Delete comment from: DSHR's Blog
David well outlines some of the issues that face preservation efforts, wherever they come from. Let me highlight one more.
YouTube is interested in page views and maximum number of page views and links through whatever video you happen to be looking at. Well and good, and good luck to them: if I enjoy seeing the stuff that attracts my attention, then I'm happy to play along with this, remembering Richard Lanham's work on *The Economics of Attention* in the process.
But the traditional library function recognizes the original commercial value of information objects *and* goes on to something else. Looking at 2007 YouTube 20 years from now doesn't play along with that original business plan, but has a historical and spectatorial purpose. Not, hey, what a cool snowman; but, hmm, and just why did snowmen become important icons in politics in 2007 and how were they used? The library function is one of a place where all sorts of originally commercial objects get used in ways that go beyond the business plan of the original producer.
Now, if we believe the long tail argument, then YouTube may have a business plan 20 years from now in keeping this old stuff around and accessible. Or perhaps not. The question for the snowman, poor abused snowman, would then be: do you feel lucky? If so, trust YouTube. But I think the snowman got on that screen because he wasn't feeling especially lucky, wasn't feeling that he can just trust the aggregate collection of economic impulses of his contemporaries to make things all work out for the good.
Jim O'Donnell
(Eugippius was a sixth century scholar and monk, in case you wonder.)
Oct 15, 2007, 7:09:00 AM
Posted to Who's looking after the snowman?