But

here's

one person one way.

Well thank you.

That's a very generous introduction.

I'm delighted to be here.

It's my first time at Georgia Tech and
you know my eyes

are big I've just you got all these
interdisciplinary programs and

you can program yourselves as well as
combining what you program with the unity

is doing all kinds of innovative things so
I've got a lot to learn from you.

I'm already learning and
what I have to offer may see it's going to

be a quick overview of a very big subject
libraries books the digital future.

I could begin after thank you for
having me here because I really do feel

thankful that I could begin with something
that might sound like a truism and

that is that despite all of the loose
talk about the death of the book and

the obsolescence of libraries books and
libraries are doing very well thank you.

In fact they are booming in many ways and

I By that I mean the printed book
as well as the electronic book.

We are living in a fascinating
period of transition.

In which the electronic or the digital and

the analog are coming together to
create a much richer environment.

The question is can we get it
right because we are I believe at

a sort of a turning point in the whole
evolution not just of technology but

of access to the technology.

So what I'd like to do
would be to take a quick

very quick look backwards at
the history of libraries.

And then discuss some of
the problems facing X.

us all as we try to have
access to information.

This is the moral of the story.

So I've announced it at the beginning but

what I want to do is to try to
illustrate the way it actually operates.

The strange image you see will
be explained in a minute but

first I I would just like to
make an obvious point and

that is if you if you take
a tour of a typical university.

You will see the point instantly
because the library stands at

the center of the campus just
the way it sits at the heart of

the intellectual life of
the university it pumps energy

everywhere throughout the campus including
laboratories where a lot of scientists

read electronic journals without
knowing that they come from the library

at Harvard the university actually
OSA its name to the library

a certain John Harvard about whom we
know very little in sixteen thirty eight

left four hundred books to
this tiny brand new academy

it then suddenly had the largest library
in North America and changed its name.

Well since then the university
has grown up or.

Around this core of books and today.

That's three hundred and seventy five
years and seventeen million volumes.

Later I think that Harvard
really owns its greatness

through the intellectual riches that have
been built up over many generations.

It's the largest library system system
university library system in the world

by far I see some people standing up
there you'll be very uncomfortable.

Why don't you.

There are several seats up front so
don't be shy.

Please take a seat.

Now you know when I say
seventeen million books

is going back to sixteen thirty
eight that can sound suspiciously

like well bragging
institutional bragging and

that's a disease among librarians I
know there are some librarians here.

You know we say to each other how
many in cannot give a do you have or

how many ebooks do you have
of course is that's absurd.

Instead I want to ask a different question
which goes as follows shouldn't Harvard's

library and the libraries of all research
universities including Georgia Tech.

Be viewed as a national asset

shouldn't their intellectual
wealth be shared.

Well for most of history and
that this is just a brief historical

excursion that intellectual
wealth was not shared it was

kept behind the walls off
the walls with spikes on top.

Get to that in a minute but first I should
just a reminder from what little we know

about the famous library of Alexandria
which supposedly contained all of the.

Knowledge in the in Greek antiquity.

It wasn't open to the public.

There were a few scholars
who went there but

basically its purpose was to
preserve this knowledge as a kind of

symbol of the greatness of
the core Ptolemaic dynasty.

So it's the idea was to close
off access to knowledge.

It was kind of like the pyramids.

If you like and if you look at the history
of libraries there often is what

I would call a dark side to it in which
libraries are used actually to reduce

access to books one of the famous examples
in China there is a chain Emperor.

I can't really pronounce his name but
something like Moon.

He set out to create the world's
greatest library of course Chinese

library by confiscating books
on a gigantic scale from

seven hundred seventy two to
seven hundred seventy eight and

what he did was to keep all the books
that glorified his dynasty and

to burn all the ones that
made his dynasty look bad.

He burnt at least two
thousand three hundred and

twenty books which cover a huge
swatch of Chinese history.

And I could go on and
on citing examples one of my favorites

is a communist regime in
Czechoslovakia which simply did

a kind of ran a drug that
through all libraries and

confiscated books that they thought
didn't belong in libraries.

They took some from obvious
subjects like pornography but

they also didn't want any books that
had to do with rural there's a.

Or snobbism taboo.

So out they went seven thousand five
hundred books were destroyed and

that was very little compared to what's.

Stalin did during the great terror of one
nine hundred thirty eight to thirty nine

he had twenty four
million books destroyed.

So this to the point is that

there is no upward trajectory
in the history of libraries

showing increased access to
knowledge it's a very uneven story.

And if you look at
the oldest universities.

Of course they were great
storehouses of knowledge but

they kept the knowledge to a tiny elite.

When I was a student at
Oxford the Johns College

like all of the colleges in those
days the it was surrounded by huge

walls with spikes on the top and
shards of broken glass the gates.

So I am shot at ten o'clock and
if you were out side those walls.

After ten o'clock you were in trouble.

The only thing you could do would be
to climb in now there were certain

places where you could
barely squeeze through and

this is a post photograph of me
on the on the top and a friend.

I'm climbing between a a row of rock
leading spikes and a row of spikes on top.

That's how you would.

That's how I got into college
after ten o'clock and.

Well my point is that Oxford University

surrounded its intellectual
wealth with spikes with walls

to keep the public out this is the great
bodily and library the university library.

You see the spikes with translations
in the background here is the public

looking here.

Wishing it could have
access to knowledge but

being denied that access because of
course knowledge is reserved for

the privileged elite and so on.

And so on.

You get the idea.

There are that there are there
are barriers to knowledge physical

barriers built into the great
colleges of Oxford and Cambridge.

But what I want to talk about
the something I think more important.

Namely the invisible
barriers to knowledge.

How do they operate well partly through
this thing that the Czechs wanted to

banish novice or a lot of ordinary
people feel intimidated by marker as

to walk past the two famous statues of
lions on Fifth Avenue in New York and

up the marble stairs into the New York
Public Library is quite intimidating for

a lot of people and

in general you like the ordinary people
have been kept out of libraries by all

kinds of things such as having to pay
to purchase a reader's card and so on.

So this is sounding a rather good me and
now I would like to turn the coin over and

just briefly mention the brighter
side in the history of libraries

while reminding you of
these endless spikes and

chains that kept books out of
the hands of the general public.

A counter tendency towards
excluding access to books and

knowledge in general set in with the
beginning of the Enlightenment in sixteen

I need to the royal library in
Paris was open to the public

not often two mornings a week we
think we're not entirely sure but

still some people were allowed in.

And in the seven hundred fifty
nine the British Museum.

What it's today called the British
library was open to ordinary readers.

Not that they were all that ordinary
they usually were pretty well dry.

With swords at their sides and
wigs on their heads but

still they had access to books and
in this country.

The great turning point was the opening of
the Boston Public Library in eight hundred

forty eight for the first time in
a really big Why very ordinary citizens

could walk in off the street as for
books and even take the books home.

In one nine hundred eleven the New York
Public Library opened its doors for

the first time to these waves
of immigrants who are coming

to the new country the new world
looking for access to knowledge and

often trying to get at books written
in the languages that they spoke

back in Europe and in China and
everywhere in the world.

So we've got a counter tendency of
democratization of access to knowledge.

And I think now we have it in our
power to finally realize that great

obstacle which goes back really I think
to the ideals of the founding fathers.

You've got a quote Jefferson and
this context.

Jefferson said knowledge is
the common property of all mankind.

You would say mankind today
he would say humanity.

But you get the point.

Jefferson and all of the other founders
believed that everyone should have access

to knowledge that in fact a republic to
pended on public access to knowledge but

the technology of that day was
simply the printing press.

Well I happen to love printing presses and

when I teach the history books at Harvard
by students type them they pull the bar of

an old fashioned press to get
the feel of this old technology but

of course it wasn't adequate to
the job dreamt of by the founders why.

Well first of all the.

Rate of literacy was very relatively low.

We have lots of debates
about how high it was but

it was very low especially if I may say so
in the south

as opposed to doing well and especially
among women as opposed to learn.

And those who could read often
couldn't afford to buy the books.

So the great utopian dream of
universal access to knowledge

was simply an impossibility.

When you only had the printing
press to make it happen.

But today we have got the Internet.

We've got the kind of
technology to realize what had

only been a kind of glimmer in
the I of the founding fathers.

So we're getting close to a time

when we really can unlock
the world of knowledge and make it

available to everyone and I won't go into
the many examples of this new openness.

Which I think is a powerful
movement everywhere and

not just this country but
everywhere in the developed world.

Blogging of all sorts.

Wicca Pedia I mean Wicca Pedia
is simply amazing.

Twenty two million articles
you know I wrote a book

about did a host great on
C Kapadia the encyclopedia.

That was the bible of the Enlightenment
in the eighteenth century and

he had roughly two hundred collaborators.

Well there are seventy seven thousand
active collaborators on Wikipedia and

of course it had a lot of
untrustworthy information at first but

now it's actually edited and
there are controls so

there are many examples of this
kind of opening up of access to

knowledge Open University's
open source software.

In that are data open access journals and

the beginning of an open
highway of information but

I so I'm moving back and forth between the
positive side of the negative side there

is a problem today despite the technology.

What I ask you is the average cost of
a subscription to a chemical Journal

someone want to take a guess
what the average cost.

Now you've got a very high.

It's four thousand and forty four
dollars for one year subscription.

But you're right there are some that
cost that much as my favorite example

is a journal of comparative neurology
which cost thirty nine thousand dollars

a year and a thirty nine thousand dollars
for one year subscription you could buy

three hundred monographs if you're
a librarian for that sort of price.

So we are living through an era of gross

inflation in the price of
journals that give us access to

knowledge knowledge in all fields but
especially science medicine and

technology three giant publishers
Elsevier Wiley Blackwell and

Springer now publish forty two
percent of all academic articles.

And they make huge profits
from Elsevier the last year.

Turned a profit of thirty
six percent on an income of

two billion pounds sterling
thirty six percent.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not
accusing Elsevier of greed.

It's a corporation.

It's doing its job which is to
make money for its shareholders.

So the problem isn't just the motivation
to get rich as rich as you possibly can.

The problem is in the way.

Knowledge is organized and
made accessible.

That is to say commercialization

commercialization threatens to
close avenues to knowledge.

The output of articles in the medical
sciences doubles every three or

four years but the cost of
access to these articles goes up

at an even greater price four
times the cost of inflation

over the last twenty five years and so
although more and more knowledge or

articles as is available fewer and
a smaller and

smaller proportion of that knowledge
is actually accessible to the public.

Well you could say there's a kind
of logic of the bottom line but

I think there is a higher logic
that also deserves consideration.

Namely that the public should have
access to knowledge published were

produced with public funds Congress
acted on that principle in

two thousand eight when in the end I H T
in the National Institutes of Health.

Required that any research they
funded should be made available

to the public the publishers of course for
this and

got a six to twelve month embargo on
most of the articles so that they

could cream off their profits before them
that the information was made available.

But then they weren't
content with that victory and

by something called the Research Works Act
they try to resume the N I H directive.

So this caused a huge ruckus and fine and
it was supported by Elsevier among others.

Publishers and finally that that
bill in Congress was dropped.

But my point is there is a grave
danger of not just commercialization.

But excessive commercialization.

So I think we've got to face

the fact that this
wonderful world of openness

is an endangered world and
I think we should do something about it.

Now one example is provided
by Google in two thousand and

four Google set out as you know to
digitize all the books in the world

and it was of a fascinating moment because
Google said we can actually do this.

We've got the technology we've got
the money and we got the hot spot.

So they started and they came to Harvard.

First of all.

And we said well yes.

They said we will digitize your books.

If you will let us have access to them
at no cost and that sounded to us

like a good idea because Google was going
to make these books available only for

searches the original concept of
Google Book Search was a search service.

Then however Google said Well we
also would like to digitize not just

your first eight hundred fifty thousand
books those in the public domain but

all seventeen million of them including
books covered by copyright and

we at Harvard said no but
the other libraries

at the she again at
Stanford California said yes and

soon Google was digitizing everything
it could get its hands on.

So it was a media at least sued for
breach of copyright.

Now what happens when
there's a suit of this sort.

Well the to par.

Anees go into closed rooms and
begin to negotiate

the negotiations took about two and
a half years of nearly three years and

they in the end they came out with
something called the settlement

the settlement transformed a search
service something in which you the user

would try to find out where in a book
a particular word would occur and

you could reach snippets of it just
a few sentences it transformed

that kind of search service
into a commercial library.

Now Google and the plaintiffs

said that they would make available
the entire texts of all books.

For a price.

Who is going to pay
the price the libraries.

So we the libraries.

Who had given over access
to our books to Google for

free were now being invited to
buy back access to the digitized

copies of those books at
a price to be set by Google.

Without consulting the public in
fact the public wasn't even involved

in any way at all.

So I and others thought this was

an extraordinary instead of being
an extraordinary opportunity.

It was an extraordinary threat
the threat of a monopoly of

access to digital knowledge knowledge and
digitized form.

And fortunately this settlement
had to be approved by a cork it

was refused by the court in
the southern district of New York and

therefore Google Book Search is dead.

It won't happen because it egregiously
violates the Sherman Antitrust Act.

It's a monopoly and
the court said it was and

the court had received several
briefs from the depart.

And of justice one for that actually
the government of Germany another from

the government of France and
hundreds of America's briefs

all making the same argument
the argument was irrefutable.

So Google Book Search
isn't going to exist.

But it was a great idea in many ways.

If this is such a library could
be made available free of

charge on October first two thousand and
ten he says

group of about forty heads of
foundations heads of libraries and

computer engineers met at Harvard
to discuss a proposition.

Should we create a national digital
library and make it free to everybody.

A great idea.

We decided after about thirty
minutes of discussion we

should create a coalition of
foundations to provide the money and

a coalition of libraries
to provide the books.

So we agreed on this in principle
we created a steering committee.

We got together a terrific
team of computer engineers

we appointed working groups that
scattered all over the country working in

six areas the content and
scope of the collections we would form

the finances the governance legal
issues technological infrastructure and

the Question of the audience and
general participation.

Now three years later that
embryonic project actually exists.

It was launched.

Not in the form of Google but
according to the principle

that you see carved above the main
entrance to the Boston Public Library.

It is free to all during our
meetings we had a series.

Meetings over these last three
years open to the public Huard

meetings one in San Francisco another
in Chicago another in Washington and

then lots of small meetings
of these working groups.

Everywhere we often hired artists to

actually sketch some of the ideas that
were being thrown out all the time and

so what I'm showing you are drawings

that illustrate the kinds of
founding principles behind what we

now call the Digital Public Library
of America the D.P. L. A.

How should we envisage the D P L A.

Well I think you know we actually
should resist the temptation to

indulge in grand rhetoric
about a modern library

of Alexandria the library of libraries
the mother of all libraries.

It's easy to get carried
away by the enthusiasm.

But I think what we need is to
approach it in a pragmatic spirit.

And so
we've got lots of people such as you.

Technologists people who can get
their heads under the hood people who

know how to actually sell about work in
this very challenging technological era.

And we decided on a basic principle.

Namely that the D.P. L.
A would be a distributed network

that is to say the organization will
be horizontal rather than vertical so

you should not imagine some grand
structure with on the big dome on top and

a huge database underneath.

No what we are doing is we
are cooking up databases

that exist throughout the country
in research libraries.

So the great research libraries
already have a great many

digitized collections and
they are continuing to digitize on a very

large scale that Harvard we're turning
out digital material all the time.

The point is to create such a network.

This is our mission statement.

So that all of these collections
can be hooked up and

the user with one click
can get to the book

the image the recording
the video that he or she wants.

So what will it look like.

Well there's nothing really to see I mean
we've created a corporation a not for

profit corporation Its
headquarters are in Boston we

have a terrific executive secretary dam
Cohen who is leading the charge and

we went online on April
eighteenth not very long ago.

So the D P L A.

Is now up and running and
you can consulted any time

H T T P colon slash slash D P dot.

Take a look I think you'll find
it interesting and useful.

On how is it organized what are what
is the mechanism of its functioning.

Well.

First of all.

It's aimed at a very diverse public or
publics in the plural.

Not just for other college
professors of the first there was

a danger that it smelled
too much of Harvard and so

Harvard has tried to withdraw
into the background the D P L A.

Is into.

Ordinary people cave through twelve
through Ph D. programs throughout the.

The the educational system of the country.

Re.

Tyreese an old age people in in homes for
the aged or

just in any place all kinds of people

readers of every stripe who just
want to increase their pleasure and

deepen their pleasure in reading or
people working on their own in

this country is full of people who are
doing research and publishing books about

all kinds of subjects and
they need access to a great library.

So it's intended for
a very diverse public but

we need to provide services and
that's why we have two kinds of house.

Services house.

These were the first states in which
we were able to set up service holds.

They will the hub will have a group
of skilled librarians who will help.

Aggregate.

Digital collections throughout
a particular state and they will do more

they will actually go out to small
communities or urban neighborhoods and

appeal to people to bring in material that
they think matters for their community.

So we are going to have what we call
scan of bagels a Winnebago type

truck with a scanner in the back and
a an expert librarian

who can go to a small town
libraries invite people to bring in

material from their attics in their trunks
is show how the scanning can be done.

How the metal data catalog
type information can be

drafted how it can be curated and
preserved and

finally integrated into this distributed
system which is the D.P. L.A.

but we hope that it will expand
the community's sense of itself and

that this will be a grassroots movement
not something that actually the top.

Down.

We also will develop content hogs.

So there are great libraries that have
gigantic collections already digitized

Harvard is one of them but they also
include places like the Smithsonian

the New York Public Library and
these these great collections are already

part of the the offerings of the D P A.

And I forget the exact number but we now
have something like more than four million

objects that are available in
this single integrated network.

I don't know what else.

How else to describe it.

Well you might ask you know who

who authorized this group of people
to go about this in the first place.

The answer is nobody.

We just decided to do it but
that's I think the American way.

Don't go to Washington do it yourself
bring together people who are public

spirited and get back in buying one thing
that we have the first few other countries

have namely foundations that is private
organizations devoted to the public good.

That's the way you can make
things happen in my opinion.

So the without any
particular authorization.

We simply got up and
going and made this happen.

But as I said there is now a proper
not for profit corporation.

It's got a board of trustees it's
all perfectly open and transparent.

It's got a small stair.

It's up and running.

I won't try to describe the technology in

fact I'm not really capable
of describing the technology.

I'm sure many of you.

Here would understand
it better than I do but

in fact the basic idea is to
have an interoperable system so

that the material from one collection
can be integrated with material

from another collection in
a perfectly user friendly way

that means scrubbing data or
developing a protocols for metadata.

It took a lot of doing.

But we worked on it with groups
of a computer engineers that

the Harvard MIT for several years
first we had an open contest for

bright ideas and
about sixty people applied.

We gave them three months to
send us their concepts for

how to develop the technology we had
a blue ribbon panel that awarded

there were no monetary prizes it was
just glory but name the three best

suggestions they were
incorporated into a protocol.

It was again assessed
tested redeveloped all.

And now when we launched
on April eighteenth.

Everything went perfectly.

So the technological side.

I think frankly is a great success and
it's not really adequately described here.

But what you see is how the material
is going to be distributed and

the key thing to look for as the A.P.
I on the top of those three yellow bars.

That being said anyone can develop apps
you can develop your own app attach

it to the A.P. our eye and go off in your
own and develop your own collections.

It's up to people to do it themselves and
they are doing it on a very large scale.

What about the finances.

Well of course.

This costs money.

We live in a real world.

We're not so naive to think that we can
do all of this by waving a magic wand.

But we do have adequate financing for
the first five years because

the foundations really have
rallied around us and I think

that after five years we will demonstrate
that this is such a useful service

that we may then go to Washington or
get you to write to your congressman and

senators because the constituents
will see that this is worth while.

So we are pretty confident about our
financing for the immediate future.

We've got the administration we need.

We've got the technology we
need the largest problem.

Believe it or not is legal.

Why is that copyright.

Now as you probably know Article one
cause eight Section eight of the U.S.

Constitution opens up the possibility
of copyright in order

to I'm quoting to promote the progress
of science and the useful arts.

For limited tiles and
quote for limited times.

Now what was the limit that
the Founding Fathers and visit.

First of the Constitution then in
the first copyright act of seventy nine.

Does anyone know that you know.

Sorry where you are SO

WE ARE YOU said at fourteen
years renewable once

that's what they thought
would protect the interests

of the creators of knowledge on
the one hand and on the other

hand serve the interest of the public
through the diffusion of knowledge.

What is copyright today is anyone better.

That's right.

The life of the.

Author plus seventy years and that means
that most books published in the twentieth

century are off limits for the D.P. L.A.
because they're covered by copyright

every book published after one nine
hundred sixty four is covered by

copyright most books Cup published after
nine hundred twenty three are covered.

And some believe it or

not going back to eight hundred seventy
three are still protected by copyright.

So what kind of
a Digital Public Library can we

have if we can make these books available.

Google fell because it
infringe copyright law.

We will respect the law but

we need to find a way to make
this literature accessible.

What can we do.

Well we've got all kinds
of law professors and

specialists in copyright law
working on this problem and

the problem in a way is working itself
out in the courts because all kinds of

court cases are being debated and
decided all the time

there is as you probably know
a provision in the last major

copyright law the law of one thousand
nine hundred ninety six for fair use.

What is fair use.

Well we've got a huge debate about
what in fact constitutes fair use.

If there is no market damage.

That's one criterion.

Then maybe it's OK to make available
a book covered by copyright

without the agreement of the copyright
owner but if it's used for

the public good or for pedagogical uses or
to help the visually impaired.

When there are lots of
areas in which fair use.

Now seems to be expanding in the eyes
of the course there was a great case

decided in favor of an outfit
called the hottie trust.

About six months ago.

That I think is opening
the way to fair use and

I think authors should be in favor of
this now I speak as an author myself I'm

sure I would like to make some money by my
books of the book that that you mentioned

was called mesmerism the end
of the Enlightenment was

published in one nine hundred
sixty eight in ARS a while ago.

It's still in print and
I make enough money from it

to take my wife out to dinner
at least once every two years.

If she pays for half or
I would gladly give up the income from

mesmerism and
other books in order to have readers.

That's what authors want.

Once the commercial value of
their books has been exhausted.

So why not have a system in which
after ever after say five years or

ten years authors give over to the D.P.

A The use of their copyrights they
would have to agree to do to it.

Of course but we are about to found
something called the authors Alliance in

which we will make a general
appeal to authors to do this.

So between that kind of an appeal and
the court cases on fair use.

I think we will gradually overcome
the major obstacles of copyright.

Well it's a long and complex subject and

maybe I should stop here although
I'd like to give you one or

two examples of the kinds of things
that are being made available but

how am I doing for time should I quit now.

And as I just give you one example
because it's one I like a lot.

We have at Harvard the manuscripts
of the poems of Emily Dickinson.

Now I think Emily Dickinson this.

Probably America's favorite poet
virtually every American student

has encountered a poem by Emily Dickinson
at one time or other part.

It turns out that these poems
are very problematic only a few were

published during the lifetime of Emily
Dickinson and they were horribly mangled

the manuscripts show that they are
difficult to interpret because they got

all kinds of strange spacing
capitalization punctuation.

Emily Dickinson often sold
them into bundles and

sent them off to friends of the order in
which they appear as is important for

their meaning etc etc We
are who are just finishing

a great program to digitize
all of the manuscripts and

then to make them available on long with
the two main scholarly additions which

are quite different one from the other
of Emily Dickinson's poetry the D P L A.

Will make the Dickinson material available
to every high school in the country and

I think there pedagogically
this will be fabulous

because a teacher can say take
one paw of Emily Dickinson and

then look at the manuscript look
at the different printed versions

try to figure out what she's saying
this could really make a big difference.

Well OK in one role of the realm
of poetry but it's simply one

example there are many others
I could cite knowledge really

is the common property of let's call
it humanity rather than mankind.

That was true in principle
when Jefferson said it but

now we can make it true and
practice the launch of the D.P.

away on April eighteenth was a giant
step in that direction but it was only.

The beginning and
we still have a lot of work to do.

Thank you thank you.

And one.

Thank you very much for
looking top story and

know your questions
would you like to shop.

Sometimes yes.

So I live up

here.

Yeah there's a problem about
dealing with publishers as well as

authors we don't have a solution to
that we want the publishers on our side.

But the problem as you
indicate in a way is much more

complicated than I presented
them the way I presented it.

Why because publishers see rightly
value in their backlists So

even though a book is no longer
selling it's part of the back list and

they don't want to
sacrifice that advantage.

So we're going to have to try to convince
the publishers to make parts of their or

all of their backlists available and
we may not succeed.

Still I think that the authors
can go to the publishers and

the publishers will listen to them
because I want the authors next book or

because they will also sense
an obligation to go to the public.

So if we can convince them that
they're not going to lose money by

making these books available.

We'll win but
it's not a sure thing at all.

It's a very good question.

There were certain yes.

Very clever.

Right here every year.

Yes Well you may wonder where
the fourteen years came from

you know it's a very odd number.

It turns out it came from the patents
in well the first copyright law

was seventeen ten and the authors
were like mechanics and so the notion

of making a book was kind of like you
know making sure something like that.

Actually it is in some ways
like making issue with us.

Another story.

So originally copyright for
the fourteen years was modeled on patents.

Now that's no longer
the case of course and

patent laws is very different but
the two are related and

they go through history almost in
a parallel way that has a bias or

question the media and so
you know how does patents being

boring.

Yes Well yeah

well it would be you know I agree I think
it would be interesting to think more

about comparing patents and
copyright the two were born together.

There were laded but

patents can be very valuable it very
few copyrights have had much value.

So there is a huge
industry built on patents.

But the Congress way back at the in
the at the time of the Constitution

that that that caught
school because one Section

one cause has to do with
patents as well as copyright.

So the founders were thinking
of the two together and

in each case they were thinking
there's an obligation.

To the public to share knowledge and
to the creator of the knowledge.

Let's get the balance right.

I think we've got the balance
more egregious lean more on the

whole

That

that

was

the worst writers in

different ways I think if I may generalize

university presses are frightened
by the digital world.

They're used to a traditional
service which is a great service and

not just in imprinting in making books
available but they get way function.

Now you put it rather negatively you
know they're they're only allowing

in a kind of elite and capitalizing
on their prestige which is true.

On the other hand you need gatekeepers.

So I'm in favor of open access Don't get
me wrong but I can understand the function

of professionals in fact I have great
admiration for the professionals and

not just university presses but
publishing houses in general to

go through all of these texts that
are flooding you if you've ever

been in the office of an editor you
usually see just stacks of manuscript

to the occupying most of the space to go
through that and to select out the best.

That's a real service but
that's only the beginning of the service.

Yes the editing the page design
the even the dust jacket cover

all of that is important in you know
in the history of books which is one

of the fields I work and
we say authors produce texts

publishers produce books publishers and
printers and so on.

So I think that this is
a very important function but

it's not clear how that function can
be adapted to the digital world.

Now it's easy for me to say because I
sponsored a series of electronic books.

Go electronic and
you can do great things you can in you can

incorporate videos and
music and so on and so on.

I actually believe that in one of
the the two books ago I wrote a book

that has music to the cause with it

that you can listen to on through
the Internet it's it's fabulous.

I think but publishers have to
cover costs and turn a profit.

So it's a real world we live in and

I would not actually say to publishers
well just make everything available on

open access we can work with them and
in the case of journal articles.

This is a hotly debated subject.

It seems to me that we can transform
the economics of journal publishing

how by subsidizing articles
at the production and

they come out free at the consumption and
but that cost of subsidizing

will be much much less than the cost
at the consumption and we now pay.

So when a chemistry journal costs
an average of four thousand

dollars a year that's it.

Should it.

Yeah.

Sure.

Of course

you're right.

Well

yes

and such things do exist so
especially in California.

Germany is not so
advanced in this respect but

they have this so-called extended
collective licensing agreements and

this is this works very well in Sweden
in Denmark or in Finland also Norway.

I mean it would take me
a while to explain it but

I think we something like
this could work in the US And

so yes there would be payment made
to the public to to the authors and

to the publishers through a kind of
collective licensing arrangements but

that payment would be reasonable and so
I think we should try to go that way.

I didn't mention that but

that's one possibility that I
think deserves looking into.

Yes or you have a question over here.

You say they have.

Yes you

are the question is about the death of.

Suppose the death of newspapers.

Actually I'm more worried about
newspapers and I am about books.

Maybe because of this professional
function of editors and so on.

Books are doing well in.

More books are sold each year than
the year before books in print.

Last year there was a six percent
increase in the production of books

in the United States and
worldwide books are doing well in Brazil.

It's fabulous.

China's terrific.

So books.

I think have a great future but
newspapers.

Well newspapers depend in
large part on want ads.

You know those tiny little ads that
you used to see that brought in

a huge revenue but
want ads have now gone online.

So if you're looking for work.

You don't buy your daily
newspaper you go to the Internet.

How do you get to the Internet.

Well if you're out of work.

The chances are you're not too well off
and you don't have a computer at home.

You don't have access to the Internet
you go to your local library and

libraries are developing new
functions actually for employment.

Now this is not answering your question.

It's in fact underlining the importance
of your question because it seems to

me that the daily newspaper
in ordinary cities

is really threatened and
I don't know what's going to happen.

It's very worrisome because blogs do
a certain amount of reporting and

you have got some investigative journalism
online through blogs but not much.

So it's a real concern and
I don't know the answer to it.

Yes.

Yes right now.

I think it's a great movement and.

It should be supported there
especially in mathematics.

There has you probably know about the
famous petition that says something like

thirty thousand signatures of Ph D.'s
with math in in mathematics and

these are people who refused to write for

Elsevier because of years
journals are too expensive.

Why should we.

The scholars do the research we write
the articles we referee the articles

we serve the editorial boards we are the
editors we do it all for free and yet

we have to buy back the products of our
labors at outrageous prices of course

we don't buy it back by reaching into
our own pockets our libraries do it but

this is crippling libraries.

So I think this movement to
refuse to publish in journals

that charge outrageous prices is a US
good movement and should be supported.

There have been in the last year
twenty collective resignations of

editorial boards from journals
a charge too much money.

So I'm not naive I mean of course
they have to cover their costs but

a thirty six percent profit on
an income of two billion pounds.

I don't get it.

So yes I think I think we the scholarship
to take this into our own hands and

fight back.

I should confess first of all I'm not
great at prophesied in the past as

an historian to prophesied
the future is beyond me.

However.

I mention the way libraries function
as employment agencies because they

make the Internet available to
people who are excluded from and

that's one example libraries.

I think are.

Prue forming new services they
are helping people find their way

through cyberspace and that isn't easy
because those of your students and so on.

You may start research were paid for
by going to Google but

it's not nearly adequate You will
need to go to your librarian and

ask for
help in finding the relevant database.

Or the relevant electronic
journal librarians are gods

now through the electronic world and
there are more than that because

there are all kinds of services
performed by Y. berries.

Especially in universities.

It seems to me the library is
the nerve center of the university.

That's where messages are exchanged and

it's very different from my day
when I was an undergraduate but

now I'm sure it's the same here at Georgia
Tech students get together in groups

in the library and they discuss things
they've got their computers there

usually some reference books other things
books they've taken from the shelves and

they've got a kind of running
debate about a subject.

Well libraries now are places where
that kind of debate takes place

then there is the function of
so-called great literature.

It seems to me what we're doing now.

Any body who or anybody or
arrives at Georgia Tech to give

a talk should allow that talk
to be filmed produced and

the library would be the distribution
center for it and for many other things

maybe drafts of your papers you could make
them available on through the library.

I'm sure that many courses have
their own websites that the library

helps to curate you've got blogs all
over the place you know the average

lifespan of a blog is I think
something like probably a.

Got the number wrong but

it's something like forty two
days blogs come go like that.

Well we need to preserve them
the librarians the specially a blockhead

a great university like Georgia Tech
those blogs ought to be preserved.

So I see lots of functions for
libraries and librarians.