The ETH-Bibliothek is going digital – but remains a treasure trove of books

Passion can enliven any debate, but it sometimes comes at the expense of more important elements, even when the intentions are good. In the 7 February 2016 edition of NZZ am Sonntag, ETH-Bibliothek director Rafael Ball expressed himself pointedly on the library’s future – perhaps too pointedly, as he was to learn quite painfully. The various reactions – in particular those of experts – ranged from hard objectivity to disconcerting counter-provocation.

The interview was taken to reflect an overall strategy – something it was absolutely not intended to do. It seemed to give the impression that the whole extent of the library's printed literature, as well as its archives and collections with their unique historical documents, would play no role in the digital future of libraries, and specifically in that of the ETH-Bibliothek. Nothing could be further from the truth. ETH Zurich is unreservedly committed to its library, and it is not our intention to say goodbye to our printed stock.

For decades now, ETH Zurich has invested both financial and intellectual resources in a library that matches the high standards of its teaching and research. Printed books and journals, and their cultural and historical value, are a fundamental part of this. As well as acting as a source of information to the sciences, ETH has a government mandate to protect and care for a range of different cultural assets, and to preserve them for posterity. It is a central duty that we fulfil with enthusiasm, professionalism and commitment.

It is, however, unquestionable that the growing availability of knowledge on the internet is offering increasingly stiff competition to the printed word. Scientifically-oriented libraries such as ETH’s feel the impact of this change most directly. The number of accesses to the electronic Knowledge Portal has doubled in the last five years, while the number of accesses to Swiss digital journals has increased twelvefold in less than two years. For the 266,000 loans of physical items made in 2015, there were around 6.2 million online accesses. Many of the most popular scientific journals are no longer available in printed form.

There is also a balance to be achieved between the needs of scientists and engineers, who mostly collect and process their knowledge digitally, and those of specialists in cultural studies, for whom books will long continue to be a central medium. There is no contradiction here, though. The digitisation of analogue content is an example of how new technology can make historical documents widely accessible, and at the same time better safeguard it against damage. This is now a priority at the ETH-Bibliothek, and it raises a number of new questions: How can digital content be made tenable in the long term? How dependent is digitalisation making us on technology? How can we conserve newer books, whose paper sometimes degrades in a matter of decades? How do we secure long-term access to primary digital information? ETH is investing its collected resources into finding suitable answers to these questions.

The library is faced with the challenge of a world in which content and its medium are beginning to diverge. Its duties will therefore become more diverse and more interdisciplinary. We will have to constantly evaluate if we are to avoid becoming lost in a sea of data and documents: Which digital content is essential to preserve? Which printed content falls short of the status of cultural asset of enduring value, and is therefore dispensable? The library will need to set these standards by working together with both science and society.

Culture, in the end, requires care, and ETH is committed to meeting this demand. We will, therefore, maintain the complete spectrum of media in the long term, whether this is printed or digital. And above all, our libraries will continue to be places where inquisitive people can read, learn and exchange ideas.

This article first appeared in the NZZ am Sonntag on 21.02.2016.