Over the past week, I’ve been listening to the audiobook version of Chris Anderson’s recent book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Anderson is something of a guru on Internet issues as he works as Editor-in-Chief of WIRED magazine and has previously authored a book on the impact of the Internet on business models (The Long Tail). Most of the ideas in FREE concern business again, but there are some interesting ideas here. In short, Anderson argues that the Free (especially important in the digital environment) is ever more important since the cost of Internet infrastructure (processing, storage and broadband) declines rapidly. In keeping with the spirit of the book, I downloaded one of the many different free versions that have been provided (an unabridged audiobook available in the iTunes Music Store) which I would recommend. One quirk at play here is that the free text versions of the book are mostly limited to US-based users, but the iTunes Audio version (and the downloadable MP3 version) do not have such geographical restrictions.
These musings on free and the many interesting examples Anderson raises (the Chinese and Brazilian examples he discusses are new and very thought provoking) has some important applications to librarianship. One common though misinformed view of libraries and related services is that they are not necessary since “everything on the Internet is free.” Factually, that is still false; the free Web lacks many important materials, journals and other materials that you may need. However, for the sake of argument, let’s grant the claim. According to Anderson’s argument, this abundance creates a scarcity elsewhere. What does that mean? Well, what about the time needed to find what you want? What about determining how an article, dataset or the like applies? Free can look like a threat but one need only to think of Anderson’s observation – “Every abundance creates a new scarcity” – to think through the problem.
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