Surplus quality (Re: Building collections at all)

[Rick Anderson <rick.anderson@utah.edu>]

> Production managers at most publishers will shudder to learn that
> the Espresso machine will come into common use, unless its use is
> restricted to the production of books that are otherwise
> unavailable. The quality of book production will deteriorate
> badly if the Espresso becomes the standard. It's like people
> getting used to reading the 300 dpi that comes off of
> photocopiers instead of the 1200 to 2200 dpi that is typical for
> printed books. There goes some of the "value added" that
> publishers pride themselves on....

Librarians are going through a similarly wrenching adjustment as we come to
terms with the fact that some of the added value we've prided ourselves on
providing for a century no longer seems to be particularly valued by our own
clientele.  The elaborate subject headings we spent years perfecting now
seem to be useful only as a source of keywords; we plunk our considerable
research expertise down behind service desks that are rarely approached for
anything other than directions to the restroom or help with a jammed
printer; we buy books that are clearly relevant to our institutions'
educational missions and are clearly of very high quality, and no one checks
them out.  It's a tough time all around.

Our current technological environment has exposed a number of areas in the
marketplace where providers have apparently been selling more "quality" than
consumers actually want.  To the degree that a book is needed purely as an
information source, readers will care less about print quality; to the
degree that it's desired for extended pleasure reading, they're likely to
care more.  Musicians and record labels have echoed Sandy's cry in regard to
sound quality -- in the age of the compressed MP3 download, much of the
music that average consumers listen to is of demonstrably lower sound
quality than it would have been on a CD or even (some would say especially)
a vinyl LP.  But the consumers' behavior teaches an important lesson: people
don't always want as much quality as providers would like to sell them.
Libraries, publishers, and sound engineers alike need to take that lesson to
heart, get over it, and move forward.

-- 
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dir. For Scholarly Resources & Collections
Marriott Library
Univ. of Utah
rick.anderson@utah.edu
(801) 721-1687