You ask why libraries aren't leading the effort, and a couple of possibilities come to mind.

One is that libraries, and librarians, administer / provide collections. If a library tried to manage at the level of documents, everything - documents, service, collections - would get lost in the dust. I am not sure how the physical library perspective should adapt to a digital, let alone distributed, catalogue. For one thing, how do you approach a sponsor or board used to terms like thousands of volumes and hundreds of feet of shelving, and relate that to digital documents in varying format from JPEG and TIFF to raw text? What are the components of a digital library - what does the Library have 'custody' of - to inventory, to rotate - to archive?

The other thought that comes to mind is that research has depended on various publication reputations to establish 'legitimacy' of reference material. That is, how trusted a source document is to be reviewed and acceptable level of trust. In a digital library, you also have to establish digital integrity. Issues from blurred scans to problematic OCR interpretation, to proof of freedom from tampering and trail of editing to correct typographical or factual slips, mistakes, and errors.

It is possible in the next couple of years that some college or university may establish an integrity regimen, that provides reliably intact references. If I worked at a major academic or city library, I might wish it were my institution acting as a source for trusted digital materials. For what might be needed - a bright team of administrators, librarians, database and information engineers - anyone from the New York City Library to Northern Oklahoma Community College might make this fundamental contribution to academia. There is room here, and will be for some time to come, for libraries to establish or adopt digital collection standards and procedures. When a request for a document is served, that document, digital or otherwise, should be complete, with any deviations from initial publication noted.

Without a basic assurance of managed and reviewed integrity, you have another wikipedia - an immense treasure house of information. And no particular piece might stand up to rigorous review, or even be counted on to be intact and unchanged from the time of a reference to the time, possibly years later, someone tries to trace the reference back to sources. Copyright issues are a small part of the role libraries are in a position to play in support of academia.

In my simplified world view, I think of libraries as managing collections, while scholars consume documents. And it isn't surprising to me that scholars might band together to produce a database of documents. I think it will take time to determine if any particular effort meets the ongoing needs for research - legible access to documents, assurance of document authenticity and provenance, and assurance of digital version integrity and a register of edits and changes. Probably if the effort proves worthwhile, the collection will be adopted by a library somewhere, or will grow into a new library of it's own.

I think any library should feel an onus to support such an effort to 'bypass libraries entirely'. 1) Anything that provides users with access to documents has to be a good thing for the users. 2) The library will be in a better position to observe the usage patterns, the collection structure and procedures, and be able to adapt what might be useful for other collections.

I doubt there is any need to fear that a grouping of scholars will ever create the definitive collection of all possible documents. While this current work may allow bypassing existing institutions for the contributed documents, there will be other documents not provided, or that otherwise reside among the vast proportion of resources with 'access to materials and copyright issues' that won't be in the Zotero collection. It seems to me that the contributing scholars are creating yet another place scholars have to look to find the document they need.

In a not too distant future issues of media deterioration will begin to impact integrity of collections. Maintaining collections of documents, maintaining access, and provenance - sounds like libraries still have work to do in the digital age.

I don't it's time to despair just yet. Remember, it was the journalist who mentioned cutting libraries out of the picture and in some ways, that's an inaccurate statement because the Internet Archive is actually officially recognized as a library. The Internet Archive works *with* libraries to get public domain resources digitized and are a welcome alternative to Google and Microsoft's proprietary book digitizing projects.

From my understanding, the makers of Zotero take the philosophy that if scholars are reading and finding research using a web browser, then it makes sense to add scholarly tools like annotators and citation management components to the browser. I think libraries would be wise to consider this way of thinking. Why isn't there a Firefox extension that allows scholars to automagically submit materials into their campus institutional repository? Such work doesn't have to be browser based: UPEI has developed a Virtual Research environment where researchers can share their work with each other *and* easily upload their work into a depository: http://vre.upei.ca/ .

Thanks for bringing attention to this article. I think of it more as a wake up call to libraries to bring the disparate tasks of research more seamlessly together. Maybe Zotero is the way to do this.

Brad, My concern - and interest - with Zotero Commons has to do with the evolving role of academic libraries and the process of scholarship, especially social scholarship. This project looks exciting to me and I can see a useful role for academic librarians. For example, it would be interesting if they contributed metadata standards to Zotero Commons so that, for example, the documents would be searchable in OAIster. This would potentially enhance the usefulness of this new collection.

Mita, I really like your idea for libraries to offer browser extensions, or some other means, so that scholars can easily upload materials to their institutional archives. Maybe Zotero will light the way, just as you say.

Yes, I do realize that it was a journalist who made the remark about bypassing libraries. You're right about this. I'm picking up on the fact that some people are calling this an "offhand remark." It probably was. But for me, it has a ring of truth to it because I see academic librarians as lagging in their support of digital and social scholarship. I guess the remark reinforced my ongoing concerns.

Thanks for the thoughtful post and comments about the Zotero-IA partnership. I've made some further remarks on my blog emphasizing that the alliance does not inherently exclude libraries and institutional repositories. There are ways that libraries can use Zotero to add to their institional repositories and to enhance the research capabilities of students and faculty. Hopefully the project will prod libraries to explore new methods, as other comments have noted.

Dan, Thank you very much for your additional elaboration.

I remain concerned from two sides:

One, the fact that - as far as I can see - Zotero Commons is being developed without collaboration with and input of academic librarians. We might have something to offer (see below). Zotero Commons might become, and possibly for good reasons, a rival to campus-based institutional repositories. Discussing issues of collaboration and interoperability might benefit the scholarly community.

Two, the fact that academic libraries as a whole (with notable exceptions, of course) are not fully engaged in issues of collaborative scholarship and the attendant archiving of the artifacts of this activity. Related to this, I'm also concerned that academic librarians need to be more fully engaged in the life cycle of the research process, especially the digital research process. So you can see my interest in Zotero Commons! Since I'm an academic librarian, this was the main concern driving my blog posting. If our professional obligations are not seen as relevant to collaborative, digital scholarship, then we're in danger of losing our place in a changing scholarly world. I might be a pessimist, but there are times when I see things slipping away from us. This would be our doing, certainly not yours.

Beyond all this, there are issues specific to Zotero Commons that interest me. For example, I wonder about any plans for document metadata, which would enhance the searchability of the archive. This is where librarians might really be helpful. Related to this, I wonder if material in the Commons will be searchable from outside of the archive itself. I also wonder what guarantees Zotero Commons can give that items will not disappear from this archive as they do from the IA.

These are just a few of the issues that come to mind when I contempate Zotero Commons - a project that, admittedly, I know nothing about beyond what you've written. It's still early in the game.

These are good points, Laura. Some quick responses:

"I wonder about any plans for document metadata, which would enhance the searchability of the archive." One of the major elements of the Zotero project is its emphasis on metadata (including its portability). The Commons, unlike, say, scribd or docstoc or any other commercial document-sharing service, will strongly emphasize the inclusion of metadata, which we plan to prepopulate from within the Zotero client and then have strengthened by the community (as is being done with OpenLibrary).

"I also wonder what guarantees Zotero Commons can give that items will not disappear from this archive as they do from the IA." I should probably let IA comment here, but IA is a registered library that is in the long-term business just like any library. They may have materials taken down at the request of copyright holders or website owners, but I'm not aware of any problem with IA's materials disappearing. They have given assurances of the long-term sustenance of the Zotero Commons. Remember also that they are holding Open Content Alliance books; those also won't be going away.

"Zotero Commons is being developed without collaboration with and input of academic librarians." We have academic librarians on our board of advisors, and dozens of academic librarians comment regularly on the Zotero forums and on our developers listserv. We have added many features to Zotero in consultation with academic librarians. I would encourage others to get involved if they are interested.

Dear Laura,

After reading your manifesto I also had a question for you. During my exchange year I would like to use the library. Is it open for exchange students like me?

Thanks,

GL