Why libraries will continue to develop their IT
operations: because they are organized as
research facilities, libraries are dedicated to bringing texts and readers together. While they do limit access to certain hours
of the day and they do put controls on how rare materials are handled,
libraries generally are not concerned with restrictions as a first order of
business.
After 9/11 there were hefty debates about libraries role in surveilling
their users—Were they going to pass user information on to government
intelligence organizations? The strong
resistance librarians displayed, and who knows if it really preserved the
privacy of users, shows that libraries are more concerned with the intellectual
freedom of users than computer security.
This is one central difference between the library and the
centralized IT units of most universities.
Libraries recognize that there are many different routes to knowledge
and that curiosity is always to be encouraged, whereas IT units seek much more
to funnel users into specific software platforms, to the exclusion of all others.
Never would a librarian say “We don’t support that publisher”
and increasingly they support most media technologies as well. If a book is not in the collection, then it
can be ordered from another. Librarians,
especially in their newest digitalized incarnation strive to increase access,
where IT units try to define the parameters within which access occurs. Both functions are inevitably required in any
large university, but it should be clear that the librarians are much more
capable of fostering intellectual accomplishment by finding the texts and media
routes readers need.
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