Despite rapidly accelerating moves toward digital reference systems at the University and nationwide, Firestone Library won't be replaced anytime soon.
Google announced plans in December to digitize portions of several library collections, including those at Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University and the University of Michigan. The information in the collections will be available on the Internet.
Google did not ask Princeton to participate in a comparable program because the University has a relatively smaller collection, University librarian Karin Trainer said. Princeton's library is only the 15th or 16th largest university library in the country, largely due to Princeton's lack of professional schools, she said.
Despite the lack of a partnership with Google, the University has already worked independently to digitize library resources and plans to expand resources already available online.
"We do not have a plan in place at the moment for wholesale digitization," Trainer said. "We have chosen to focus on digitizing the unique or fairly rare works in our collection . . . [and] we have already been digitizing thousands of titles for e-reserves."
The library increases the resources devoted to digitilization each year, librarian Jane Bryan said.
The University will introduce an expansive digitized map collection in 2007 with the opening of the Peter B. Lewis Library, which will feature a collection of 300,000 maps available both digitally and in print. The library represents the increasing integration of the University's print and electronic collections, librarian of science and technology Patty Gaspari-Bridges said.
When choosing what to digitize, librarians must consider technological and practical limitations.
"We want to make sure that the book . . . is archived well," Gaspari-Bridges said. "We have to question, is Google the appropriate place to archive these? Is the search engine going to be powerful enough?"
Copyright laws also limit what materials libraries can digitize.
"The majority of collections are covered by copyright," Trainer said. "The use . . . of digital versions of books is still limited [and contingent on] deals made with authors and publishers."
Despite the ongoing focus on digitizing print material, library representatives at both Princeton and Harvard stress that libraries as we know them will not become outdated or obsolete.
"Digitalization will not decrease the importance of the library, rather, it will probably increase its importance as a resource," said Peter Kosewski, director of Publications and Communications for University Libraries at Harvard. "Libraries are now more and more in the business of brokering [and] authenticating information."
Bryan pointed to the importance of library facilities as a "meeting point for collaborative intellectual activity" between students and faculty alike.
Gaspari-Bridges also commented on the value of resource specialists available at traditional libraries. "Librarians offer services, subject knowledge and the knowhow to search data files to get you what you're looking for. We have a wonderful staff that are here to help users find what they need both in print and online," she said.
University librarians said they plan to continue expanding the digitized collections.
"If we accept that Princeton's motto is 'In the nation's service and in the service of all nations,' and we have an extraordinarily rich collection of materials," Trainer said, "if we can find a way to make our collections available reliably and at no cost to the rest of the world, why would we not want to do that?"
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