I’m
here
to
say
a
bit
about
the
future
of
the
research
university
library.
To
talk
about
the
future,
naturally,
I’m
going
to
begin
with
…
history!
Many
of
you
might
have
found
history
boring
when
you
were
a
Cal
student.
If
it
helps,
this
history
includes
a
hereAc
whose
body
was
burned,
a
war
that
killed
nearly
40%
of
the
populaAon
of
Germany,
the
invenAon
of
the
automobile,
and
a
Facebook-­‐fueled
revoluAon
overthrowing
the
government
of
Egypt.
Let’s
start.
John
Wycliffe,
professor
in
Balliol
College,
Oxford,
reAred
to
a
quiet
village
in
Leicestershire
in
1381.
1

He
had
a
stroke
on
28
December
1384,
and
died
on
the
very
last
day
of
that
year.
RIP
But
he
wasn’t
allowed
to
RIP.
2

44
years
later,
Pope
MarAn
V
ordered
Wycliffe’s
body
exhumed
from
consecrated
ground.
The
body
was
burned
and
the
ashes
dumped
in
the
River
Swi[.
The
priests
burned
any
copies
of
his
books
they
could
find.
Why
all
of
this
hullabaloo?
And
why
care
today?
Because
Wycliffe
is
one
of
our
early
InformaAon
Martyrs:
he’s
one
of
our
heroes.
Notable
among
Wycliffe’s
crimes:
he
created
the
first
English-­‐language
translaAon
of
the
ChrisAan
Bible,
challenging
the
church-­‐approved
LaAn
translaAon.
Wycliffe
had
the
radical
idea
that
common
people
should
be
able
to
read
scripture
to
themselves,
in
their
vernacular,
rather
than
just
rely
on
priests
to
quote
it
to
them.
But
really,
Pope
MarAn
V
needn’t
have
bothered.
Wycliffe
was
a
failure.
3

His
English-­‐language
Bible
was
handwriben,
by
scribes.
A
few
copies
were
made.
A
few
people
read
it.
Nothing
happened.
4

About
90
years
later,
an
unknown
German
friar
wrote
a
criAque
of
the
Catholic
Church.
His
name
was
MarAn
Luther.
He
wrote
his
95
Theses
5

as
a
handwriben
leber
to
his
archbishop,
protesAng
the
sale
of
indulgences
and
other
church
pracAces.
The
response?
Preby
much
a
big
yawn.
They
pabed
Luther
on
the
head
and
told
him
to
say
a
few
more
Hail
Marys.
But
three
months
later
something
magical
happened:
students
and
others
from
across
Europe
streamed
to
Wibenberg,
and
the
Protestant
ReformaAon
began.
What
was
the
difference
between
Wycliffe
who
failed,
and
Luther
who
unleashed
a
force
that
forever
change
the
governments
and
religions
and
naAonal
boundaries
of
the
western
world?
To
paraphrase
the
Wonderful
Wizard
of
Oz:
6

“Why,
anybody
can
have
a
brain….But
you,
Luther,
have
one
thing
that
others
did
not:
a
prinAng
press.”
Indeed,
a[er
his
failed
leber
to
the
archbishop,
some
of
Luther’s
friends
translated
his
95
Theses
from
LaAn
to
German,
English,
French,
Italian…and
used
the
recently
invented
prinAng
press
to
print
mulAple
copies
and
distribute
them.
The
rest,
truly
is
history.
In
this
and
many
other
ways
over
the
next
100
years,
Gutenberg’s
prinAng
press
enabled,
even
caused
the
Protestant
ReformaAon,
and
the
world
changed
profoundly
and
permanently.
But
the
effects
of
the
prinAng
press
were
even
more
profound
than
just
the
Protestant
ReformaAon.
As
historian
Elizabeth
Eisenstein
has
shown,
the
prinAng
press
shaped
and
enabled
the
Renaissance
and
the
ScienAfic
RevoluAon
as
well.
Yes
indeed:
a
simple
info
technology
that
we
take
for
granted
today
enabled
and
shaped
the
7

Protestant
ReformaAon
Renaissance
ScienAfic
RevoluAon
Wow.
8

These
social
transformaAons,
played
out
over
several
hundred
years,
caused
most
major
social
and
governmental
insAtuAons
in
the
West
to
fall
or
be
radically
transformed.
The
Catholic
Church
was
no
longer
the
most
powerful
kingdom.
Feudalism
—
manors
and
serfs
—
gave
way
to
merchants
and
trade.
The
naAon-­‐state
replaced
small,
local
kingdoms.
Democracy
was
invented
and
took
root.
And
modern
science
was
created,
leading
to
steady
and
rapid
advancement
of
humankind
through
understanding
of
our
bodies,
our
minds,
our
ability
to
transform
the
world
around
us
and
build
every
more
powerful
technologies.
And,
of
course,
wars
were
fought
—
over
religion,
over
technology
and
resources
—
and
these
wars
became
ever
more
devastaAng
and
global.
9

The
Thirty
Years
War
emerged
from
the
Protestant-­‐Catholic
conflict,
and
devastated
Europe,
including
killing
nearly
40%
of
the
German
populaAon.
How
could
the
invenAon
of
an
informaAon
technology
have
such
enormous
impact?
10

Gutenberg’s
press
changed
the
world
through
the
simplest
of
technological
advances:
it
significantly
lowered
the
cost
and
increased
the
accuracy
of
reproducing
stored
informaAon.
That
is,
it
vastly
mulAplied
the
number
of
people
with
access
to
accumulated
knowledge,
and
made
that
informaAon
more
reliable
by
reducing
copying
errors.
So
just
how
important
was
Gutenberg?
Footnote:
The
following
discussion
relies
heavily
onElizabeth
Eisenstein’s
masterful
analysis,
as
well
as
some
more
recent
commentaries.
I
have
included
a
few
specific
cites,
but
I
need
to
improve
the
documentaAon
of
these
ideas.
11

The
fourth
Renaissance
began
about
100
years
before
Gutenberg,
in
northern
Italy.
But
the
Renaissance
before
prinAng
was
largely
focused
on
looking
backwards,
on
restoring
the
intellectual,
arAsAc
and
cultural
accomplishments
of
the
Greek
classical
era.
Only
a[er
Gutenberg,
due
to
the
fixity,
accuracy
and
low
cost
of
print,
did
ideas
began
to
spread
north
of
the
Alps,
and
the
focus
turn
to
the
future:
the
classical
texts
became
fixed
points
of
reference,
and
scholars
began
to
improve
upon
them,
creaAng
a
blossoming
of
new
culture.
The
western
world
never
turned
back.
The
depth,
duraAon
and
success
of
the
Renaissance
owe
much
to
the
prinAng
press.
12

As
if
the
rise
of
ProtestanAsm
and
the
Renaissance
weren’t
enough,
the
prinAng
press
and
this
change
in
the
amtude
towards
the
past
also
enabled
the
ScienAfic
RevoluAon.
As
Mander
wrote,
“Scribal
culture
revered
the
ancients
because
they
were
closer
to
uncorrupted
knowledge-­‐-­‐that
is,
knowledge
not
yet
corrupted
through
the
process
of
scribal
transmission...
Print
culture,
because
it
allows
for
cumulaAve
advance
of
knowledge,
views
the
past
from
a
fixed
distance.”
Quoted
in
Dewar,
James
A..
The
InformaAon
Age
and
the
PrinAng
Press:
Looking
Backward
to
See
Ahead.
Santa
Monica,
CA:
RAND
CorporaAon,
1998.
hbp://
www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P8014.
13

Indeed,
by
comparing
printed
copies
of
the
data
of
Ptolemy,
Aristotle
and
others
Copernicus
was
able
to
idenAfy
their
errors
and
inconsistencies
and
with
his
“De
RevoluAonibus
Orbium
CoelesAum”
[Day
Reh-­‐voh-­‐loo-­‐tee-­‐OWN-­‐i-­‐bus
OR-­‐bee-­‐um
Koi-­‐LESS-­‐tee-­‐um]
in
1543,
to
commence
the
ScienAfic
RevoluAon.
14

The
noAon
of
cumulaAve
and
progressive
knowledge
was
the
foundaAon
of
the
ScienAfic
RevoluAon.
Without
prinAng,
there
was
no
reliable
system
for
data
collecAon:
maps
changed
every
Ame
they
were
copied
by
hand,
astronomical
observaAons
accumulated
errors
in
each
successive
manuscript.
Causes
for
social,
cultural,
religious
and
scienAfic
revoluAons
are
complicated.
But
there
is
no
longer
serious
dispute
that
the
Gutenberg
revoluAon
was
an
enabler
and
shaper
of
the
15

Protestant
ReformaAon,
the
Renaissance,
and
the
ScienAfic
RevoluAon.
And
remember,
the
immediate
effect
of
the
prinAng
press
was
merely
a
reducAon
in
cost
and
increase
in
accuracy
for
informaAon
reproducAon.
But
from
that
modest
technological
change,
one-­‐to-­‐many
communicaAon
became
pracAcal.
What
do
these
remarkable
transformaAons,
enabled
by
the
prinAng
press,
have
to
do
with
modern
informaAon
insAtuAons?
Now
we’re
in
the
beginning
of
the
second
Gutenberg
revoluAon
—
that
is,
the
digital
revoluAon.
16

Today’s
digital
informaAon
revoluAon
accomplishes
the
same
feat
as
Gutenberg’s
prinAng
press
—
but
more
so.
The
digital
revoluAon
has
again
lowered
the
incremental
cost
of
informaAon
reproducAon
but
this
Ame
to
about
zero.
And
the
Internet
has
again
increased
reproducAon
accuracy,
but
this
Ame
to
about
perfect.
Second,
the
digital
revoluAon
accomplishes
an
addiAonal
feat
of
magic:
the
Internet
also
lowers
the
incremental
cost
—
and
delay
—
of
informaAon
distribu(on
to
about
zero.
Free
and
accurate
reproducAon;
free
and
instant
distribuAon.
This
is
the
spark
for
a
new
cultural
and
social
revoluAon
of
tremendous
import.
Any
Ame
a
crucial
resource
becomes
dramaAcally
less
expensive,
civilizaAon
changes.
What
you’ve
seen
on
the
Internet
so
far:
that’s
nothing.
Online
book
stores,
search
adverAsing,
even
Facebook:
baby
steps.
17

No,
think
instead
of
the
internal
combusAon
engine
and
the
discovery
of
cheap
oil
a
bit
over
a
century
ago,
which
made
a
crucial
resource
—
personal
transportaAon
—
dramaAcally
less
expensive.
Now
try
to
imagine
society
today
without
motorized
personal
transportaAon.
18

That’s
the
kind
of
transformaAon
I’m
talking
about
—
except
I
think
the
second
informaAon
revoluAon
will
be
much
more
important
than
the
automobile.
The
Gutenberg
revoluAon
enabled
a
small
number
of
authors
to
communicate
with
a
mass
audience:
one-­‐to-­‐many.
The
Internet
revoluAon
enables
universal
authorship…
19

with
many-­‐to-­‐many
communicaAon
—
everyone
can
publish,
and
reach
anyone
on
the
planet
—
20

at
almost
zero
cost
21

and
instantly.
We
should
expect
social
transformaAon
from
the
Internet
revoluAon
at
least
as
significant
as
we
saw
from
the
Gutenberg
revoluAon.
What
sort
of
changes
will
there
be?
We
cannot
know:
no
one
could
predict
the
course
of
the
ScienAfic
RevoluAon,
for
example.
But
we
can
see
hints,
and
we
can
let
our
imaginaAons
run
free,
realizing
that
whatever
we
imagine,
the
actual
changes
will
likely
be
bigger
and
more
surprising.
22

For
example,
let’s
start
with
instant
informaAon
sharing.
Consider
the
Arab
Spring
revoluAons
that
begin
in
2010:
revoluAons
or
civil
uprisings
in
Tunisia,
Egypt
(twice),
Libya,
Yemen,
Bahrain,
Syria,
Algeria,
Iraq,
Jordan,
Kuwait,
Morocco,
Sudan.
They
might
have
occurred
without
social
media.
But
Facebook,
Twiber,
and
YouTube
played
important
roles
in
giving
repressed,
impoverished
people
a
coordinaAon
plauorm
and
a
voice,
both
crucial
for
overthrowing
mulAple
military
regimes.
The
future
changes
in
governments
and
world
order
could
be
as
dramaAc
as
the
change
from
feudalism
to
the
naAon
state
at
the
close
of
the
Middle
Ages.
23

As
a
second
example,
what
about
lowering
the
cost
of
informaAon
reproducAon
and
distribuAon
to
zero?
24

Does
it
seem
outlandish
to
say
that
in
short
order
all
of
the
world’s
stored
knowledge
will
be
accessible
to
everyone,
from
a
pocket
device?
Not
outlandish:
we’re
already
close.
For
example,
informaAon
sociologist
David
Weinberger
—
former
co-­‐director
of
the
Harvard
Law
Library
InnovaAon
Lab
—
points
out
what
has
happened
during
just
the
past
10
years:
“massive
databases
of
economic
informaAon
released
by
the
World
Bank,
the
enAre
human
genome,
the
maps
of
billions
of
stars,
the
full
text
of
over
10
million
books
made
accessible
by
Google
Books,
abempts
to
catalog
all
Earth
species.”
Weinberger,
p.
37.
If
we
can
do
that
already,
what
won’t
be
available
10
years
from
now?
25

UnAl
very
recently,
informaAon
was
scarce,
because
—
even
a[er
Gutenberg
—
it
was
relaAvely
expensive
to
reproduce,
transport
and
store.
How
big
a
library
of
books
could
the
typical
middle
class
home
own?
And
how
big
a
library
could
the
typical
office
worker
carry
in
his
or
her
pocket?
Because
informaAon
was
scarce,
we
needed
to
fund
public
insAtuAons
to
collect
and
make
it
available,
providing
access
to
many
by
sharing
expensive
(and
heavy)
copies.
We
called
these
libraries.
26

Today,
informaAon
is
abundant.
More
informaAon
than
the
world
had
ever
produced
by
the
year
2000
can
now
be
carried
in
our
pocket,
via
a
smartphone
connected
to
the
Internet.
This
includes
nearly
all
of
the
books
owned
by
Berkeley,
available
in
my
pocket
through
the
HathiTrust.
27

Do
we
need
libraries
and
librarians
anymore?
28

Oh
boy,
do
we.
To
think
society
—
and
great
universiAes
—
don’t
need
libraries
in
the
age
of
Google
would
be
charmingly
naive,
if
it
weren’t
such
a
dangerously
flawed
misconcepAon.
InformaAon
is
now
abundant:
but
merely
having
informaAon
doesn’t
improve
our
lives
or
make
this
a
beber
world
in
which
to
live.
Indeed,
with
such
an
abundance
of
informaAon
—
more
than
anyone
can
handle
—
makes
informaAon
professionals
more
important
than
ever.
John
Palfrey
—
former
Harvard
Law
professor,
founding
chairman
of
the
Digital
Public
Library
of
America,
and
currently
head
of
school
at
Phillips
Academy
in
Andover,
Mass.
—
writes
that
“two
important
paradoxes
of
digital
life
make
clear
this
growing,
not
diminishing,
importance
of
libraries.”
Palfrey,
John
(2015-­‐05-­‐05).
BiblioTech:
Why
Libraries
Maber
More
Than
Ever
in
the
Age
of
Google
(p.
110).
Basic
Books.
Kindle
EdiAon.
One
paradox
is
that
digital
informaAon,
while
easier
to
access
than
ever
before,
is
harder
to
preserve.
Digital
storage
media
last
reliably
a
very
short
Ame
—
10,
25,
at
best
25
years.
29

These
media
require
decoding
by
hardware
that
may
become
obsolete
—
how
many
of
you
sAll
have
a
floppy
drive
on
your
computer?
Digital
informaAon
is
stored
in
so[ware
formats
that
may
become
obsolete,
or
that
may
require
programs
to
interpret
and
display
it
that
may
become
obsolete.
Indeed,
many
worry
that
the
current
generaAon
will
be
a
digital
“Dark
Ages”
for
future
generaAons
—
that
much
of
our
cultural,
social,
economic
and
historic
records
may
be
lost.
More
than
ever
we
need
informaAon
professionals
—
and
funding
—
to
develop
techniques
to
preserve
our
informaAon,
if
we
do
not
want
to
create
this
digital
Dark
Age.
30

The
second
paradox
is
more
subtle,
but
more
immediately
important
to
today’s
students,
faculty
and,
indeed,
to
all
of
us
and
our
society.
31

Though
informaAon
is
more
abundant,
it
is
harder
to
find,
evaluate,
make
sense
of,
and
use
good
informaAon
Are
librarians
able
to
help?
OF
COURSE!
This
is
the
profession,
more
than
two
thousand
years
old,
that
has
always
specialized
in
helping
people
find,
evaluate
and
use
informaAon
—
with
technology
—
to
improve
their
lives.
Once
the
technology
was
papyrus
and
stone
tablets,
leber
paper
books,
now
it’s
usually
a
computer.
No
profession
is
more
focused
or
beber
trained
to
help
students
and
faculty
use
the
technology
of
the
day
for
their
informaAon
needs.
Indeed,
we
need
—
more
than
ever
—
libraries
and
informaAon
professionals
to
help
solve
many
pressing
informaAon
challenges,
or
we
will
be
rich
in
informaAon
but
poor
in
knowledge
and
poor
in
our
ability
to
solve
the
terribly
complex
social
problems
facing
us.
For
example,
far
too
much
informaAon
is
not
yet
accessible
(by
which
I
mean
not
in
digital
form,
or
not
in
wriben
form,
or
restricted
for
reasons
of
secrecy,
privacy,
commercial
interest,
costs)
32

Libraries,
more
than
ever,
are
crucial
for
converAng
our
informaAon
into
accessible
forms.
The
world
can
afford
it,
but
most
individuals
do
not
have
the
means
to
acquire
access
to
informaAon
33

We
have
seen
the
rise
in
global
conflict
—
in
an
age
of
terrifying
weapons
of
mass
destrucAon
—
that
results
from
vast
inequality.
Libraries,
more
than
ever,
are
crucial
for
enabling
access
to
the
poor
and
disenfranchised.
Of
course,
informaAon
affordability
isn’t
just
a
third-­‐world
problem.
As
the
cost
of
prisons
and
Medicaid
rise,
our
state
has
been
rapidly
cumng
support
for
higher
educaAon.
In
FY13
California
spent
30%
of
its
budget
on
prisons
and
Medicaid,
and
only
6.6%
on
higher
educaAon.
34

With
much
lower
government
educaAon
support,
and
the
growing
burden
of
tuiAon
and
student
debt
on
the
middle
class,
we
have
to
turn
to
philanthropists
—
like
you
—
to
offer
a
world-­‐class
Berkeley
educaAon.
This
is
especially
true
for
the
library
because
some
of
our
most
important
digital
scienAfic
informaAon
is
controlled
by
monopolists.
Our
single
largest
expenditure
each
year
is
on
electronic
scienAfic
journals.
The
three
dominant
publishers
are
earning
profits
of
35-­‐40%.
The
list
prices
for
journals
from
the
largest,
Elsevier,
are
two
and
a
half
Ames
higher
now
than
they
were
10
years
ago.
Another
big
problem
for
future
ciAzens
in
a
globally-­‐compeAAve
world:
Most
people
do
not
have
the
skills
and
ability
to
evaluate
the
quality
of
informaAon,
or
make
good
use
of
it.
35

Students
rely
too
much
on
Google
and
Wikipedia
for
complex
problem-­‐solving
and
research,
and
they
misuse
more
sophisAcated
databases.
Google’s
own
research
scienAsts*
have
found
that
students
don’t
even
know
how
to
take
advantage
of
the
search
tools
available
in
Google.
We
are
lemng
our
students
down
if
we
don’t
teach
them
basic
informaAon
literacy
skills
for
the
21st
century.
*Steve
Kolwich,
“Searching
for
Beber
Research
Habits”,Inside
Higher
EducaAon,
2010.
36

The
Berkeley
Library
is
here
to
enable
this
great
university
to
ride
the
wave
of
the
second
Gutenberg
revoluAon,
rather
than
to
be
deluged
by
the
informaAon
tsunami.
Our
mission
is
to
help
people
find,
access,
evaluate
and
use
informaAon
to
build
a
beber
world.
There
is
no
great
university
without
a
great
library.
For
Berkeley
to
remain
great,
we
must
learn
to
ride
this
wave,
because
the
Second
Gutenberg
RevoluAon
will
change
everything,
soon,
just
as
the
Gutenberg
press
the
Protestant
ReformaAon,
the
Renaissance
and
the
ScienAfic
RevoluAon
change
everything
about
civilizaAon
as
we
once
knew
it.
My
point
is
simple,
in
the
end:
in
the
InformaAon
Age,
we
need
librarians
and
other
informaAon
professionals
more
than
ever.
Welcome
to
my
world,
the
world
of
the
21st
century
library.
Thank
you
for
listening.
37