Digital Content Bigger than the Printing Press
Digital Content Bigger than the Printing Press
March 30, 2007: It may have taken two centuries for one of the world’s largest knowledge bases to acquire its analogue collection, but it takes just fifteen minutes for the world to produce the equivalent volume digitally.
Dr James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress in the United States says their collection of works might be one of the biggest in the world, but is continually overcome by volumes of digital content spawning off individuals and organisations across the Earth.
It’s a revolutionary change that could well be as, if not more significant than the printing press. “The amount of information and the explosion in the number of creators are driving the greatest revolution in the generation and communication of knowledge since the advent of the printing press,” says Billington.
Delivering his speech to the US House of Representatives, Billington talked up the Congress’ recorded knowledge base, labelling it the largest, sustained, bilingually sparse single repository of recorded knowledge in human history. The collection contains 32 million printed volumes, 12.5 million photographs, 59.5 million manuscripts and more. All up, it’s a whopping 134 million physical items, yet just 15 minutes in digital work for the world’s population.
But for Billington, the increase in digital media is cause for concern. Much of the information created in the present will not be accessible in the future. With the average life of a website cited as being somewhere between 44 and 75 days, there’s libraries worth of information disappearing as quickly as it’s created.
Billington points to the 56 primary sources supporting research efforts on Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as an example of disappearing valuable resources. Today, 21 percent of that information is no longer available. Another example, would be the Website relevant to the 2004 national US elections that evaporated as soon as the votes were counted. “Political scholars wishing to write the history of how the Web has influenced politics will have to do so without important pieces of the puzzle,” he says.
For the average workplace, there is a wind of change in order. “We must transform much our workforce into a new kind of ‘knowledge navigator,” able to draw equally on new digital materials and traditional artifactual items,” he says.
The Library has taken the digital challenge on board and so far, works to preserve 295 terabytes of digital content. However Billington notes further difficulties that arise from the often forgotten, yet still expanding, analogue world. “How to superimpose the dynamic world of digital knowledge and information onto the still-expanding world of books and other traditional analogue materials,” he asks. “The print publishing universe continues to flourish, particularly in the developing world.”
All up, the Library manages 295 terabytes of digital content. But it reaching such milestones, Billington says the basic mission of the Library in acquiring, preserving and ensuring accessibility of the world’s knowledge-base is not changing but encouraging innovation. “The Library’s digital initiatives involve learning to work in new ways, in a networked environment, where we are working with others to amass critical content and deliver new and improved services.”
“We are witnessing the transformation to a society where instantly available, reliable and credible information will be as indispensable as electricity, water and transportation,” says Billington.