A failure of imagination - the problem with format neutrality

Information Flaneur 2023-05-21

Summary:

I often hear librarians promoting their ‘modern librarian’ credentials by saying “it’s about the information, not the container”. By this they tend to mean that librarians in a world of instantly downloadable ebooks, subscription journal databases and multiple other formats for audio, visual and written works should be format-neutral. That we should not be concerned about in which formats information is available, as long as it is available somehow. But what if it is about the container?

About the container

If it wasn’t about the container I wouldn’t become enraged every time I’m using my iPad and tap on a link to an interesting-sounding website coded with Flash. If it wasn’t about the container frail old ladies wouldn’t ask if you have any large print books published in soft back and not too long please dear I can’t hold them up in bed. If it wasn’t about the container your members would be able to download their Overdrive books to a Kindle. If it wasn’t about the container the US Department of Justice wouldn’t be suing major publishers for collusion because they were so desperate to break Amazon’s market power.

The reason your library website stinks and it’s all your fault is that you thought the container didn’t matter. How do you expect your members to find things when the container the information sits within resembles a pool of vomit or, at best, a trifle? Because it’s about the container your patrons don’t know what your library provides for them, because when they click on a link to find journal articles it takes them from the Everytown Library to a weird website called Galcentage, or EBOLA, or something. And didn’t I just log in before? What even is this? Because it’s about the container is why Google only has one box. Because it’s about the container is why User Experience experts have jobs, and why they call it ‘UX’. Because it’s about the container is why Myspace has 30 million users and Facebook has 901 million. Because it’s about the container is why there are blog posts called “20 of the world’s most beautiful libraries” and why there are none called “20 of the world's most useful libraries rated in terms of the information they can make available”.

About the container is exactly what it is.

Designed for the job

Last week US President Obama ordered all major government agencies to make two key services available on mobile phones within a year. He hasn’t asked them to create two new services, he has ordered them to make two of their existing services fully available from a smartphone. Obama knows that the information is important, but the container determines whether or not it is useful. Likewise, part of the success of Wikipedia is due to their focus from the very beginning on fast load speeds and widespread accessibility. WIkipedia wanted to be the encyclopaedia for the world - not the world in the usual American sense of ’All 50 states plus Britain and the nice bits of Europe’ but the actual world. The world of crappy 26kbps dialup modems in the Andes and 2G feature phones in Africa. Wikipedia isn’t the prettiest thing to look at, but it is perfectly designed for the job it wants to perform.

Thinking that all containers are equal is what has led librarians down the dead ends in which we sometimes find ourselves. Considering an ebook edition and a hardback edition of the same book to be equally useful is all very well, but what happens when the publisher has different ideas? What happens when HarperCollins decides you can only lend the ebook version 26 times? Or when Penguin decides you can’t have any ebooks at all? Or when your members can use any ereader except the one that 80% of your ebook reading members own? What happens when I bought the ebook from Amazon and now i want to transfer it to my Sony reader? Is subscribing to a bunch of journals or licensing ebooks really the same as owning them? Can you really say that you have electronic access to a title when the only way members can get it is to go to the library and ask a librarian for the password to log in?