Comments on: Ring the Alarm…

By: Professor Longnose

Professor Longnose — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:40:33 +0000

Halberstam needed to do a bit more research for Summer of ’49. According to Bill James, the book is a pile of errors of fact.

By: glennstout

glennstout — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:01:23 +0000

The entire point of a research library – and much of its value – lies in having information in once place. Decentralization would be like putting up a fence between home and first. You can still play the game, and get there, but it’s a lot more difficult and makes scoring tougher. Or, for another metaphor, decentralization be be like making you go to a specific computer terminal to read the Banter. “What’s so wrong with that? Won’t Banter fans make the effort?” Splitting up a collection makes research moore difficult and as a result much lesss gets done. Lack of access is a form of censorship. As far as digitilization goes, if there isn’t money for staff, there isn’t money for newer technologies.

People use libraries for a variety of reasons, and writing books is just one of them – the genealogists are even madder than I am. A large institution like the the BPL or NYPL attracts hundreds of people a year who use the library for all mkinds of research. In regard to authors, the result is that books are published, authors are paid, people buy books, the companies that make books employ people, as do bookstores, and the government taxes commerce and income, which then come back to support services like libraries, a place where, at no cost, you can educate yourself, the ultimate empowerment. That is how libraries are arguably cost effective government services.

By: Chyll Will

Chyll Will — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 21:41:59 +0000

Of course if the Ded Sox were relevant to the bigger picture, we’d be naked and bleeding in the gutter like they are now >;)

By: NYYfan22

NYYfan22 — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 21:35:02 +0000

times are tough.. cut funding here. cut funding there. library? who needs a library? we’re living in the now.. [then 20 years from now] hey! look at all this stuff that someone found in a sealed basement somewhere. oh yeah… from the old library. let’s pour 30M in to rebuild it in all its glory!

dumb politicians. the only good thing that comes out of that is once the material becomes easily accessible again there tends to be a drove of young blood who will tear it up and write a plethora of good stuff. of course, the bad part is a) overall, it’s unnecessary and wasteful, and b) once moved, the odds go up that the material could be lost or ruined.

By: mrm1970

mrm1970 — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:48:06 +0000

Yeah, those third world countries are *killing* us when it comes to advanced Red Sox-related research.

By: williamnyy23

williamnyy23 — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:10:16 +0000

[6] I’d love to read about some of the battles that ensued over spending large sums to convert hard copies to microfilm. They’d probably sound familiar.

After doing some reading on Boston.com about the issue, I don’t sense the Armageddon that Glenn suggests. If the issue is really about decentralizing the archive, well, what’s so wrong with that? Will propsective authors really not make the effort to access what supposedly is an invaluable resource?

If anything, the real “victims” are those communities losing their branches, not book authors who have the means to access the information they need.

By: RIYank

RIYank — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:02:48 +0000

[4] The digitizing is very expensive. Of course, once it’s done the material is vastly more useful, and as you say it can be put on line and made much more widely available.
My suggestion would be for the BPL to donate the stuff, maybe in chunks to different institutions. Wouldn’t Harvard be interested in a lot of it, MIT, Williams College (how about the Steinbrenner Collection?)? Or might Google be interested?

By: rbj

rbj — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:55:38 +0000

The library where I work has been hit hard the last few years. The director’s slot basically went away (there is a library director, but he’s using the assistant director slot), one of us 3 reference librarians has for years been doing media services for the college rather than working in the library, the head of cataloging got moved over to reference (as one of us three) leaving that position empty, and now she just got laid off on Monday. So we are basically down four positions from where we should be. And our budget has been cut again.

By: williamnyy23

williamnyy23 — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:47:09 +0000

Is it not possible to make the same resources available online? Or, would that project be even more expensive than keeping the BPL in operation?

Also, if so many authors are making use of the place, perhaps they could organize to provide funding? An effort like that might have more of an impact than simply complaining to civil servants who have to face a shrinking bottom line.

By: Chyll Will

Chyll Will — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:58:50 +0000

It’s disturbing that during budget crises, the arts and education are always the first to experience reduction; as though these areas are superfluous to common knowledge. The fact is, as education and culture has been scaled back, so society’s standard of living has regressed to such a point that we lag behind so-called Third World countries who outperform us in critical areas that effect the whole world. Really, for what? To preserve a mode of life for a small percentage who control the lives of the majority and have willfully neglected their standard of living? What’s next, cyber-sharecropping? This is further proof of the bamboozling of the American public by the corporate bourgeoisie masquerading as public officials.

Sigh. Deep breathing exercise, find my center, pretend that none of this matters, act like I didn’t say any of that, pass gas, repeat…

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:14:05 +0000

I had maybe a naive sense of optimism about the state of libraries after reading Marilyn Johnson’s book. But this is a sobering kick in the gut–or lower.

By: glennstout

glennstout — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:58:59 +0000

And for the record, guys, I used the BPL (as well as places like the NYPL , Brooklyn PL and Chicago PL) as my primary research site for Yankees Century, The Cubs and Dogers as well – their collection is comprehensive and national. The BPL has extensive micro runs of the Times (also online), Tribune, Post and Daily News.