The Social Functions of Digital Libraries: Designing Information Resources for Virtual Communities Peter Lyman Professor, School of Information Management and Systems, UC Berkeley What should a digital library be and do? For all of the promise of information technology, the future of libraries will be determined more by intellectual property policy than by technology. It is not information per se that is valuable, it is the modes of access and use of information by individuals and groups that creates value, and these are controlled by intellectual property policy. Thus the "digital" library is still a metaphor, not yet a social institution, for we do not yet know how information will be managed and used within networked information spaces. 1 Today, therefore, three very different kinds of digital libraries are emerging in parallel, each reflecting a different approach to intellectual property, and yet each offering unique possibilities for designing the digital library: Copyright. Libraries (individually and collectively) are creating digital collections on the Internet, often in collaboration with faculty and in support of academic programs that reach across institutions. Copyright is retained for the added value, but educational use is permitted, free or by subscription. Gift Exchange. The World Wide Web allows authors to place their own intellectual property directly into a new, global public domain. The public portion of the Web is the equivalent in size of a library of a million volumes, ranging in content from government information to electronic journals to teaching and learning resources created by faculty and students around the world. Contract. And, thirdly, publishers are creating an e-commerce library, online fee-for-service information on the private part of the ‘Net, that which is protected by password and encryption technologies. In the next few years, it is estimated that five thousand peer reviewed print journals in the sciences, technology, medicine and industry will be available online, anywhere in the world, for a fee. Discovering the relative value of each of these information resources for the design of digital libraries is one of the most interesting challenges for librarians. However, it is important to remember that if the digital library is still a metaphor, so too is the idea of the Internet economy, and new options may yet emerge to solve some of the problems we face. But online information, while necessary, is not a sufficient vision of a digital library. Libraries are more than inventories of information and tools such as online catalogs: they are social institutions that support a sense of academic community within disciplines and professions.2 And yet, digital libraries have not yet been designed to support these social dimensions of the library, that is, to link information resources to the learning communities who use them. For digital library design, that means more than better user interfaces, it means linking information management technology directly to the social institutions within which information is created and used. Fortunately, it appears that the Internet is capable of supporting a sense of community, and even a sense of place, through the use of common software tools such as Electronic Mail and Lists, Web pages, Internet Relay Chats (IRC), Multi-User Domains (MUDs), and Muds-Object Oriented (MOOs). And in the future, perhaps XML will make hypertext more suitable for information quality on the Web, and perhaps MUDs and MOOs might be used in the design of digital libraries. How might the digital library be designed around "virtual communities," to extend access to the library both as an information resource, as a place, and as a community to distant users? Part I. Information Property and Digital Libraries. Today three kinds of digital libraries are evolving, reflecting three kinds of intellectual property management: the subsidized research library, based on copyright policy; the public domain information of the Web, based on a gift exchange economy; and the market economy of commercial publishing, based on contract law. How might each of them shape the future of the library? 1. The research library model. Collections are now being placed on line by research libraries, individually and in consortia, by digitizing paper-based collections and placing them in the public domain on Web pages. Often these collections are unique archives for which Libraries own the intellectual property rights, or materials out of copyright. In many cases these collections are the creation of academic disciplines for which access to information is very difficult, either because the discipline is small and geographically dispersed, or because research materials are rare. Thus there are projects to publish archival materials in many such academic fields, such as: .); ); ); Or, the preprint server (http://xxx.lanl.gov/) at Los Alamos, on which can be found the important papers in High Energy Physics. These projects share the same the economic model as the research library, in which use is subsidized, thus each faces the dilemma that research library budgets are growing far slower than is the price and volume of information.3 A business model is needed to support libraries – print or digital -- for startup funding for digital projects is far easier to find than continuing operational budgets. ). JSTOR is funded by subscription, and if it can attain fiscal self-sufficiency, will bring the last century of journal publications to every networked desktop. These are important beginnings, but what is still lacking is national and global coordination, both in the form of common technical standards and collection policies and priorities. Thus the next great task of libraries is to organize these collections, to evaluate and catalog them on a global basis. Needless to say, the precondition for this effort is the creation of a viable business model, since most print library collections do not have adequate support, either by subscriptions to subsidize use, or fees for "value added" services. There is also a great deal of discussion about re-inventing University Presses, that is, creating non-profit digital publishing companies (such as Stanford’s High Wire Press) to compete with the commercial publishers that are driving up collection costs. 2. The Web as a Gift-Exchange Society. If print libraries serve as the model for the digital libraries being built by librarians, with their expertise in bibliographic control and collection building, the World Wide Web is being built directly by authors. According to Internet Archive statistics (see www.archive.org), there are seven million writers on the public portion of the World Wide Web, each creating and giving away intellectual property in the largest gift exchange community ever created. We know the virtues of the Web. It is equivalent in size to a library of about one million volumes, doubling every year, accessible largely for free. Copying digital documents and distributing them globally is nearly instantaneous. Storing them is inexpensive and compact, compared to library storage. Managing digital documents is easier because they can be searched in seconds, and their content reshaped to the reader’s needs. And, of course, they may be multi-media, combining text, sounds and pictures. Soon, with the development of XML, the Web will become more personal, recognizing the identity of its users and providing custom services to them. And we know the problems of the Web as a digital library. First, there is no quality control on the Web, thus a search on a given topic will provide a list combining reliable and unreliable information in equal measure. Search engines, modeled on library catalogs, do not solve this problem; indeed, identical searches using different search engines will provide different outcomes. To solve this problem there is substantial research on "collaborative filtering," the computer equivalent of asking your friends for recommendations. Thus when I bought Yo Yo Ma’s recording of Bach’s Cello Sonatas on Amazon.Com, I was informed that people buying this CD frequently also bought Arvo Part’s Litany. While this is a kind of solution to the problem of quality, it is different from established procedures. It resembles evaluating scholarly articles on the basis of their use, as measured by the frequency of citations in other publications, rather than pre-publication peer review and editorial screening. . As the discussion of quality control suggests, in thinking about the Web as a library we must recognize that it is not just the format of the library that is changing, the nature and use of information is changing. In abolishing the distinction between writing and publishing, new cultures of information is being created; often Web publications are collectively written, at times by groups of participants who do not know one another personally. The most original single consequence of this is that the concept of authorship is changing, for collaboration in writing these works is possible between people all over the world. There is a particularly striking passage that describes leading-edge scientific research, which has profound implications for the way we think the relationship between information, communities of practice, and the production of knowledge. Describing authorship in biotechnology, Dan Cohen says,4 ...the complexity and rapid pace of research means that advances are necessarily made by large teams connected by their interlocking areas of expertise rather than by employment at the same institution or location. Thus … a recently published paper on the DNA sequence of yeast chromosomes listed 133 authors from 85 institutions. In the biotech industry, collaborative networks are becoming the places where important intellectual activity occurs; belonging to them is essential to success in an industry that exists on the frontier of developing knowledge. … These virtual teams point to the future shape of knowledge work in general, which some predict will be accomplished by widely dispersed groups and individuals woven into communities of practice by networks, group-ware and a complex common task. While biotechnology may be an unusual field in the degree of collaborative research across both corporate and national boundaries, it raises profound questions about our concept of authorship and the role of groups in the creation of knowledge.5 What becomes of the Library if knowledge becomes a kind of public dialogue among authors? 3. The E-Commerce Library In other respects as well Amazon.Com may be the best illustration of the digital library of the future. Today, most publishers do not sell digital books or journals to libraries, but use contracts to license the use of their "information content." These contracts are very new, and the terms are changing rapidly as publishers and consumers learn to manage the new format. In the US, some believe that contracts will replace the copyright doctrines of first sale doctrine (which allows inter-library loan) and fair use (which allows copying for educational purposes). Publishers’ contracts generally forbid the use of digital documents in manner permitted by copyright, although in practice it is difficult to prevent illegal copying, without, that is, the use of technologies which make it extremely difficult to access and use information (such as encryption). ). But the primary unsolved problem is the social inequality implied in this model. The use of contracts formalizes the transition from an information policy based on public libraries to a system of ‘universal access,’ modeled after American telecommunication policy. With universal access, public access to the network is subsidized, but the consumer must pay for the information used. Previously, the fair use exemption to copyright has subsidized information access for educational purposes. Today, "universal access" is being defined as access to the Internet itself, rather than to educational information on the Internet. Thus information flows in the digital library of the future will likely be governed on a per capita or fee for service basis; on the other hand, the argument goes, these revenues will fund the development of vast high quality online libraries. And yet… Up to this point, this argument has been based upon an assumption that the future will be like the present, which is probably the least likely possible future. Current doctrine on intellectual property is based upon current economic perceptions, however, we do not yet know very much about the dynamics of the Internet economy, about information markets, or about the shape of corporations in the future, including publishers. Let us consider each in turn, very briefly. The contract model for distributing commodities is based upon experience in industrial markets, which will probably not resemble the Internet economy once it develops further. Some argue that access to information will shift market power from the producer to the consumer, as customers have more information about products and providers, thus the key to success will be in creating customer loyalty by providing more services. 6 ). The nature of supply and demand is still unknown. Thirdly, corporations themselves are being transformed by networked information, outsourcing manufacturing functions and redefining themselves as managers of knowledge and innovation. Publishers, for example, now describe themselves as investment bankers in intellectual property. There is a possibility that publishers and libraries could develop new kinds of partnerships, libraries printing customized texts for publishers. These are only possibilities, but it is worth noting that publishers are no more in control of the future than are libraries. Therefore, it is as important to envision the digital library we would most like to build as the one we may be forced to accept. Part II. The Digital Library as a Community. A Library is more than books and bricks. If it is successful, it supports a sense of community among its users, as an archive of its collective knowledge and as a resource for its future. Yet digital libraries thus far have tended to be digitized versions of card catalogs, books and journals, and as such do not evoke a sense of community. But digital libraries might well be designed to do so, although this is more than the problem of improving user interface design or the quality of information retrieval. First of all, it seems that digital places can evoke emotional and intellectual engagement. In Life on the Screen Sherry Turkle has described the way that software and network communications are transforming the psychology of personality formation. 7 As a sociologist and psychoanalyst she concludes that "virtual life" is emotionally and intellectually part of "real life," but virtual life contains a possibility of anonymous role-playing that can promote experimentation and growth. ). 8 Social scientists Barry Wellman and Milena Gulia argue that social networks on the Web are not very different from social networks experienced anywhere else. Deep feelings of community are rare in modern life, they argue, and virtual communities are more like the relationships most people have with casual acquaintances than with intimate friends. 9 Virnoche and Marx point out that "virtual communities" and "real life" are not opposites, and that the strongest sense of virtual community comes when network communications are reinforced with face to face meetings. 10 There are three kinds of virtual communities, they argue, each connecting physical and virtual senses of place, which are called community networks, virtual extensions and virtual communities. Community networks. Community networks are based upon geographical proximity, but participation in a sense of place and community is extended by network communication, such as electronic mail, Internet relay chat, bulletin boards and Web pages. Examples of community networks include municipal governments using the network to involve citizens in political deliberation, or corporations using electronic mail and teleconferencing. Clearly any traditional sense of community is dependent upon frequent personal interaction, but community networks reinforce a sense of membership by making information or communication more accessible. Many libraries use Web pages, email and lists in precisely this way to extend a sense of access into their communities, thus digital libraries may well be designed as an extension of a physical library. Virtual extensions. Virtual extensions sustain a sense of community among a group of people separated by geographical distance but who have intermittent personal contact. Virtual extensions typically create a sense of place by collaborative work on a shared problem, requiring occasional face to face meetings, but sustained by a sense of shared culture and profession. Many classrooms use Web pages and electronic mail as virtual extensions, to encourage discussion outside of classroom hours. Professions and academic disciplines use Web pages, email and lists in this manner, to reinforce professional values and trade information on skilled practice; librarians are exemplars of this. Virtual communities. Virtual communities in this strict sense, then, are groups of strangers separated by geographical distance, but sharing a common interest, expressed by an ongoing participation in computer mediated communication. Virtual communities in this specific sense may have relatively little stability over time, and relatively more listeners than speakers. And yet are of interest because they may be robust even if the members have never met and are separated by great distances. They are, in essence, a sustained conversation on a topic of mutual interest rather than physical proximity. They are most likely to be useful to those sharing interests or problems. Thus many of the most successful sites provide scarce information and advice about very specialized topics, such as political movements or the treatment of rare diseases, or perhaps simply a place to talk about a controversial topic without risk. For example, SeniorNet is an organization using digital network services to link together elderly people, many of whom live alone, into a vibrant on-line community. Studies of the use of SeniorNet services suggest that it is not online information (e.g., databases) that sustains a sense of community, but rather the interactive services (such as electronic mail and online chat groups) that SeniorNet provides. How, then, do network communications create and sustain a sense of community, when they do? According to Wellman and Gulia, social relations in cyberspace have the following characteristics: topics tend to be specialized, not general; social structure is based upon a sense of reciprocity, and social status is gained by giving good answers; anonymity fosters communication among a wider diversity of people than most face to face communities; and, they tend to be quick to respond to questions. 11 On the other hand, unlike traditional communities, they are not intimate, nor long term, do not require frequent contact, and do not have depth over many social contexts or concerns. A true virtual community, in this sense, might enable the creation of a virtual library, in which users around the globe interested in some specialized field could work together. These, of course, already exist, particularly among specialized scholars, or people who share a very rare disease, but they are rarely linked to librarians, who could bring order and quality to the information involved. Each of these kinds of digital community is consistent with the idea of the library, and each uses commonplace technologies, such as Web pages, electronic mail, and lists. But of course far more sophisticated technologies are emerging that might be used. Anonymous communication in online environments might be used to provide or support mentoring, or role-playing that enables users to participate in educational experiences not otherwise accessible? Anonymous role-playing might complement learning in educational places, by encouraging participation in learning by those traditionally silenced by the hidden currents of power and authority in the classroom? Thus far, Internet communication has been far more successful as a tool for games than for learning; indeed, investment in computer games is far greater than investment in computer learning. But the spontaneous development of learning technologies on the Web, in parallel with far more sophisticated MOO technologies (which go beyond text and numbers to multimedia representation of information), have led to increased investment in these technologies for business training and development. Pensare, for example, is a Silicon Valley start-up that uses MOO technologies to teach business skills, including video mentoring by experts, simulations of business situations, and links to online discussion groups; when they become successful they hope to support experiments with libraries and schools using these technologies. End Notes. [1] Peter Lyman, "What is a Digital Library? Technology, Intellectual Property and the Public Interest," Daedalus 125:4 (Fall 1996) 1-33. . [3] Brian Hawkins, "The Unsustainability of the Traditional Library and the Threat to Higher Education," in Brian Hawkins and Patricia Battin (Editors), The Mirage of Continuity: Reconfiguring Academic Information Resources for the 21st Century (Washington D.C.: Association of American Universities and Council on Library & Information Resources, 1998) 129-153. [4] Don Cohen, "Toward a Knowledge Context: Report on the First Annual U.C. Berkeley Forum on Knowledge and the Firm," 40:3 California Management Review 228-240 (1998). Page 23, Italics added. [5] On the end of authorship, see Mario Biagioli, "The Instability of Authorship: Credit and Responsibility in Contemporary Biomedicine," The FASEB Journal, 12(January 1998) 3-16; Walter W. Powell, "Learning from Collaboration: Knowledge and Networks in the Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industries," 40:3 California Management Review 228-240 (1998). [6] John Hagel III & Arthur G. Armstrong, NetGain (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997). [7] See Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (1995). See also Sherry Turkle, The Second Self (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984). Sherry Turkle, "Artificial Intelligence and Psychoanalysis: A New Alliance, 117 Daedalus 1, 241-68 (1988). [8] See Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. (New York: HarperCollins Books, 1994); and, Julian Dibble, "A Rape in Cyberspace: How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trikster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society," in Mark Stefik, Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths and Metaphors (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1996), pages 293-316. [9] Barry Wellman and Milena Gulia, Net Surfers Don’t Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities, Communities in Cyberspace (edited by Peter Kollock and Marc Smith), forthcoming. The University of California Press. Preprint available at http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/links/index.html. See also Sherry Turkle, "Virtuality and Its Discontents: Searching for Community in Cyberspace," The American Prospect 24(Winter 1996) 50-57. [10] Mary E. Virnoche and Gary T. Marx, "Only connect" – E.M. Forster in an Age of Electronic Communication: Computer-Mediated Association and Community Networks"67:1 Sociological Inquiry 85-100 (1997). [11] Mary S. Furlong, An Electronic Community for Older Adults: The SeniorNet Network. 39 The Journal of Communication 145-53 (1989). [12] Wellman and Gulia, op. cit.