THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 11, 1994 TAG: 9411110658
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 118 lines
Five years from now, striding the no-wall halls of the Virtual Library of Virginia at the speed of light won't seem like a big deal. Browsers will be able to eye the handiwork of Civil War photographer Matthew Brady, muse over a letter written by a founding father, or hear an early symphonic score.
At least, that's what the architects of the $5.2 million project hope. The Virtual Library, known to its backers as VIVA, eventually will make digitally available the vast storehouse of information now in libraries at the state's 58 public universities and colleges.
``Books won't go away,'' said Katherine Perry, the project coordinator and a librarian at George Mason University in Fairfax County. ``People don't really want to curl up with a computer.
``What this will do is change dramatically the ways we learn. It will change the ways information is delivered and change the way we see ownership of information.
``And we thought photocopying was great.''
First to feel VIVA's virtues will be university students and faculty at Virginia's six doctoral-granting institutions: the College of William and Mary, George Mason, Old Dominion, the University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth and Virginia Tech. Plans now call for the six to be interconnected by spring.
From a terminal, for instance, an ODU student might be able to find excerpts from a book at George Mason, or read historic documents at U.Va. or statistical tables at Virginia Tech. Music, photographs and video clips will also be available as the project progresses.
The project is one of many across the nation that are beginning to change the definition of a library - from a fortresslike repository of books and documents to an electronic web of information accessible from anywhere.
``A library is no longer a place with pillars and the lions out front. A library is an access window to get information,'' said Neal M. Goldsmith, president of Tribeca Research, Inc., a New York City technology-change management firm. ``Information now is weightless. Virtual libraries are inevitable.''
Research libraries all over the country are starting to go virtual. The push comes partly from the sheer volume of information, which has reached the point of overwhelming library staffs and stacks. California, Illinois, Ohio and Texas all have virtual library projects in the works, though Virginia's is among the largest.
At the Library of Congress in Washington a five-year pilot project called the American Memory program is winding up. From its 105 million-item collection, the Library took some 210,000 documents, photographs, manuscripts and films, converted them into digital form accessible on the international computer network known as the Internet.
``Eventually there's not much question all libraries are going to be linked up,'' said Evan Farber, college librarian emeritus at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. ``The potential for people having access to information is enormous . . . It changes the way of life.''
Early next year, the Library of Congress will begin the National Digital Library, an attempt to create a computerized archive of American historical and cultural materials. So far, $13 million has been collected from private sources to pay for the venture.
``These materials have high educational value,'' said Laura Campbell, head of library distribution services for the Library of Congress. ``This is a method for us to make them as widely available as possible.''
All this doesn't mean an end to libraries as physical places to research and learn, experts say. And the change might make the librarian even more important.
``My big problem (with virtual libraries) is information overload,'' said Farber, who organized a national conference on libraries and technology.
``There will just be so much information available that people will almost drown in it. The kind of thing a reference librarian does face to face can't be displaced.''
Another big question with virtual libraries is how to pay for them. ``Digitizing old manuscripts, music collections or photographic collections is pretty difficult to do, time-consuming and very expensive,'' Farber said.
But projects like VIVA could also save taxpayers' money. VIVA dates back to the early 1980s and to informal discussions then conducted among university librarians. By the early 1990s, state budget shortfalls were putting pressure on librarians to stretch thinning dollars.
Costs of periodicals - particularly scientific journals - were mounting, to two and three times the rate of inflation, said Peter Blake, finance coordinator for the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
One option: cut costs over the long haul by electronically sharing expensive journals, periodicals and unique or pricey volumes that otherwise wouldn't be available.
``You had to find more creative ways of staying on the cutting edge,'' Blake said. ``One of those ways is to share resources like periodicals and books. It's emininently logical to take advantage of technology to make the whole process (of interlibrary loan) easier and more economical.''
Then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder included funding for the initiative in his budget proposal. Blake says that, because of the projected cost savings, Gov. George Allen and legislators also were willing to underwrite the project's costs.
At first, the VIVA system will help students and faculty search collections throughout the state, then let them borrow documents through interlibrary loans.
Project architects will seek more money from the state to expand the program by the end of the century to include all Virginia public libraries. One day, planners say, personal-computer users plugged into the Internet or one of the commercial computer-services networks will be able to hook in as well.
Universities are buying new computer systems and software to make the necessary interconnections. Over the next several months, the systems will be installed and tested so that by April, a working system should be in place.
``It will change things dramatically,'' said VIVA project coordinator Perry, director of the Center for Digital Information and Library Resources at George Mason.
``This is not a 20-year project. We're going to have an impact in 1995.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
FOR DETAILS
Computer users can find state universities' precursors to the
Virtual Library on the Extra Page of the Pilot Online. See page A2
for details.
by CNB