July 22, 2025 • 32 mins
In this episode of Educating to be Human, Lisa speaks with Chris Freeland, Director of Library Services at the Internet Archive, about the evolving role of libraries in society and their critical function in preserving equitable access to knowledge and serving as a memory institution. They explore the challenges libraries face today—from book bans and cyber threats to restrictive digital licensing—and how these issues affect our collective memory, democracy, and ability to learn.
Chris shares how the Internet Archive has been protecting public access to digital content, government data, and cultural heritage, especially in a time when traditional libraries are under mounting pressure. Together, they examine how protecting libraries is one of the most pressing issues of our time.
Chris Freeland is the Director of Library Services at the Internet Archive, advancing the organization's mission of "Universal access to all knowledge." A librarian and biologist by training, Chris has led major digital initiatives across libraries, museums, and research institutions. He holds advanced degrees in biological sciences and library science, and has published widely on the use of emerging technologies in cultural heritage. He is also the co-host of Future Knowledge, a podcast exploring the future of libraries, access, and preservation: https://futureknowledge.transistor.fm/
Resources:
Internet Archive: https://archive.org/
Democracy's Library: https://blog.archive.org/2022/10/19/announcing-democracys-library/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We all should have access to a great library.
(00:02):
We should all have access to information so that
we can go find,
search for truth and find accurate,
verified information.
This is Educating to be Human,
and I'm your host,
Lisa Petrides,
founder of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge
(00:23):
Management in Education.
In each episode,
I sit down with ordinary people creating
extraordinary impact.
People who are challenging notions of how we learn,
why we learn,
and who controls what we learn.
Thank you very much for listening,
(00:46):
I'm delighted to speak with Chris Freeland,
the Director of Library Services at the Internet
Archive.
And if you don't know them,
their mission is simple (00:54):
universal access to all
knowledge.
I've asked him to join me to talk about the state
of libraries today in terms of barriers to access,
what's going on with digital rights.
You might even be thinking, 'what does that even
mean,
digital rights',
and how does that impact what libraries do?
(01:16):
And you know, a central question of this season of
Educating to be Human is to think about who
controls what we learn and how we,
as a society,
support cultural memory.
And why libraries?
Because libraries are critical to this.
They're an essential part of how we learn.
And today,
as we know,
the very existence of libraries is being challenged
(01:37):
and honestly makes many of us in the field a bit
nervous when we think about the
enormity of how libraries have been supporting learning in the past
.
So welcome,
Chris,
and I am delighted to have you here today to help
untangle this a bit so we can gain a better
understanding of libraries of the past,
(01:59):
present,
and of course,
of the future.
Thanks,
Lisa.
Great to be here.
So I would like to just start with sort of some
general questions,
like how would you define the role of libraries in
society today?
That's a great question.
As a librarian,
we think about this a lot.
Actually,
that was one of the things that I enjoyed most
about my time in library school.
(02:21):
I'm a later-in-life librarian,
so I came to get a second master's degree in
library and information science in my late 30s.
And what I loved most about that program was
learning about library history and the role of
libraries in society.
And what you learn through these programs and
through these studies is that the pressures and the
(02:42):
challenges that libraries are facing today are not
dissimilar from the pressures and challenges that
libraries have been facing since they started.
There are differences obviously, time does make a difference, but libraries have been facing this challenge of letting people know that we are an important
part of our communities,
and why we should be funded,
(03:03):
why we should play this important role.
So what is the role of libraries in society?
I think there are a few.
If you look back,
the great American experiment with libraries started
with Andrew Carnegie or Carnegie,
depending on how you want to pronounce his name.
And that was like 1889,
was the first Carnegie Library.
So we've had 135 years of this American library
(03:25):
experience.
And to me,
I see that there are kind of three ways that
libraries really like the roles that libraries have
in society.
And you'll see them and some of them may seem
unusual.
This is what people think of for libraries (03:38):
access
to information.
You go to the library to check out a book or you
go to your library to get access to possibly
newspapers or magazines or other reading materials
or,
you know,
AV materials.
So it's that access to information.
It's also not just access,
but also preservation.
So holding on to our cultural memory and giving
(04:00):
people access to it.
So that's number one.
That's,
you know,
people see that.
Libraries are also community hubs.
So we're gathering spaces.
Libraries are the place where people hang out
around ideas.
We're an important third space in the world.
If you have your home space and your workspace,
then there's this other place where you need to be
(04:22):
to do interesting things.
And libraries fill that for many people.
So community hubs and gathering places is a second
one.
But the third one,
role of libraries in society that most people may
not quite have the visibility towards is the civic
services that libraries provide.
(04:42):
So reading programs,
literacy programs,
things like workforce development,
you know,
the job assistance.
You can go into your local public library and get
help filling out an online job application.
That is an incredibly important role - that workforce
development,
those job opportunities.
So those are some of the things like that civic
(05:04):
service center is maybe one that people aren't as
familiar with and don't experience as much,
but it's just as important as that one that we do
think of,
which is access to information.
Yeah,
absolutely.
And of course,
as someone who grew up in a library,
I can see all of those,
actually.
But that's not necessarily how people experience
(05:26):
libraries today,
although they certainly are online.
We have a fabulous local library where I live,
and it is absolutely a community space,
which is amazing.
Are there particular barriers today that libraries
are facing?
It's really interesting to have you put this in
perspective of,
you know,
the 1800s and the origin of libraries here in the
(05:49):
US.
What are some of the barriers that you're seeing
libraries face today as they try to make knowledge
accessible and provide community spaces?
All we have to do is look at the headlines of any
major newspaper or news outlet over the past couple
of years,
really,
to see what's happening with libraries from the
(06:10):
sort of the public sphere.
Book bans,
libraries being defunded,
challenges to library boards and to the roles of
libraries.
That's happening every day,
and we're seeing that in the news.
And I think many of us have a strong negative
reaction to that and want to protect libraries.
So that's certainly happening.
That has always been happening in libraries.
(06:33):
There have always been community members who have
fought against libraries having certain kinds of
materials or making certain services available.
It's just been there since the start of the American
library,
since those Carnegie libraries.
There are new things that are happening now,
though,
in these barriers,
and that's things like cyber attacks.
So the British Library was taken offline for almost
(06:56):
a year.
Parts of its collection are still minimally
available.
Because of a cyber attack.
The Internet Archive faced a cyber attack last
October that took us offline for a couple of days
at a really important time,
just before the U.
S.
election.
So,
that's a new threat that we're seeing today for
sure.
(07:16):
And then there's kind of a more existential threat
to the future of libraries and barriers to access
to
information and thats the move from building a library collections via an ownership model, like buying physical books, to what's happening
today,
more and more,
which is a licensing model,
just leasing temporary access to collections rather
(07:37):
than owning them outright.
Yeah,
that is interesting.
You know,
30 years ago,
I bought a book; I maybe made some comments in
it,
and then I lent it to you,
because I wanted you to,
you know,
see this book too.
And you even got to see what I had written in my
book,
right?
Yeah,
so we owned books,
of course,
we didn't write in our library books.
But today,
(07:58):
we,
you know,
so if you take that model to the library,
it does seem like there's kind of this fundamental
shift happening from ownership to licensing.
How have you seen this shift affects what libraries
can actually offer their communities?
It's an interesting shift and it comes,
it has both good parts and bad.
(08:19):
Digital is great.
People want to access eBooks.
They want to carry their books with them.
They want to,
the idea of loading up one device with,
you know,
a library's worth of books or a week's worth of
reading and taking that to the beach.
Wow.
That is amazing.
As a book lover,
like I,
I love that device,
but I also buy physical books because I like
(08:40):
owning them.
And I like the everything that you just described.
I like to be able to write in a book,
I like to be able to give it to a friend if
it's something that I think that they should read.
You can't do that with an e-book.
E-books are really expensive for libraries to lease.
Here's an example from Connecticut.
I'm getting this data,
by the way,
(09:00):
from Readers First,
which is an e-book advocacy organization that's
doing really important work nationally.
So a latest bestseller from Robin Cook,
you know,
the medical thriller author,
a library could buy it in print for $18.
But it costs $55 to lease a digital copy that
expires either after 26 checkouts or after two
(09:21):
years,
whichever comes first.
That's the biggest problem with e-books,
which is that they are incredibly expensive and
that the publishers are forcing libraries to enter
into these contracts that move away from the
ownership model to the licensing model and are
really putting unreasonable terms around library use
(09:45):
of books and access to information.
Yeah,
that's astounding,
really,
those numbers that you just shared.
Is this because the digital arena was something
that was just fair game and publishers could charge
what they wanted to?
I mean,
the difference,
what did you say? $50 something versus,
(10:06):
you know,
buying the book for $18.
When the library buys the book for $18,
they have it forever.
But now if things are licensed,
you mean they can just go away?
Sure.
That could just vanish off of your digital shelves
without any warning.
Or you reach the end of your metered access and
(10:26):
then it just vanishes.
Poof.
That book is gone and no longer available to your
patrons.
The higher dollar value that you have paid year
over year or lend over lend for providing access
to that book versus the model that I grew up
with,
which is a library buys a book in print and they
keep it until it falls apart.
(10:47):
And it certainly, I can guarantee, that it takes a lot
more than 26 lends or two years for a physical
book to no longer be viable.
Well,
this certainly illustrates a problem around
preservation and access to resources,
right?
These things matter for the public good.
What are we,
you know,
this makes our digital memory,
(11:08):
it seems so fragile in this way.
Are there some ways that libraries are trying to
support this very critical role in our kind of,
I'm going to say,
as an educator,
you know,
I care a lot about the educational ecosystem.
It seems like preservation and access really matter.
Yet we have this very tenuous,
(11:30):
fragile kind of digital memory of resources.
Yeah,
there's always been a strong connection between the
educational endeavor and the library work,
right?
There's,
you know,
libraries are co-located in schools and libraries
have close relationships with other educational
organizations.
So there is libraries,
(11:50):
I see libraries in schools,
education existing on a continuum,
both providing access to information and helping
people,
you know,
learn more and become better.
Librarians and libraries are concerned about this
move toward these barriers to access,
you know,
all of them,
all the above,
right?
The book bans,
the restructuring of the library mission and the
(12:13):
leasing and the ownership models.
So there are libraries and librarians are trying to
stop this,
and they're doing so by trying to effect change
where they can,
which is in some of their contracts,
right?
So if they're forced into licensing arrangements,
at least can they try to get perpetual access to
those books,
whatever that means from that publisher or from
(12:34):
that vendor?
Can they work the ability to preserve copies into
their licensing agreements?
Can they work agreements for letting libraries do
interlibrary loan with their digital collections into
those agreements.
So I think that librarians are clever in trying to
make the emerging model look and work as much like
(12:54):
the traditional model where it makes sense.
And it really is around those issues of
preservation.
It's scary to think that flash forward in 20
years,
our libraries could just be all digital and we
could own nothing.
And then that means we're just beholden to the
corporate entities that own those books and that
(13:15):
allow us to have access to them as opposed to the
model we have today,
which is, and have grown up with over centuries
where we could buy it,
own it, and then it's up to the local library to
determine when it leaves the collection.
You know,
it's the it's based on local needs and the
professional librarians,
as opposed to some,
you know,
AI bot in the sky that's making a decision about
(13:36):
what goes into your collection.
I'm curious are there examples of how knowledge or
this kind of cultural content has been removed or
lost through these kinds of licensing or takedowns?
Are we already seeing that happen?
Yeah,
we're actively seeing it happen.
I think one example that people can,
that both really hit readers and book lovers in
(13:58):
important ways.
So,
the first one from a few years ago,
several years ago,
Amazon recalled copies of 1984 off of people's
Kindles.
Just disappeared your copy of 1984.
No warning,
just gone.
That's bad.
That's especially bad.
Of all the books,
how prophetic.
(14:20):
They couldn't have picked a better example,
actually,
of the scary things that can happen when you don't
own material.
So that's one.
The other one that's a little bit more recent,
a couple of years ago,
is from Roald Dahl's books.
The publisher,
Puffin Books,
updated passages across his catalog.
This includes Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
(14:40):
Matilda,
James and the Giant Peach.
The passages were updated.
The book was edited without anyone knowing.
And that's scary,
too. I think there's an important part of cultural
preservation.
Update the books,
fine.
New editions,
that happens all the time in publishing.
And hooray that we can look at text and we can
(15:03):
reimagine them or reevaluate them for the
contemporary moment.
But let us know,
you know,
don't just go changing that stuff behind the scenes
because my memories are built on those texts.
My thought about culture is built around my reading
of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and those
words that were there when I read it when I was
(15:25):
10 years old.
I don't want that to change.
Or if it does change,
I want to know about it so that I can see what
the change is and I can,
you know,
think about it in the current contemporary context.
That's an interesting exercise,
but I want to know.
(15:56):
What it's really raising is what happens when, I'm going to say these publishing houses, these media conglomerates or these tech platforms, I don't know the relationship between the publisher and Amazon and how that came to be. But what happens when these are the folks that get to decide
what's worth keeping?
I mean,
I much rather trust my trained librarian who's been
doing this for several decades and has had
education around this.
And for me,
again,
as an educator,
this ties so much into these issues around,
I'm just going to say it,
you know,
representation and justice,
right?
(16:17):
This is,
this is,
this to me seems to be the issue.
Absolutely.
You know,
the professional librarians are trained in collection
development.
We go through,
as part of our training,
we learn how to protect readers' rights,
how to protect their right to read,
the availability of materials.
You don't get that necessarily.
You don't get that same care from a computational
(16:39):
analysis of your collections,
you know,
and just making a decision based on the number of
the most important things that have been frequently
borrowed.
And that doesn't necessarily tell you what you need to have
in your
collection or what you should have in your collection to
have a well-rounded collection to fit the needs of
your local community.
A good example of this (16:57):
We work with a library
nonprofit called Library Futures,
and they wrote a research report about Hoopla.
So Hoopla is another content aggregator,
digital content that they make available to
libraries on license and subscription terms.
(17:30):
But their catalogue has become flooded with low quality, unvetted digital materials, like tens of thousands of books, which can skew search results and can really put forward misinformation over quality content. And
so that's the scary thing that can happen when the
machines are just running without any human
intervention.
We can just get so much junk or AI slop in our
collections that the collection is no longer useful.
And so that is alarming.
The question that really drives me these days when
(17:53):
I'm thinking about libraries is,
as you've said,
who controls what we learn and therefore what we
know?
So I'm really curious from your perspective,
how does that question play out in terms of access
and even what are the stakes for democracy and
cultural memory?
(18:16):
I think of one of the library heroes that I
learned about.
His name's Frederick Morgan Crundon.
And he didn't start the St.
Louis Public Library where I'm located,
but he was kind of the godfather,
if you will,
of the St.
Louis Public Library.
And he was the first president of the American
Library Association back in the 1890s,
(18:37):
I think,
or early 1900s.
Crundon was a big proponent of the free public
library.
He wanted libraries to be open and available to
the public.
He had inherited through like a civic way,
inherited this educational collection that was like
a school collection that was a private library.
Crundon wanted to make that collection open to the
(18:58):
public.
Let everybody have access to this collection,
not just the rich people who can afford to send
their kids to the private schools to have access
to the private libraries.
Everyone should have access to a great research
library.
I think that that is an amazing ideal to chase.
And I think that many librarians are driven by
(19:19):
that view that we all should have access to a
great library.
We should all have access to information so that
we can go find,
search for truth and find accurate,
verified information.
To the question of who controls what we learn,
I would hope that it's no one.
In an ideal world,
we would have unfettered access to information,
(19:40):
to whatever it is we need to do the thing that
we need to do,
whether that's learning how to fix my car or to
do research on Frederick Morgan Cundon and his
history in libraries.
I depend on libraries for that access,
and I depend on libraries for that preservation,
especially like in the example of Cundon.
(20:01):
He did all of his writing in the 1800s.
I need those archival materials to help understand
this person in a contemporary context.
So I want the library to own that information,
and I want the library,
the public library or the research library,
to provide me access through its mission.
And I know that with your work at the Internet
(20:22):
Archive that you've had a very significant role in
helping to not just in policy,
but in practice,
safeguarding our collective knowledge,
right?
I know maybe you could talk a little bit about
some of those initiatives.
I know there's the Democracy's Library.
I would love to hear a little bit about that and
(20:42):
what you're doing in that way.
Yeah,
the Democracy's Library is a great project.
It's an effort to bring together the outputs of
democracies.
So this is the government data.
If you think of all of the information that our
government and other democracies,
other governments put out.
There's a lot of it.
Like the U.
S.
(21:02):
government is the largest publisher in the world.
I think that still holds true.
That certainly has been the talking point.
I think it's still true today.
But a lot of that information isn't necessarily
accessible or digitally available in a form that
people need to access it today,
which is online,
right?
If it's not online,
it's as if it doesn't exist today.
So Democracy's Library is an effort to try to
(21:24):
bring together all of those digital resources,
but as well as those analog resources,
the stuff that hasn't ever been scanned yet.
And could be the great thing about government data
that by and large,
at least in the United States,
is that most of it is in the public domain.
It is the product of the government and therefore
publicly available.
So there are no restrictions or limited low
(21:46):
restrictions on how you can digitize it and,
you know,
redistribute the content.
So it's great.
You can scan the like here.
Currently,
the Internet Archive is scanning microfiche.
Do you remember microfiche?
You know,
the little card with a whole bunch of I used it
in grad school.
Yeah.
Well,
guess what?
Nobody uses microfiche today because there's usually
in an academic library,
there's like one microfiche reader and three people
(22:08):
who know how to use it.
And they're never on staff at the time when you
need it.
That's not necessarily the case.
Libraries are well-staffed,
but it's a confusing format and it's locked in.
You can't search across the microfiche.
So what the Internet Archive is doing is digitizing
the microfiche so that we can put it online,
so that we can index it,
(22:29):
so that we can run OCR across it and search for
it.
And so that is what democracy's Library is doing, it's bringing together both those born digital materials, the pdfs that the governments are producing, right alongside the analog materials
that the government has been publishing for decades.
Well,
I have a question.
So,
you know,
(22:49):
if the government has been doing all this work
around our collective knowledge.
What makes the role of an organization like the
Internet Archive different?
If the government is already doing these kinds of
things around,
you know,
safeguarding our collective knowledge,
you're outside the government,
you're an independent organization,
you're an independent nonprofit.
(23:10):
Is there something different there?
And why do we need both of those roles?
It's funny, in this moment of time with the attacks on federal funding for libraries, some of the negatives that have been applied to the Internet Archive over the 27,
28 years of its history are actually positives now.
It is an independent research library.
It doesn't depend on federal funding to keep the
(23:33):
lights on and keep the mission going.
Those are advantages right now.
And that's a good thing that the Internet Archive
is independent.
We can shift,
and we can shift our priorities,
and we can focus on new projects.
So,
a good example is the end-of-term archive.
Since 2004,
the Internet Archive has worked on a project to
record the websites for outgoing administrations at
(23:56):
the time of every U.
S.
election.
This year is no different.
There's just more stuff that has been taken down
this year than in years past.
There's always a change.
The WhiteHouse.
gov always changes with every administration.
It's important then to safeguard that information,
to preserve it as a historical record,
(24:17):
as a historical marker.
That's why that project is so important,
that end of term archive,
because we need to hold on to what did our
elected officials say at a given point in time and
understand that that is going to change because
that's the very nature of the American experiment.
So with that independence,
also it seems like it comes with a certain amount
(24:40):
of risk or vulnerability even.
You mentioned a little bit about some of the
attacks on libraries,
the book bannings,
the boards that are being challenged.
What does this really say about,
you know,
the power and the vulnerability of let's call them
memory institutions,
(25:01):
right?
These are the organizations,
institutions that we have,
you know,
safeguarded to do this for us.
Libraries don't have the power,
sadly.
The power is concentrated with the lobbyists for
the publishers,
for the recording industry,
for the trade organizations,
and it's not for the libraries.
(25:23):
So libraries are working on probably the most
important work in America,
making sure that everyone has equal access to
information and to the materials that we need to
read and to learn and to grow.
But yeah,
there are a lot of barriers.
There are a lot of people who want to try to
(25:44):
make that more difficult.
And why?
I couldn't tell you why.
What I can say is that libraries are generally
united front.
We are working together.
The library community is strong,
and we are trying to constantly and consistently
explain to our communities why libraries are
important and why,
in terms of a public library,
(26:04):
that continued funding matters to the
community. In an academic setting why continuing to prop
up your library and continuing to use your library
in a collegiate or academic environment is
important.
I also have to say,
as somebody who's very practical,
or we could even say more activist-oriented,
(26:25):
are there some things that just ordinary people can
do to resist this loss of access or this potential
loss of access to knowledge and to protect access,
to protect the erasure of,
you know,
cultural memory,
etc.?
I think it starts with using your library.
(26:45):
Check out books,
go into the library,
make friends with the people at the desk,
or at least go up and say hi.
Libraries are an important resource,
and we don't understand the value of them until
they go away.
So use your library.
Use the services that it provides so that the
library can tell its community,
(27:06):
tell its board,
here's who's using our collections.
Here's why this is important.
So the first thing is use your library.
Beyond that,
it's get involved with your library board if you're
in a public library environment.
We need good people supporting libraries who are
making decisions about libraries.
And you may say,
(27:26):
well,
I'm not a librarian.
That's fine.
Most of the people who are on library boards
aren't librarians.
But if you are committed to education,
if you are committed to the vision of the American
library system,
please help.
That's a great recommendation to end on.
Do you know if most boards,
(27:47):
library boards,
are they elected?
Are they like public positions or are they
positions that people typically volunteer for and
then there's some kind of election process?
So the great thing about the American library system
is that it's different everywhere.
And that's actually helpful right now in this
moment in time.
Though there are national organizations like the
American Library Association that,
(28:08):
you know,
try to help with policy nationwide.
Public libraries are managed and administered by
local municipalities,
and each municipality has a different structure.
In some cases,
the library is aligned under like Parks and Rec,
just as an administrative home,
and other times it lives somewhere else in the
hierarchy of the government.
(28:32):
That's valuable and helpful because you can't take
out the entire library system as a whole.
To do so would mean having to take out the
libraries in every local library,
every municipality.
So it's great that libraries are managed locally
and that the way that you get involved changes
(28:53):
based on where you live.
So the best way of finding out is talk with your
local library,
find out how the board is structured,
find out how the library is funded and find out
where you can help.
So listeners,
that's your to-do item from this podcast today.
Go check out your local municipality and understand
(29:14):
how your libraries are run,
and get involved.
I can't think of a better next step here.
Thank you so much.
Chris,
I've really enjoyed this conversation.
It's been very enlightening about what's going on.
I think both some in terms of illuminating the
concerns,
but also what we can do differently.
(29:35):
Is there anything to add that I haven't asked you
that you would like to add to the conversation?
You know,
if I could leave folks with one thought,
it's that it's kind of circling back to where we
started.
The challenges that libraries are facing today are
not dissimilar from the challenges that libraries
have faced for the past 135 years.
(29:55):
It just feels more existential right now because
there are a number of pressures.
And in some ways,
the library is being undercut and underserved in
ways that it hasn't been in previous history.
So what I would say is use your library,
like show up,
be a good citizen by supporting your library and
(30:19):
asking how you can help.
Before we finish,
I always like to leave space for one final
question,
something I ask all my guests.
Can you make up the title of the book that you
wish more people would read?
The Future of Libraries,
(30:40):
a love story.
Love it.
Love it.
Chris,
thank you so much for joining us today and for
highlighting how libraries are not just about
access,
but about preservation and civic trust and cultural
memory.
As you've made clear,
the shift from ownership to licensing in the
digital world really threatens that mission,
(31:02):
limiting what libraries can do and what communities
are able to access.
In this time of book banning and defunding and the
like,
it's more important than ever to stand with
libraries.
Thank you,
everybody,
for listening to the show this week.
This has been Lisa Petrides with Educating to be
(31:23):
Human.
If you enjoy our show,
please rate and review us on Apple,
Spotify,
or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
You can access our show notes for links and
information on our guests,
and don't forget to follow us on Instagram,
Blue Sky,
at E-D-U to be human.
That is E-D-U to be human.
(31:44):
This podcast was created by Lisa Petrides and
produced by Helene Theros.
Educating to be Human is recorded by Nathan Sherman
and edited by Ty Mayer with music by Orestes
Koletsos.
We all should have access to a great library.
(00:02):
We should all have access to information so that
we can go find,
search for truth and find accurate,
verified information.
This is Educating to be Human,
and I'm your host,
Lisa Petrides,
founder of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge
(00:23):
Management in Education.
In each episode,
I sit down with ordinary people creating
extraordinary impact.
People who are challenging notions of how we learn,
why we learn,
and who controls what we learn.
Thank you very much for listening,
(00:46):
I'm delighted to speak with Chris Freeland,
the Director of Library Services at the Internet
Archive.
And if you don't know them,
their mission is simple (00:54):
universal access to all
knowledge.
I've asked him to join me to talk about the state
of libraries today in terms of barriers to access,
what's going on with digital rights.
You might even be thinking, 'what does that even
mean,
digital rights',
and how does that impact what libraries do?
(01:16):
And you know, a central question of this season of
Educating to be Human is to think about who
controls what we learn and how we,
as a society,
support cultural memory.
And why libraries?
Because libraries are critical to this.
They're an essential part of how we learn.
And today,
as we know,
the very existence of libraries is being challenged
(01:37):
and honestly makes many of us in the field a bit
nervous when we think about the
enormity of how libraries have been supporting learning in the past
.
So welcome,
Chris,
and I am delighted to have you here today to help
untangle this a bit so we can gain a better
understanding of libraries of the past,
(01:59):
present,
and of course,
of the future.
Thanks,
Lisa.
Great to be here.
So I would like to just start with sort of some
general questions,
like how would you define the role of libraries in
society today?
That's a great question.
As a librarian,
we think about this a lot.
Actually,
that was one of the things that I enjoyed most
about my time in library school.
(02:21):
I'm a later-in-life librarian,
so I came to get a second master's degree in
library and information science in my late 30s.
And what I loved most about that program was
learning about library history and the role of
libraries in society.
And what you learn through these programs and
through these studies is that the pressures and the
(02:42):
challenges that libraries are facing today are not
dissimilar from the pressures and challenges that
libraries have been facing since they started.
There are differences obviously, time does make a difference, but libraries have been facing this challenge of letting people know that we are an important
part of our communities,
and why we should be funded,
(03:03):
why we should play this important role.
So what is the role of libraries in society?
I think there are a few.
If you look back,
the great American experiment with libraries started
with Andrew Carnegie or Carnegie,
depending on how you want to pronounce his name.
And that was like 1889,
was the first Carnegie Library.
So we've had 135 years of this American library
(03:25):
experience.
And to me,
I see that there are kind of three ways that
libraries really like the roles that libraries have
in society.
And you'll see them and some of them may seem
unusual.
This is what people think of for libraries (03:38):
access
to information.
You go to the library to check out a book or you
go to your library to get access to possibly
newspapers or magazines or other reading materials
or,
you know,
AV materials.
So it's that access to information.
It's also not just access,
but also preservation.
So holding on to our cultural memory and giving
(04:00):
people access to it.
So that's number one.
That's,
you know,
people see that.
Libraries are also community hubs.
So we're gathering spaces.
Libraries are the place where people hang out
around ideas.
We're an important third space in the world.
If you have your home space and your workspace,
then there's this other place where you need to be
(04:22):
to do interesting things.
And libraries fill that for many people.
So community hubs and gathering places is a second
one.
But the third one,
role of libraries in society that most people may
not quite have the visibility towards is the civic
services that libraries provide.
(04:42):
So reading programs,
literacy programs,
things like workforce development,
you know,
the job assistance.
You can go into your local public library and get
help filling out an online job application.
That is an incredibly important role - that workforce
development,
those job opportunities.
So those are some of the things like that civic
(05:04):
service center is maybe one that people aren't as
familiar with and don't experience as much,
but it's just as important as that one that we do
think of,
which is access to information.
Yeah,
absolutely.
And of course,
as someone who grew up in a library,
I can see all of those,
actually.
But that's not necessarily how people experience
(05:26):
libraries today,
although they certainly are online.
We have a fabulous local library where I live,
and it is absolutely a community space,
which is amazing.
Are there particular barriers today that libraries
are facing?
It's really interesting to have you put this in
perspective of,
you know,
the 1800s and the origin of libraries here in the
(05:49):
US.
What are some of the barriers that you're seeing
libraries face today as they try to make knowledge
accessible and provide community spaces?
All we have to do is look at the headlines of any
major newspaper or news outlet over the past couple
of years,
really,
to see what's happening with libraries from the
(06:10):
sort of the public sphere.
Book bans,
libraries being defunded,
challenges to library boards and to the roles of
libraries.
That's happening every day,
and we're seeing that in the news.
And I think many of us have a strong negative
reaction to that and want to protect libraries.
So that's certainly happening.
That has always been happening in libraries.
(06:33):
There have always been community members who have
fought against libraries having certain kinds of
materials or making certain services available.
It's just been there since the start of the American
library,
since those Carnegie libraries.
There are new things that are happening now,
though,
in these barriers,
and that's things like cyber attacks.
So the British Library was taken offline for almost
(06:56):
a year.
Parts of its collection are still minimally
available.
Because of a cyber attack.
The Internet Archive faced a cyber attack last
October that took us offline for a couple of days
at a really important time,
just before the U.
S.
election.
So,
that's a new threat that we're seeing today for
sure.
(07:16):
And then there's kind of a more existential threat
to the future of libraries and barriers to access
to
information and thats the move from building a library collections via an ownership model, like buying physical books, to what's happening
today,
more and more,
which is a licensing model,
just leasing temporary access to collections rather
(07:37):
than owning them outright.
Yeah,
that is interesting.
You know,
30 years ago,
I bought a book; I maybe made some comments in
it,
and then I lent it to you,
because I wanted you to,
you know,
see this book too.
And you even got to see what I had written in my
book,
right?
Yeah,
so we owned books,
of course,
we didn't write in our library books.
But today,
(07:58):
we,
you know,
so if you take that model to the library,
it does seem like there's kind of this fundamental
shift happening from ownership to licensing.
How have you seen this shift affects what libraries
can actually offer their communities?
It's an interesting shift and it comes,
it has both good parts and bad.
(08:19):
Digital is great.
People want to access eBooks.
They want to carry their books with them.
They want to,
the idea of loading up one device with,
you know,
a library's worth of books or a week's worth of
reading and taking that to the beach.
Wow.
That is amazing.
As a book lover,
like I,
I love that device,
but I also buy physical books because I like
(08:40):
owning them.
And I like the everything that you just described.
I like to be able to write in a book,
I like to be able to give it to a friend if
it's something that I think that they should read.
You can't do that with an e-book.
E-books are really expensive for libraries to lease.
Here's an example from Connecticut.
I'm getting this data,
by the way,
(09:00):
from Readers First,
which is an e-book advocacy organization that's
doing really important work nationally.
So a latest bestseller from Robin Cook,
you know,
the medical thriller author,
a library could buy it in print for $18.
But it costs $55 to lease a digital copy that
expires either after 26 checkouts or after two
(09:21):
years,
whichever comes first.
That's the biggest problem with e-books,
which is that they are incredibly expensive and
that the publishers are forcing libraries to enter
into these contracts that move away from the
ownership model to the licensing model and are
really putting unreasonable terms around library use
(09:45):
of books and access to information.
Yeah,
that's astounding,
really,
those numbers that you just shared.
Is this because the digital arena was something
that was just fair game and publishers could charge
what they wanted to?
I mean,
the difference,
what did you say? $50 something versus,
(10:06):
you know,
buying the book for $18.
When the library buys the book for $18,
they have it forever.
But now if things are licensed,
you mean they can just go away?
Sure.
That could just vanish off of your digital shelves
without any warning.
Or you reach the end of your metered access and
(10:26):
then it just vanishes.
Poof.
That book is gone and no longer available to your
patrons.
The higher dollar value that you have paid year
over year or lend over lend for providing access
to that book versus the model that I grew up
with,
which is a library buys a book in print and they
keep it until it falls apart.
(10:47):
And it certainly, I can guarantee, that it takes a lot
more than 26 lends or two years for a physical
book to no longer be viable.
Well,
this certainly illustrates a problem around
preservation and access to resources,
right?
These things matter for the public good.
What are we,
you know,
this makes our digital memory,
(11:08):
it seems so fragile in this way.
Are there some ways that libraries are trying to
support this very critical role in our kind of,
I'm going to say,
as an educator,
you know,
I care a lot about the educational ecosystem.
It seems like preservation and access really matter.
Yet we have this very tenuous,
(11:30):
fragile kind of digital memory of resources.
Yeah,
there's always been a strong connection between the
educational endeavor and the library work,
right?
There's,
you know,
libraries are co-located in schools and libraries
have close relationships with other educational
organizations.
So there is libraries,
(11:50):
I see libraries in schools,
education existing on a continuum,
both providing access to information and helping
people,
you know,
learn more and become better.
Librarians and libraries are concerned about this
move toward these barriers to access,
you know,
all of them,
all the above,
right?
The book bans,
the restructuring of the library mission and the
(12:13):
leasing and the ownership models.
So there are libraries and librarians are trying to
stop this,
and they're doing so by trying to effect change
where they can,
which is in some of their contracts,
right?
So if they're forced into licensing arrangements,
at least can they try to get perpetual access to
those books,
whatever that means from that publisher or from
(12:34):
that vendor?
Can they work the ability to preserve copies into
their licensing agreements?
Can they work agreements for letting libraries do
interlibrary loan with their digital collections into
those agreements.
So I think that librarians are clever in trying to
make the emerging model look and work as much like
(12:54):
the traditional model where it makes sense.
And it really is around those issues of
preservation.
It's scary to think that flash forward in 20
years,
our libraries could just be all digital and we
could own nothing.
And then that means we're just beholden to the
corporate entities that own those books and that
(13:15):
allow us to have access to them as opposed to the
model we have today,
which is, and have grown up with over centuries
where we could buy it,
own it, and then it's up to the local library to
determine when it leaves the collection.
You know,
it's the it's based on local needs and the
professional librarians,
as opposed to some,
you know,
AI bot in the sky that's making a decision about
(13:36):
what goes into your collection.
I'm curious are there examples of how knowledge or
this kind of cultural content has been removed or
lost through these kinds of licensing or takedowns?
Are we already seeing that happen?
Yeah,
we're actively seeing it happen.
I think one example that people can,
that both really hit readers and book lovers in
(13:58):
important ways.
So,
the first one from a few years ago,
several years ago,
Amazon recalled copies of 1984 off of people's
Kindles.
Just disappeared your copy of 1984.
No warning,
just gone.
That's bad.
That's especially bad.
Of all the books,
how prophetic.
(14:20):
They couldn't have picked a better example,
actually,
of the scary things that can happen when you don't
own material.
So that's one.
The other one that's a little bit more recent,
a couple of years ago,
is from Roald Dahl's books.
The publisher,
Puffin Books,
updated passages across his catalog.
This includes Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
(14:40):
Matilda,
James and the Giant Peach.
The passages were updated.
The book was edited without anyone knowing.
And that's scary,
too. I think there's an important part of cultural
preservation.
Update the books,
fine.
New editions,
that happens all the time in publishing.
And hooray that we can look at text and we can
(15:03):
reimagine them or reevaluate them for the
contemporary moment.
But let us know,
you know,
don't just go changing that stuff behind the scenes
because my memories are built on those texts.
My thought about culture is built around my reading
of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and those
words that were there when I read it when I was
(15:25):
10 years old.
I don't want that to change.
Or if it does change,
I want to know about it so that I can see what
the change is and I can,
you know,
think about it in the current contemporary context.
That's an interesting exercise,
but I want to know.
(15:56):
What it's really raising is what happens when, I'm going to say these publishing houses, these media conglomerates or these tech platforms, I don't know the relationship between the publisher and Amazon and how that came to be. But what happens when these are the folks that get to decide
what's worth keeping?
I mean,
I much rather trust my trained librarian who's been
doing this for several decades and has had
education around this.
And for me,
again,
as an educator,
this ties so much into these issues around,
I'm just going to say it,
you know,
representation and justice,
right?
(16:17):
This is,
this is,
this to me seems to be the issue.
Absolutely.
You know,
the professional librarians are trained in collection
development.
We go through,
as part of our training,
we learn how to protect readers' rights,
how to protect their right to read,
the availability of materials.
You don't get that necessarily.
You don't get that same care from a computational
(16:39):
analysis of your collections,
you know,
and just making a decision based on the number of
the most important things that have been frequently
borrowed.
And that doesn't necessarily tell you what you need to have
in your
collection or what you should have in your collection to
have a well-rounded collection to fit the needs of
your local community.
A good example of this (16:57):
We work with a library
nonprofit called Library Futures,
and they wrote a research report about Hoopla.
So Hoopla is another content aggregator,
digital content that they make available to
libraries on license and subscription terms.
(17:30):
But their catalogue has become flooded with low quality, unvetted digital materials, like tens of thousands of books, which can skew search results and can really put forward misinformation over quality content. And
so that's the scary thing that can happen when the
machines are just running without any human
intervention.
We can just get so much junk or AI slop in our
collections that the collection is no longer useful.
And so that is alarming.
The question that really drives me these days when
(17:53):
I'm thinking about libraries is,
as you've said,
who controls what we learn and therefore what we
know?
So I'm really curious from your perspective,
how does that question play out in terms of access
and even what are the stakes for democracy and
cultural memory?
(18:16):
I think of one of the library heroes that I
learned about.
His name's Frederick Morgan Crundon.
And he didn't start the St.
Louis Public Library where I'm located,
but he was kind of the godfather,
if you will,
of the St.
Louis Public Library.
And he was the first president of the American
Library Association back in the 1890s,
(18:37):
I think,
or early 1900s.
Crundon was a big proponent of the free public
library.
He wanted libraries to be open and available to
the public.
He had inherited through like a civic way,
inherited this educational collection that was like
a school collection that was a private library.
Crundon wanted to make that collection open to the
(18:58):
public.
Let everybody have access to this collection,
not just the rich people who can afford to send
their kids to the private schools to have access
to the private libraries.
Everyone should have access to a great research
library.
I think that that is an amazing ideal to chase.
And I think that many librarians are driven by
(19:19):
that view that we all should have access to a
great library.
We should all have access to information so that
we can go find,
search for truth and find accurate,
verified information.
To the question of who controls what we learn,
I would hope that it's no one.
In an ideal world,
we would have unfettered access to information,
(19:40):
to whatever it is we need to do the thing that
we need to do,
whether that's learning how to fix my car or to
do research on Frederick Morgan Cundon and his
history in libraries.
I depend on libraries for that access,
and I depend on libraries for that preservation,
especially like in the example of Cundon.
(20:01):
He did all of his writing in the 1800s.
I need those archival materials to help understand
this person in a contemporary context.
So I want the library to own that information,
and I want the library,
the public library or the research library,
to provide me access through its mission.
And I know that with your work at the Internet
(20:22):
Archive that you've had a very significant role in
helping to not just in policy,
but in practice,
safeguarding our collective knowledge,
right?
I know maybe you could talk a little bit about
some of those initiatives.
I know there's the Democracy's Library.
I would love to hear a little bit about that and
(20:42):
what you're doing in that way.
Yeah,
the Democracy's Library is a great project.
It's an effort to bring together the outputs of
democracies.
So this is the government data.
If you think of all of the information that our
government and other democracies,
other governments put out.
There's a lot of it.
Like the U.
S.
(21:02):
government is the largest publisher in the world.
I think that still holds true.
That certainly has been the talking point.
I think it's still true today.
But a lot of that information isn't necessarily
accessible or digitally available in a form that
people need to access it today,
which is online,
right?
If it's not online,
it's as if it doesn't exist today.
So Democracy's Library is an effort to try to
(21:24):
bring together all of those digital resources,
but as well as those analog resources,
the stuff that hasn't ever been scanned yet.
And could be the great thing about government data
that by and large,
at least in the United States,
is that most of it is in the public domain.
It is the product of the government and therefore
publicly available.
So there are no restrictions or limited low
(21:46):
restrictions on how you can digitize it and,
you know,
redistribute the content.
So it's great.
You can scan the like here.
Currently,
the Internet Archive is scanning microfiche.
Do you remember microfiche?
You know,
the little card with a whole bunch of I used it
in grad school.
Yeah.
Well,
guess what?
Nobody uses microfiche today because there's usually
in an academic library,
there's like one microfiche reader and three people
(22:08):
who know how to use it.
And they're never on staff at the time when you
need it.
That's not necessarily the case.
Libraries are well-staffed,
but it's a confusing format and it's locked in.
You can't search across the microfiche.
So what the Internet Archive is doing is digitizing
the microfiche so that we can put it online,
so that we can index it,
(22:29):
so that we can run OCR across it and search for
it.
And so that is what democracy's Library is doing, it's bringing together both those born digital materials, the pdfs that the governments are producing, right alongside the analog materials
that the government has been publishing for decades.
Well,
I have a question.
So,
you know,
(22:49):
if the government has been doing all this work
around our collective knowledge.
What makes the role of an organization like the
Internet Archive different?
If the government is already doing these kinds of
things around,
you know,
safeguarding our collective knowledge,
you're outside the government,
you're an independent organization,
you're an independent nonprofit.
(23:10):
Is there something different there?
And why do we need both of those roles?
It's funny, in this moment of time with the attacks on federal funding for libraries, some of the negatives that have been applied to the Internet Archive over the 27,
28 years of its history are actually positives now.
It is an independent research library.
It doesn't depend on federal funding to keep the
(23:33):
lights on and keep the mission going.
Those are advantages right now.
And that's a good thing that the Internet Archive
is independent.
We can shift,
and we can shift our priorities,
and we can focus on new projects.
So,
a good example is the end-of-term archive.
Since 2004,
the Internet Archive has worked on a project to
record the websites for outgoing administrations at
(23:56):
the time of every U.
S.
election.
This year is no different.
There's just more stuff that has been taken down
this year than in years past.
There's always a change.
The WhiteHouse.
gov always changes with every administration.
It's important then to safeguard that information,
to preserve it as a historical record,
(24:17):
as a historical marker.
That's why that project is so important,
that end of term archive,
because we need to hold on to what did our
elected officials say at a given point in time and
understand that that is going to change because
that's the very nature of the American experiment.
So with that independence,
also it seems like it comes with a certain amount
(24:40):
of risk or vulnerability even.
You mentioned a little bit about some of the
attacks on libraries,
the book bannings,
the boards that are being challenged.
What does this really say about,
you know,
the power and the vulnerability of let's call them
memory institutions,
(25:01):
right?
These are the organizations,
institutions that we have,
you know,
safeguarded to do this for us.
Libraries don't have the power,
sadly.
The power is concentrated with the lobbyists for
the publishers,
for the recording industry,
for the trade organizations,
and it's not for the libraries.
(25:23):
So libraries are working on probably the most
important work in America,
making sure that everyone has equal access to
information and to the materials that we need to
read and to learn and to grow.
But yeah,
there are a lot of barriers.
There are a lot of people who want to try to
(25:44):
make that more difficult.
And why?
I couldn't tell you why.
What I can say is that libraries are generally
united front.
We are working together.
The library community is strong,
and we are trying to constantly and consistently
explain to our communities why libraries are
important and why,
in terms of a public library,
(26:04):
that continued funding matters to the
community. In an academic setting why continuing to prop
up your library and continuing to use your library
in a collegiate or academic environment is
important.
I also have to say,
as somebody who's very practical,
or we could even say more activist-oriented,
(26:25):
are there some things that just ordinary people can
do to resist this loss of access or this potential
loss of access to knowledge and to protect access,
to protect the erasure of,
you know,
cultural memory,
etc.?
I think it starts with using your library.
(26:45):
Check out books,
go into the library,
make friends with the people at the desk,
or at least go up and say hi.
Libraries are an important resource,
and we don't understand the value of them until
they go away.
So use your library.
Use the services that it provides so that the
library can tell its community,
(27:06):
tell its board,
here's who's using our collections.
Here's why this is important.
So the first thing is use your library.
Beyond that,
it's get involved with your library board if you're
in a public library environment.
We need good people supporting libraries who are
making decisions about libraries.
And you may say,
(27:26):
well,
I'm not a librarian.
That's fine.
Most of the people who are on library boards
aren't librarians.
But if you are committed to education,
if you are committed to the vision of the American
library system,
please help.
That's a great recommendation to end on.
Do you know if most boards,
(27:47):
library boards,
are they elected?
Are they like public positions or are they
positions that people typically volunteer for and
then there's some kind of election process?
So the great thing about the American library system
is that it's different everywhere.
And that's actually helpful right now in this
moment in time.
Though there are national organizations like the
American Library Association that,
(28:08):
you know,
try to help with policy nationwide.
Public libraries are managed and administered by
local municipalities,
and each municipality has a different structure.
In some cases,
the library is aligned under like Parks and Rec,
just as an administrative home,
and other times it lives somewhere else in the
hierarchy of the government.
(28:32):
That's valuable and helpful because you can't take
out the entire library system as a whole.
To do so would mean having to take out the
libraries in every local library,
every municipality.
So it's great that libraries are managed locally
and that the way that you get involved changes
(28:53):
based on where you live.
So the best way of finding out is talk with your
local library,
find out how the board is structured,
find out how the library is funded and find out
where you can help.
So listeners,
that's your to-do item from this podcast today.
Go check out your local municipality and understand
(29:14):
how your libraries are run,
and get involved.
I can't think of a better next step here.
Thank you so much.
Chris,
I've really enjoyed this conversation.
It's been very enlightening about what's going on.
I think both some in terms of illuminating the
concerns,
but also what we can do differently.
(29:35):
Is there anything to add that I haven't asked you
that you would like to add to the conversation?
You know,
if I could leave folks with one thought,
it's that it's kind of circling back to where we
started.
The challenges that libraries are facing today are
not dissimilar from the challenges that libraries
have faced for the past 135 years.
(29:55):
It just feels more existential right now because
there are a number of pressures.
And in some ways,
the library is being undercut and underserved in
ways that it hasn't been in previous history.
So what I would say is use your library,
like show up,
be a good citizen by supporting your library and
(30:19):
asking how you can help.
Before we finish,
I always like to leave space for one final
question,
something I ask all my guests.
Can you make up the title of the book that you
wish more people would read?
The Future of Libraries,
(30:40):
a love story.
Love it.
Love it.
Chris,
thank you so much for joining us today and for
highlighting how libraries are not just about
access,
but about preservation and civic trust and cultural
memory.
As you've made clear,
the shift from ownership to licensing in the
digital world really threatens that mission,
(31:02):
limiting what libraries can do and what communities
are able to access.
In this time of book banning and defunding and the
like,
it's more important than ever to stand with
libraries.
Thank you,
everybody,
for listening to the show this week.
This has been Lisa Petrides with Educating to be
(31:23):
Human.
If you enjoy our show,
please rate and review us on Apple,
Spotify,
or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
You can access our show notes for links and
information on our guests,
and don't forget to follow us on Instagram,
Blue Sky,
at E-D-U to be human.
That is E-D-U to be human.
(31:44):
This podcast was created by Lisa Petrides and
produced by Helene Theros.
Educating to be Human is recorded by Nathan Sherman
and edited by Ty Mayer with music by Orestes
Koletsos.
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