With the development of digital resources, the nature of those resources
has shifted. In a digital environment, information is transitory, overtime,
products change, services change, servers get shutdown. With these changes
the online existence of digital born materials varies, some resources
continue, others disappear, never to be seen again.

On Sun, 10 Sept 2023 at 01:57, Eric Lease Morgan <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> What is old is new again.
>
> I am sitting in the main branch of the Bologna (Italy) public library. The
> library is literaly built on Roman ruins, which anyone may see by merely
> walking down to the sub-basement. I am one of a many dozen people sitting
> at large tables, each reading and writing with great intensity. The scene
> is very much like the scene described by Washington Irving in his short
> story called "The Art of Book-Making" from The Sketch Book of Geoffrey
> Crayon, Gentleman (1819):
>
>   ...I found myself in a spacious chamber, surrounded with great
>   cases of venerable books. Above the cases, and just under the
>   cornice, were arranged a great number of black-looking portraits
>   of ancient authors. About the room were placed long tables, with
>   stands for reading and writing, at which sat many pale, studious
>   personages, poring intently over dusty volumes, rummaging among
>   mouldy manuscripts, and taking copious notes of their contents...
>
> Apparently the people at the tables are authors making books:
>
>   ...I found that these mysterious personages, whom I had mistaken
>   for magi, were principally authors, and in the very act of
>   manufacturing books. I was, in fact, in the reading-room of the
>   great British Library- an immense collection of volumes of all
>   ages and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most of
>   which are seldom read...
>
> Every once in a while, the authors request items from the stacks with the
> assistance of a librarian:
>
>   Now and then one of these personages would write something on a
>   small slip of paper, and ring a bell, whereupon a familiar would
>   appear, take the paper in profound silence, glide out of the
>   room, and return shortly loaded with ponderous tomes, upon which
>   the other would fall tooth and nail with famished voracity...
>
> The narrator falls asleep and dreams of a person who tries to take
> something from the library:
>
>   ...But the personage that most struck my attention was a
>   pragmatical old gentleman, in clerical robes, with a remarkably
>   large and square, but bald head. He entered the room wheezing and
>   puffing, elbowed his way through the throng, with a look of
>   sturdy self-confidence, and having laid hands upon a thick Greek
>   quarto, clapped it upon his head, and swept majestically away in
>   a formidable frizzled wig.
>
> And the paintings -- who are authors of long ago -- begin to scream:
>
>   ...In the height of this literary masquerade, a cry suddenly
>   resounded from every side, of "Thieves! thieves!" I looked, and
>   lo! the portraits about the wall became animated! The old authors
>   thrust out, first a head, then a shoulder, from the canvas,
>   looked down curiously, for an instant, upon the motley throng,
>   and then descended with fury in their eyes, to claim their rifled
>   property...
>
> And the very last paragraph of the story describes the perspective of the
> librarian, emphasis are my own:
>
>   The librarian now stepped up to me, and demanded whether I had a
>   card of admission. At first I did not comprehend him, but I soon
>   found that the library was a kind of literary "preserve," subject
>              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>   to game-laws, and that no one must presume to hunt there without
>   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>   special license and permission. In a word, I stood convicted of
>   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>   being an arrant poacher, and was glad to make a precipitate
>   retreat, lest I should have a whole pack of authors let loose
>   upon me.
>
> What is old is new again, or maybe, the what of librarianship changes very
> slowly while the how of librarianship changes very quickly.
>
> Read the story for yourself:
>
>   https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2048/2048-h/2048-h.htm#link2H_4_0012
>
> --
> Eric Lease Morgan <[log in to unmask]>
> Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship
> University of Notre Dame
>


-- 
Andrew Cunningham
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