11th
The Death Of Corporate Libraries
The Wall Street Journal is apparently laying off its library staff and shutting down its library research center. This trend of large corporations getting rid of research and library staff isn’t exactly new, but I wonder what happens to the library materials. I once worked for a large corporate library to catalog and digitize its proprietary research reports, and I know a lot of research reports are worthless. But how much actually valuable material will be wasted and lost in an economic downturn? Information wants to be free, but sometimes data is just thrown away when the company that owns it goes under…. It’s hard to evaluate what “intellectual property” is worth. I’m not saying that the librarians aren’t performing a valuable service as well, but the valiant individual efforts of humans are generally lost “like tears in the rain” (see Bladerunner) — and all of our work is being automated and replaced by cheaper alternatives.
