Top Ten reasons the Internet will not replace public libraries

 Top Ten reasons the Internet will not replace public libraries

1. The primary use of the Internet is (and will increasingly be)

entertainment, not education. There are many fine resources on the Net,

but the reason that it will expand into everyone's home is

entertainment. The average American no longer reads a newspaper. Will

they pay to receive a digest of bills being considered by Congress?

Already, the Net is clogged with gifs, games, MUDs and shareware. The

future holds worse and more of it.

2. The Net will become increasingly commercial. We are "A Nation of

Salesmen" (available in hard copy at your local public library). Despite

the resistance of people like us, the Net will inevitably become

commercialized. There is money to be made, useless things to be sold and

mass taste to pander to. CBS basketball, the Simpsons, and CNN's O.J.

coverage all have Web sites. Gresham's law holds here. We will see

relatively fewer educational sites and many more entertainment style

sites. Even educational sites will have to become increasing

entertaining to be noticed. Many of the pioneer TV and radio stations

were run by universities, but public TV ismarginalized today. As a

system, the Net will more closely resemble cable (an entertainment

network) than the library (an educational network). If you want to se

the future content of the Net, turn on MTV.

3. Use will be metered. How many of us PUBLIB subscribers are metered?

Most of us have access through our jobs. The vast majority of Net users

will be metered, just as with electricity. The more you use, the more

you pay. The freenet (a trademarked name) concept is under attack by

businesses. Freenets often use government support (from universities,

libraries, etc.) to provide access, interfering with someone's chance to

make money selling access to the Net. With cutbacks coming at most

universities, the support will disappear or diminish and the lawsuits

will hasten the process. The notion that government will establish

information utilities is unrealistic. All recent legislation tends

toward turning this over to telcos and anyone else who thinks they can

make a buck. Read the small print - the estimated cost of running fiber

is $1,000 per house. If you want to see the future of Net access, read

your cable bill, then multiply.

4. What the Net does best (communication) is not a threat to libraries.

One place where the Net will truly change things is communication,

where e-mail, listserv and conferences echo the trend to narrowcasting.

This has serious benefits for medicine, education and anyone who wants

to seriously discuss any topic. After people get tired of watching

Simpson video clips, this will have lasting value. Great, but not a

threat to the continued existence of libraries.

5. Ease of use. The net is like the Library of Congress without a

catalog or shelving system. It is easy to find entertaining things, but

hard to find real information. So far, the Net has gotten by on

providing a large browsing area and letting the gee-whiz aspects

satisfy. Archie and veronica servers are too crowded to use. Gopher

menus are being limited by their designers to avoid allowing access to

some kinds of information and this will get worse with increasing

commercialization. If I want to know how my senator voted on a bill, it

is much easier to call  his office and ask than to wander through

THOMAS. I think the commercial providers will continue to use a strategy

that develops addicts. Like a casino or TV, occasional positive

reinforcement works best.

6. The authenticity problem. Due to persistent security problems,

nothing on the Net is authentic. The Congressional information on the

much heralded THOMAS is not official, only the paper copy is. Your e-

mail is not secure, a problem that will not get better with increasing

commercialization. Documents on the Net may or not be actually written

by the person whose name is on the bottom. This lack of authority

mirrors TV or radio. When your child is sick, you go see an actual

doctor, instead of downloading a file that could have been modified as a

prank. Check out William Gibson's Neuromancer.

7. Better than paper? For communications, yes. But I can get more recent

weather forecasts on the Weather Channel and more up-to-date  sports on

CNN. GIGO applies here too. How many sites have the CIA World Factbook

available? Much of that information is outdated and should be

supplemented by recent magazine articles. Internet Hunt questions are

carefully tailored to Net resources, giving the illusion that the Net is

the ultimate resource. Like a badly constructed spreadsheet, the Net can

provide answers that are not accurate.

8. Copyright. Even if 80% of all documents are in electronic format,

Stephen King's word processor is not a web site.There have been some

interesting experiments in Net documents, but notice that the 2nd

editions of the successes will be copyrighted and sold. There are still

no free lunches

9. Data costs and good data costs more. The "free" information on the

Net has reliability problems. If you want reliability, you will pay

more. There will be gateways with passwords and a running meter to get

to the "good" information. For example, you can get a series of phone

numbers from an old paper phonebook at the library for free, you can pay

$99 for a mostly accurate CD-ROM or you can sign on for $4,000 and use

the NYNEX database. This increases the need for libraries, who can share

the cost of clean data among their users.The free lunches are

disappearing and what will be left is bread and circuses.

10. Surfing is the right metaphor. Surfing is fun, good exercise. It may

be cheap, but it is not free. If you live in Wisconsin, it can be very

expensive. It can change your life, but is unlikely to make you rich,

better educated, more personable or more employable. You need

specialized equipment and have to know how to use it. You can surf for

hours, but you end up back on the beach.