Open Shelf and Open Access Libraries

The price of digitalisation

By Arpad Szakolczai

Openness is one of the main buzzwords of our contemporary “democracies”, and it seems that there is little that can be said against it. Everybody everywhere must be open in everything, right?! It is evidently such a passionate search for openness that drives George Soros and his “Open Society” initiatives, based on the famed work of Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies. And yet, while all this seems self-evident and impossible to criticise, a more careful consideration can soon discover some fallacies behind it.

This is already clear from Popper’s title, where the ideal of an “Open Society” is immediately joined by an explicit call for a witch-hunt against its “enemies”. There is not only a facile dichotomisation, between the “open” and the “closed”, but an outright identification of an enemy: whoever does not think about “openness” in the way “I” do, is an enemy and – evidently – must be liquidated. Yet, the enemies of such openness are a strange lot, as Hegel and Marx are joined by Plato – implying that, if A.N. Whitehead is right, and the history of philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato, than all philosophy should be dismantled as “enemy thinking”. It also implies that something different must be proliferated – like sophistry, as this was the “other” side of philosophy in Plato’s time – and indeed Popper’s thinking is technically much closer to sophistry than to philosophy – as Eric Voegelin, in his remarks about Popper, in his letters to Leo Strauss, intimated, where Voegelin contrasted Popper’s “Open Society” with Bergson’s “Open Mind”. Interestingly enough, this is the book where Popper invented the now famous term “conspiracy theory”, which means that anybody opposed to the great dream of openness is guilty of “conspiracy theorising”. Even further, Voegelin was indirectly supported in his hostility to Popper by Wittgenstein, Foucault, and Elias, some of the most important thinkers of the past century.

As often, polemics like Popper’s serve to hide the real issue, which is that there are serious problems with the very ideal of “openness” as an unsurpassable horizon. On the one hand, anybody who indeed acts “openly” and “transparently”, in front of everybody else, can be easily observed and eventually controlled by those who vocally promote openness, but themselves prefer to stay outside such ‘open’ spaces as the public arena. Openness is thus only valid if it involves presence – but “everybody” can never be present at the same time. Thus, genuine openness implies limited numbers. In a void, such as the aforementioned public arena, open acting necessarily implies, on the one hand, play-acting; on the other observation and control. Not accidently, the promotion of unlimited openness has from the beginning gone together with increasing control and accusations of background conspiracies.

But the tight connection, for better and worse, between openness and presence – and thus absence – also implies something else: the question of existential commitment, which becomes visible if we consider the evident analogy between “open society” and “open marriage”. The latter, of course, is nonsensical, as marriage, genuine marriage, real marriage implies an existential commitment that has no boundaries, and that lasts for life. Things might not work out, and this raises the indeed serious problem of what to do in case such a commitment can’t be maintained. But an “open marriage”, as an ideal, implies something else: a paradoxical, explicit commitment that the marriage does not imply a decisive commitment, which is simply nonsensical. And so we can see that an “open society”, while seemingly so evidently desirable, is similarly nonsensical. As a “society”, any society, is a community of those people who do have a degree of existential commitment, as shown by a common language, common culture, common institutions, common rule, etc. etc. etc. It is like a broad family – a family indeed being between a “marriage” and a “society” – which can be joined, but is definitely not open, in the sense that anybody cannot enter and leave it at their pleasure. No, beyond openness, a “family” or a “society” implies the necessity of presence: commitments, limitations, and especially physical concreteness. It is opposed to the empty void which unlimited openness, whether in the “public sphere” or elsewhere, assumes.

The theme is general and large, and hopefully will be taken up by further blogs, as I think it is most important, and is very helpful for dismantling certain ideas which current ideological thinking proliferates. For the moment, I will focus on the implications in a single and rather simple example: the difference between an “open shelf” library and an “open access”, or digital, library.

Experiencing different libraries

In Hungary, in my university years, consulting books in university libraries, not to mention other academic libraries, was not simple. One had to look up the title in dusty catalogues, shelved in cabinets, fill out the related forms, and then – worst of all – had to wait for at least half an hour, but often many hours if not days, until the book arrived; and of course the same procedure had to be repeated in case the book suggested another book to be read. While this refers to a relatively distant past (the 1970s), major public libraries in Italy quite recently (around 2000) still functioned, more or less, in the same way.

Compared to this, a new world was opened for me in 1982, in Austin, Texas, where all books were accessible in open shelves, in a six-floor library. The building was a close approximation of Paradise, as walking among the books one could pick up any title, and immediately go to the shelf containing the books to which the book that I was reading led. However, and even more importantly, one could consult the books in the neighbourhood of any title, as the books were shelved by subject area and topic, not just in the alphabetical order in which the catalogues were organised. This might suggest other books by the same author, which were there, in their physical reality, and not just as another title in the catalogue; and a series of related books, that were again physically present. And so here, in this open library, we arrive at the same key word as before: presence – which necessarily implies a concrete, physical presence, in bodily reality. I am present in the library, physically, next to the books; and the books are also physically present there, for me to pick up and consult.

The same applied to articles and journals: every article was there, physically, first in an issue, then in a volume, where all issues were bound, and then on the shelf together with the other volumes, and the related journals, which again were physically accessible.

Open access libraries and digitalisation

What is the difference introduced by the “open access libraries” which are now spreading everywhere, and which we are supposed to consider as without the shadow of a doubt infinitely better? Well, at first, everything indeed seems to be for the better: not only is the trouble of consulting a physical catalogue light-years away, but one does not have to go through the effort of going to a library, and then finding the exact place where the book is on a shelf, but can find and read the book or the article by a click, in the comfort of one’s home, or office.

So far so good, but what is the price of this – not in terms of money or time, but of experience; say, learning experience?

Well, actually, quite a lot.

The central problem with open access libraries is decontextualization. We must see very clearly what this means, and why this is wrong. In an open shelf library, one just went to the shelves, and picked up any book one wanted. Note that originally all libraries were open shelf libraries; the emergence of closed libraries, where one only had access to the books through catalogues and a staff which served readers by bringing the books, but also at the same time exerted some kind of control over readers, was a later development, due to massification – a problem in itself, always and in everything, and by no means a necessary development.

At any rate, in an open shelf library, books are in a real, material, physical context. They are actually there; one can see and touch them; and one can also actually see and touch the books that are physically close beside. Note the words “real”, “material”, and “physical”; they carry important meanings, establish a decisive difference from online or digitalised books or libraries, which are now actively promoted (these words also lead to the heart of what is problematic with hypermodern science, which is not materialistic, but the contrary; and where “physics”, etymologically rooted in a word standing for “nature”, is replaced by chemistry, direct heir of alchemy). Literally the moment I’m writing these sentences, I received another advertising email, from VitalSource Sampling, inviting me to “Make the shift to digital today”, by teaching through a “Sampling Portal”. Which I would not do under any conditions.

But what is wrong with this? It is that we, humans, are similarly real, material, physical beings, who exist, just as books; while online books and libraries do not exist in this sense. We are not angels, or divine beings, who can absorb, supposedly, the idea-content of a book without needing to touch them. We need to get familiarised with a book. This means to take the book physically or materially in our hands – which are themselves of course also material and physical realities; look at the cover and the back cover, leaf through the pages, consulting at first only the Table of Contents and the Index; Preface, Introduction, and Conclusion; starting to read the main parts and chapters – and with such an at first superficial familiarisation we are gradually getting acquainted with the book, and start to understand the content, entering, gradually, into the depth of the content – if there is such depth.

Such familiarisation is a necessary step and cannot be performed “online” – exactly because the online book is not a physical or material reality.

One might argue that we can jump between the pages just as well, in fact much more easily, in a pdf file or an online book, but this is simply not true. And this is because in that case we need to give a command, expressing a desire to go to a certain page. But this is a discreet activity, where the attempt of the mind to apprehend and understand is broken into segments, and at the start of an exploration this is unhelpful. Anybody who has ever read a real book knows immediately what I mean, as they had the same experience of picking up and leafing through a book as an object, and so are perfectly aware that this implies a continuous familiarising activity, and not a series of disconnected commands and “hits” about bits of “information”. The usefulness of a pdf only comes after, once one has become familiar with the book; for example, to find a word one has read, but can’t remember where.

One might say that the pdf serves the same function as an index, and this is true. If one is doing a very particular kind of research, one starts with the index, looks up the terms that are required for the research, and does not enter the book in more detail. But this is only a specific case, where the search for knowledge has already gained a definite direction. But when one has an open mind concerning books and reading, consulting the index is only a small part of getting familiarity with a book.

So far, we have only considered the physical reality of a single book; but, as already mentioned, in an open shelf library the book is not just physically present but is also shelved in a physical context comprised by other, similar books – by the same author, but also by other authors – where, in a sense, the physical closeness or distance of other books indicates closeness or distance in relevance. Of course, the correspondence is not perfect, but exactly this is to be explored, and it is in this way that an open shelf library becomes in its very materiality and space at once an object and means of research and exploration, by our own physical movement; by walking in the library. Here, as almost everywhere, walking is a way, a method, in the etymological sense of meta hodos. And if we persist in this way, we gradually gain an understanding of the entire library, which books are where, and so we can orient ourselves there, just as we can orient ourselves in our native town, or in the surrounding countryside or forest. Such spatial knowledge is central to the way we gain understanding of the surrounding world, necessary to govern ourselves in our lives, and thus establish vital links between reality, life, and knowledge.

All this is absent in digital libraries. But what takes its place? How is attention directed in the wide-open void where digital books float ‘in the cloud’? It is very simple: this is by explicit, professional advice. By a course outline, or in class, or in a book or article one reads, or on the explicit advice of a lecturer. One is directed to a book, which is then read, without any context; or, rather, in the prescribed context of the course and its outline; and one then moves on to another book or article from the same outline, or the various sources promoted by the professional context.

The dematerialisation of a library renders any personal, concrete research much more difficult, as in an online catalogue it is very difficult to walk along the – non-existent – selves; and any name, title, or catalogue number would again only give a series of discrete results, where the continuous physical connection is simply not there. A virtual walk is not a walk, and this applies as well to a library as to a mountain or a forest.

In sum, digitalisation is a way to enforce professionalisation, rendering the gaining of knowledge outside what is professionally sanctioned difficult, if not impossible.

But professionalisation is the way to better knowledge, isn’t it? Well, not so simply, no. Professionalisation of course has its advantages – whatever we mean by the word; but professionalisation also implies a narrowing of research, the gaining of understanding, thinking itself, to intellectually limited areas, which can then be controlled by a relatively small number of people, who pretend that work in neighbouring areas is not “really” that important. Such professionalisation of academic life only started around the first decades of the 20^th century, and it is by no means certain that this was an unmitigated blessing.

I was still taught by professors and academics, in Hungary, the US and elsewhere, who were well versed in philosophy, literature, social and political theory, history, the arts, and in culture in general, and who could give advice that went way beyond narrow professional concerns. This is now disappearing, and digital libraries purposefully help this process. But what takes the place of broad cultural familiarity? The answer is simple, but striking: the seeming opposite, but actual twin brother of professionalisation, ideology.

Ending the end of ideology

By now well over half a century ago, the debate about the ‘end of ideology’ generated major attention. The terms of this debate, as is usual, almost inevitable in such media-generated debates, were wrongly posed, as what was ending was not “ideology” as such (whatever this means) but the wide hold of a certain kind of ideology, crude but politically influential Marxism. The 1960 book that started this debate was written by Daniel Bell and – always follow Nietzsche! – the book was of course personal, as Bell was a Marxist in the previous decades. It was thought, and by many explicitly hoped, that this crude Marxism would be replaced by intellectual competence, as supposedly manifested by professionalisation.

However, what was really happening was better grasped by Marcel Mauss, in an essay on Bolshevism, published well before, by now more than a century ago, in 1924 – though hardly ever read by anyone. Mauss recognised, to his great, and double, horror, having been previously both socialist and Durkheimian, that there are tight affinities between Durkheim’s ideas about the progress of professional groups and Soviet Bolshevism. Indeed, it is almost as if the latter took Durkheim’s writings, especially the Preface to the second edition of Division of Social Labour, as a script to follow in setting up the Soviet system, as the Soviet Communist Party secured its control not so much territorially, as through professional groups and organisations. And so the end of “crude” ideology went together, now in Western liberal democracies, not with a genuine deepening of understanding, but the increasing professional organisation of academic life, and the fading away and rendering impossible of the replacement of people of genuine culture, wisdom and understanding.

The next step, coincidental with digitalisation, was the re-emergence of a new kind of ideology, one we see everywhere around ourselves, and which – through digitalisation – is not a competitor but a complement to the ever-increasing specialisation and professionalisation.

From this perspective, the very liabilities of digitalisation become assets: they help to further undermine, and render impossible, the gaining of genuine culture and knowledge, promoting instead a joint ideological and political control.

Aby Warburg’s library

Let me close this blog by an anecdote. While certainly ignored or even scorned by the gatekeepers of professional knowledge – but, as we have already seen, they are not genuine torchbearers but destroyers of true academic life and understanding – anecdotes have a basic method-logical role, as they can offer sudden flashes of illumination about key figures of intellectual life, showing up reality and even life beyond mere facts and abstractions.

The life story of Aby Warburg (1866-1929), a founder of art history, and one of the most important intellectual figures of the late 19^th and early 20^th century, an almost exact contemporary of Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch, offers a number of such illuminating anecdotes. One of these was about him guiding Ernst Cassirer through his own library, in the hope of luring him there as a director. Warburg had no ties to the German university system, the gatekeepers in his field being hostile to the unconventional character of his approach. His library, for example, was not organised following standard classification systems, rather according to his own way of perceiving relevance and connections, and just for this reason had a unique value. Weaving another anecdote into the anecdote – which could lead very far on its own! – Warburg was heir to one of the biggest banking houses in Germany, but he traded his primogeniture to his younger brother, with the promise that he could buy as many books as he wanted to in return. His brother later purportedly said that he would not have accepted the deal had he known how much Aby would spend on books! The family, by the way, was of Venetian origins, in the late 19^th century became connected through marriage to the Rothschilds, and Paul Moritz Warburg, Aby’s younger brother, would play a major role in setting up the Federal Reserve of the US.

Back to the Library anecdote: Aby Warburg showed everything but everything in his library to Ernst Cassirer; how he collected and classified the books, how this was an absolutely unique treasure that had no like in the world. Cassirer was clearly astonished by what he had seen, and so when at the end of the visit Warburg asked him whether he would accept the position of director of the library, he expected that Cassirer would jump at the opportunity. But no; quite the contrary, Cassirer said that he would never set foot in this place again. Now it was Warburg’s turn to be astonished, and he asked for a reason. It is simple, replied Cassirer: if I came here, I would need to forget everything I have learned thus far. He was not prepared to make such a sacrifice; so, instead, he became one of the leading neo-Kantian philosophers of the century, writing very professional and learned books which have no specific weight and meaning whatsoever, outside their professional appreciation.

If there is a really interesting and vitally contemporary study to be done, this would be to research the moving forces, and people, behind the drive to digitalisation – in libraries, elsewhere in academic life, and indeed everywhere. Such research might also touch upon the broader theme, of why the destruction of genuine European culture has now become a political priority. For somebody who was brought up in Hungary, where the unofficial reception of Thomas Mann, in the 1930s, by Attila József and Sándor Márai, as a real European man, was still an important memory, and where under the Communist regime the preservation and cultivation of European culture was a major priority for those who did not sell themselves, in one way or another, to the regime – and even for many who, at least for a time, for one reason or another, did commit such a blunder – this is not a minor matter. Is Europe more than a bureaucratic organisation, whose sole purpose is to promote purported economic benefits? And is the real Europe different from the imperial-colonial power which proponents of postcolonialism and different modalities of radical critical thinking claim it to be? And do Eurocrats and the critics of “eurocentrism”, instead of being opponents, rather constitute the two axes from which our destruction, as holders of European culture, is perpetuated? These are not unimportant questions.