INVISIBLE GIFTS
by Marylaine Block
We are endlessly told that "Information wants to be free," and we so take for granted getting our information for free online that that idea actually seems to make sense. We forget that "free to users" doesn't mean it's free, or even inexpensive, for the people who put it there.
Information doesn't put itself online and pay the freight for doing so. Human beings, and the organizations they run, pay the real costs of making information free: the labor, server charges, connections, bulk mail services, and the salaries of tech gurus. (For this discussion, I don't count things like blogs, because the people who get their space for free on places like Bloglines aren't the ones who pay the real costs for posting and storage.)
That's why I always recommend training students to ask, of any web site, "Why are the site's creators giving this away for free? What are they getting out of it that's worth the costs of putting it online?"
There are a variety of possible answers, all of which can affect the reliability of the information:
- Free information is the lure that draws people to the site to view its advertising (in which case, you need to ask whether editorial content is skewed by the interests of advertisers)
- Giving away free information is the site creator's mission, and the web simply allows it to extend its message to larger audiences. This is generally the case for sites sponsored by universities, libraries, museums, and professional organizations.
- The site is selling a viewpoint. All advocacy organization websites do this, but so do many nominally neutral websites as well (even the devotion to neutrality is a viewpoint, after all).
- The site creator is devoted to a cause or has a passion for the subject matter. The expertise of such sites' creators varies widely.
- The site creator wants to share ideas and information with like-minded people, and increase the over-all store of knowledge and best practices available for problem-solving.
- The site creator wants to build a reputation online
- The site allows the owner to say to the world, "I exist! Pay attention to me!"
Where does the free information I offer fall on this continuum? I don't make a dime off my online work; in fact, it costs me about $3,000 a year to maintain my server and my bulk mail service. Why is it worth it to me?
Passion for the cause is probably my strongest reason. I'm selling a viewpoint: I want libraries to survive, I believe they have to change and adapt in order for that to happen, and I point librarians to ideas and practices that will help them do that.
And since I am a librarian, giving away free information is simply what I do. When I come across a nifty web site I could have used in my days at the reference desk, I just HAVE to share it. When I see libraries doing wonderful things that other libraries could imitate, I HAVE to tell you about them.
I do have to survive, though, and the money I live on comes from my writing <http://marylaine.com/resume2.html> and from the presentations I deliver to librarians' organizations <http://marylaine.com/handouts.html>.
I have been invited to do both of those things because I built my reputation by giving my ideas away for free online. Writing is how I organize my ideas and understand what I think. I hone my ideas in the pieces I write for ExLibris; many of the articles I've written for professional journals had their origin here. So did the basic ideas that led to my book, The Thriving Library <http://marylaine.com/thrive.html>.
When you buy a copy of that book, you are not only getting what Omaha Public Library Director Rivkah Sass calls "a must-read for every library administrator and advocate who cares about the future.” You are helping me meet my server costs, and supplying me and my cats with the three essentials of life: food, shelter, and books. If all 8,200 of my subscribers bought my book, as well as all the people who regularly visit my web site, I would make a handsome amount of money and my publishers would be popping champagne corks. (I can dream, can't I?) When you invite me to speak at a conference, you too are helping me pay my business expenses and my mortgage.
That's one of the reasons I don't accept advertising. My site (and its e-mail version) advertises just two thing: my work, and the importance of libraries.
There. I have just saved you the trouble of analyzing why my site is available for free. But I have also given you a model for the kinds of answers to seek from any other providers of "free" information.
Next week, in the second installment of this piece, I want to discuss an even more invisible gift: the work of governments, so basic and so essential that we take it for granted, at least until the bridges fall down, the levees fail, and the libraries close.
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COOL QUOTE:
The whole concept of libraries originated with private collections being made public. It was recognized early on that access to literature on every discipline would help create the kind of society we yearn for. Julius Caesar reportedly burned the fabulous Library of Alexandria, knowing it would be a bit of a sore point for his enemy.
I won't feign ignorance about governments having to make hard decisions in dispersing public funds; but neither should taxpayers feign surprise when, after all the topsoil has been hauled away, a tree refuses to grow.
Lorraine Sommerfeld. "Library cutbacks are shortsighted solution." Toronto Star, August 6, 2007, http://www.thestar.com/living/article/243418
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You are welcome to copy and forward any of my own articles (but not those by my guest writers) for noncommercial purposes as long as you credit ExLibris and cite the permanent URL for the article. Please do NOT copy and post my articles to your own web sites, however. Instead, please copy a brief excerpt and link to the URL for the remainder of the article.
Ex Libris: an E-Zine for Librarians and Other Information Junkies.
http://marylaine.com/exlibris/
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
[Publishers may license the content for a reasonable fee.]
