Balancing Act

"The narrow path still leads, as it must, to crowded public rooms where the sunlight gleams on varnished tables, and knowledge is embodied in millions of dusty, crumbling, smelly, irreplaceable documents and books."--Anthony Grafton, author of "Future Reading: Digitization and its Discontents"

I couldn't say it better than Grafton did. His recent article in the New Yorker discusses the Google Libraries project and the possible consequences for information access. He makes many excellent points, specifically that paid access is going to widen the information gap. He also discusses the quality of information in digitization projects, both human and computer error are possible. In any record keeping, this is possible, but massive digitization could mean errors on a grand scale.

Technology is an excellent tool, but it cannot replace the feeling of leafing through an old first edition and wondering who else gleaned information from its pages. The computer cannot provide the same experience. Technology is amazing, but it cannot become our only record--the Internet has changed the lives of many, but it cannot provide for each and every information need. Balanced collections still need to have precedence in the practices of information professionals. To paraphrase Grafton and quote a famous poet, "The road less travelled by" is the one we should take in the digital age if we want to have the most informed view of information.