Author of A Practical Guide to Internet Filters (Neal-Schuman, 1997)
Column for April 1998
I clicked on a link in a Web-based OPAC, and seconds later heard Mario Savio's voice through my computer's speakers as he addressed a 20th-anniversary rally commemorating the beginning of the Free Speech Movement. Another click, and I was listening to Malcolm X. The emotion and inflection in their voices, the clapping audience, even the feedback from the soundstage brought me almost to tears.
If you think information isn't power, listen to Savio and Malcolm X; it's the First Amendment come alive. And if you think librarianship isn't powerful, think about how the speeches got there; librarians made it happen.
As head of the Media Resource Center at UC/Berkeley since 1985, Gary Handman has been working with multimedia since long before it was cool. Recently Gary (who's also American Libraries' "Quick Vids" columnist) has been leading a library project to put audio and video files online. Like the Everglades Digital Library project (AL, Oct. 1997, p. 76), the particular appeal of the UCB Media Online Audio Recordings project is its strong handprint of classic librarianship.
We librarians are famous for focusing on questions of access and preservation from a long-range, big-picture perspective. Gary believes passionately in the value of the resources his library delivers--both in terms of high-quality, on-demand access for his library users and in the value of the content itself to our collective library treasures. He knew creating this archive was about much more than stuffing data on a server.
The risks and opportunities in this project carried equal weight. On the risk side, Gary had to plan a large-scale conversion project in an era of technology change that he described as "trying to see the future over a brick wall." Given the media formats that have crashed and burned in the last 20 years (looked for an 8-track tape or a gopher lately?), it takes some chutzpah to spend significant chunks of change on transferring files to a new format.
However, Gary had the advantage that the UCB Music Library had gone down the same path the previous year when the library got a grant to digitize musical recordings. They had struggled through some tough decisions—for example, choosing to use a high-quality audio player, Streamworks, rather than the better-known RealAudio. Gary's decades of library experience convinced him that, given the Media Center's primary role as a research center, following in the Music Library's footsteps to use Streamworks was in the best interests of his patrons and his media.
Again, careful strategy, born of experience, directed the efforts. The language lab, which does the conversion, takes the prudent step of converting the audio files to CD format, which is then used to create the Streamworks files. This means if a new format emerges, the data can be converted from the CDs, just one step away from the primary (and rapidly aging) format. Where does the language lab fit into the library? It doesn't; it's part of the Berkeley Language Center—a unit outside the library. This type of collaboration will become increasingly important to all of us.
Don't outsource this woman
The Media Center also has a secret weapon: Library Assistant Mary Louise Smith, conqueror of new and unusual formats, whom Gary calls "the best media cataloger in the universe." Mary Louise is a flexible, imaginative cataloger whose innovations include hot links to review sources in her records. Aficionados of good media cataloging interested in her work can cruise to the UCB Library Pathfinder, gateway to the public access catalog and other resources, and do a title keyword search on the phrase "online audio recordings" (leave off the quotation marks).
It's one thing to place content online, and another to deliver it. You aren't going to win a giant-hard-drive contest if you banter with Gary, because he planned for the consequences of delivering "big data." Students can access these resources at the Moffitt Library Information Gateway through a 100mbps backbone and a suite of 40 MMX computers loaded with a huge assortment of players and equipment to support playback and research. Again, not directly part of the Media Center, but a resource used by it; after all, librarians are people who may not always have the answer—but know where they can find it!
Yours, mine, and theirs
One major reason the Savio and Malcolm X files were offered is that UC/Berkeley owns these documents, meaning that the intellectual-property issues were relatively minimal. Gary emphasized that until intellectual-property law catches up with new media, arrangements to place copyrighted material online will be piecemeal and case-by-case, and both authors and content intermediaries (such as libraries) will be reluctant to provide their information over the Internet. People (including unfortunately, some librarians) can be very cavalier about material on the Internet; I guess the theory is, if you can stuff it in your pocket while the grocer isn't looking, it's not really theft. Needless to say, those who disagree are being cautious about making their content freely available.
Go for it!
Still, even with the roadblocks, issues, and looming brick walls of the future, UCB's online audio project was clearly a successful venture. Gary summed up his philosophy: "Try! There's no good place to jump in." Adding that this kind of project is "what librarians should be doing," he concluded, "Get out on the edge."
If you want to follow Gary on the edge (and track Mary Louise as she catalogs his travels), look at the time line in his technology plan, keep the Media Resources Center bookmarked, and stay tuned for further developments.