Quote:
Originally Posted by Kumabjorn
National libraries like British Library, Library of Congress, Royal Libraries in Scandinavian countries etc have a special obligation to accumulate everything published in a certain country. Their collections are simply enormous. Don't they also have that obligation with regard to electronic publishing? Wouldn't that imply that they can lend e-books to the general public? After all, it is their taxes that pay for the collections.
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Is lending books within the scope of their charters? I was always under the impression that the L.O.C., at least, was the 'Fort Knox' of American intellectual treasure. A lending library's job is to distribute such treasure, an archival library's job is to make sure it doesn't get lost. Personally, I'm comfortable with that distinction.
As all media becomes digitized, maybe the distinction becomes blurred, since you never lend the source 'document' but only a copy. But I am quite comfortable with a ban on distribution of source documents.