because the initiatives are not likely to result in significant cost savings and may well require increased funding for instance, the National Digital Library Program adds costs and does not result in any savings because the capabilities being developed are new and do not replace any existing processes.
From page 162...
... 162 LC 21: A DIGITAL STRATEGY FOR THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS These initiatives and Me enhanced relationships with traditional and nontraditional audiences alike would increase the focus and relevance of each LC unit and make LC more important to all outside organizations and the general population. External relations must be geared to more than simply raising money and generating revenue, although in We medium to long term, substantial revenues could be generated for LC even as the partners develop Weir businesses because of We partnership with LC.


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