The Imagined User of 'Universal' Information Access Efforts: Ingrained Assumptions in Early American Public Libraries and Large-Scale Digitization Initiatives

摘要

Five years ago, two ambitious book-scanning initiatives ???Google Book Search and the Open Content Alliance ??? werelaunched, both claiming the eventual goal of digitizing everybook in the world, for the use of every person in the world. Theinitiatives have followed different paths: one private, one public;one centralized, one dispersed; one scanning everything rightaway, one starting with the public domain. Both, however, havebeen lauded for their groundbreaking potential to increase accessto information worldwide.Still, the basic impetus that underlies these initiatives is far fromnovel. In fact, the central motivation of such large-scaledigitization initiatives (LSDIs) ??? to provide wide-ranginginformation access to as many people as possible ??? has stronghistorical precedents, especially in the early history of theAmerican public library. Specifically, like LSDIs, early freepublic libraries reflected a top-down, supply-side approach toinformation access, and incorporated a high degree of privatepatronage at their initiation. The history of the American publiclibrary can thus illuminate many of the positive outcomes thatcan result from large-scale information initiatives; however, italso reveals some of the perils they might encounter.In this poster, I will begin to explore one facet of the comparisonbetween LSDIs and early free public libraries: that is, the sensein which each is constructed around a particular vision of ???theimagined user,??? and how the inscription of that imaginary ineach case has impacted ??? or might in the future impact ??? theclaims to universality maintained by each.