7.0154 Libraries of the Future (1/49)

Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Fri, 3 Sep 1993 10:04:26 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 7, No. 0154. Friday, 3 Sep 1993.

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 17:18:10 -0500 (EDT)
From: mccarty@epas.utoronto.ca (W. McCarty)
Subject: BMR 93.9.5, ALSO SEEN: Future Libraries

Humanists should be aware of the special issue of `representations'
devoted to the topic of "Future Libraries". It is informally reviewed
below by Prof. James O'Donnell, editor of Bryn Mawr Classical Review.

Willard McCarty
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Forwarded message:
> From bmr-l@cc.brynmawr.edu Wed Sep 1 23:22:03 1993
> Date: Wed, 1 Sep 93 23:25:28 -0400
> From: bmr@ccat.sas.upenn.edu (Bryn Mawr Reviews)
> Subject: BMR 93.9.5, ALSO SEEN: Future Libraries
>
> 93.9.5, ALSO SEEN: Future Libraries
>
> representations 42 (Spring 1993). Special Issue: Future
> Libraries, ed. R. Howard Bloch and Carla Hesse. Berkeley: University of
> California Press, 1993. ISSN 0734-6018. Pp. 134. $7.50
> Noted by J.J. O'Donnell -- University of Pennsylvania
>
> This special issue of the New Historicist house organ from
> Berkeley is devoted to the particular future library now a-building
> in Paris, the "tres grande bibliotheque" of President Mitterand's
> dreams, but also to serious and thought-provoking elucidation of
> the issues and possibilities. There are big names here (esp. Roger
> Chartier on "Libraries Without Walls" and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
> on his daily round as director of the BN, but also important short
> [more like press releases than articles] pieces by the people in
> charge of the new TGB project. I found two other pieces even more
> interesting.
>
> Geoffrey Nunberg of Xerox PARC on "The Places of Books in the Age of
> Electronic Reproduction" has numerous things to say that I wish I had
> thought of, and Jane Ginsburg, "Copyright Without Walls?: Speculations on
> Literary Property in the Library of the Future", makes intellectual
> property law downright exciting. Applying the law of copyright to the real
> world is an intricate business with many traps for the unwary, but
> Ginsburg, law professor at Columbia and filially homonymous with another
> legal Ginsburg of recent acclaim, is deft, lucid, and very stimulating.
> Academics know much less about copyright than willing or unwilling
> participants in the impending upheavals in information processing need to
> know: this article is well worth a detour, and the whole issue repays
> careful attention. (I found my copy at Borders bookshop and thought it
> dead cheap at the price; the savvy librarian who pointed me to the issue
> thinks that e-mail to rrs@uclink.berkeley.edu could help you get a copy
> expeditiously if you want one.)
>