Saturday live coverage of president ial candidates at the iowa state fair continues. We will hear from Chris Christie at noon and bobby jindel and then on sunday Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker holds a meeting. And then we are live at the Minneapolis Book testival. On sunday morning at 10, author and columnist chairs her critical thoughts on the relationship with millennials. And helping improve relationships between the public after the king assassination and the riots. In his book, bibliotech john palfrey talks about some of the challenges libraries face. He is head of school at the Phillips Academy in massachusetts and the Founding Member of the digital Public Library. He talked at the free library in philadelphia earlier this year. Good evening, everyone. I would like to remind you no flash photography is presented during the event. Following the event a book signing will take place in the lobby and dont forget most of the author events are offered as podcast at freelibrary. Org. I am a librarian here and i am excited to introduce john palfrey who is the leading scholar on issues of emerging media and authority for internet freedom, transparency and accountability. He is the head of school at phill phill phill Phillips Academy and the board of directors at the Digital Library. His latest book, bibliotech argues for the necessity of finding and using the reservoir of online systems and the adaptive roles of libraries teaching this skill. It is said he challenges us to keep the library relevant as an information resource, archive, Community Gathering and a cornerstone of democracy for informed citizenry. Please join me in welcoming me john palfrey to the free library of philadelphia. Jennifer, thank you so much for your kind introduction and thank you andy and all of these who welcomed me to the free library of philadelphia. I could not be happier to be here to talk about this book. The amazing history philadelphia has from the library with ben franklin, a bostonian by birth and his role of shaping the libraries in this country and right here. I think we are at a historic moment when it comes to information, knowledge, and libraries. And i think this spans across education, journalism, and libraries. I think they in an interesting way connected and hinge on the same questions about whether in the digital age we can make institutions affective. I think there is a risk they may not be. Part of what was driving me to do this project and work on this book, bibliotech, was a series of conversations i have had over the years with people that surprised me on this question. And they are gone through this way five or six years ago, ken being the head of the library, the harvard law which in academic was the biggest one. I was a law professor by training. There are lots of great librarians there. It wasnt a dangerous situation but it was surprised where people were surprised why i was working in the library. I had the same conversation a whole bunch of times over and over again at a backyard bbq or Cocktail Party where someone would say what are you up to. I would say teaching at a law school but about to start running a library and they would look at me funny and say why would you do that. You are not a librarian and i would say it is true, not trained as a librarian but think they are important. They would say you are the digital guy and now we have google you dont need libraries and you will shutdown the libraries and i would say no, i think they are more important by every. But by then my friend is off in another direction and i would never be back to make the case of why libraries are more important, not less so in the age of google. I decided to write a book and it is more important than every to have libraries in the digital age. I happen to believe it. In some respect i was inspired by this picture which comes from the image evolved we have at harvard law library. I doubt anybody in the audience is going to guess but this is the private library of william junior. He was a law professor and became a Supreme Court justice. This is his private library in washington, d. C. I like the picture for a lot of reasons. It just appeals to me. I love the idea of sitting in that chair in the middle of this room and thinking about mr. Justice holmes writing his opinions and for law professors you know he wrote wonderful opinions and he wrote clangers as well. No doubt he was inspired by all of this knowledge surrounding him in the form of the books. You can imagine him standing up and grabbing a book off the shelf, reading it and sitting down and writing more opinions. And today and the principal of the high school Phillips Academy with kids between the age of 1418 and i think about what kind of a learning environment are we creating for kids like the particular environments here. What would it be like for these kids to have a place where they would be inspired the same way mr. Justice holmes would be in this particular moment. I am imaging it will not look the same. Maybe they would be inspired. As a Library Director, and thinking about the kids at andover, it is clear when kids go into this, they dont do a lot of this. At harvard law and the library at hoour high school the tables are full. They are not taking a lot of books off the shelve. They have computers and might have a book they were assigned but they are not there for the stack. So the question is if the point isnt to be a collection of books for these kids, how do we make just as inspiring and wonderful case when in fact much of the location is not located in this physical form. The reason to come to the library is not necessarily for the physical object and i think that is an important challenge. The other part is there is a public view that libraries are not as necessary for a variety of reasons. This is a recent quote i happen to find on the amazon page for the book i wrote and it is just somebody who happen to comment and didnt like the book for a variety reason, but one was he disgreed about the premise of the libraries and said they were on their way out and being squeez squeezed financially until they can no longer provide service. It is not uncommon to be in a town or city and see the pressure on libraries. At a local level where most of the funding comes from we know you have to make a decision between supporting the fire department, police department, schools or library. And my via is the money is show short to support the library and the payback is great it is crazy to cut libraries but we know that pressure comes every year on libraries. I was so glad to see that the Pen Foundation supported this library with 25 million. The biggest. But that is private flan stepping forward. You look at the state level and there is a lot of pressure on libraries. I gave a talk about this book in kansas city at the wonderful kansas city Public Library. The governor of missouri was making a plan to state the funding for libraries and 75 young people went up and did a sitin in the Governors Office and was thrown out by the state police which was dramatic and exciting but it was a showdown about state funding for libraries. And a junior at our high school is one of the kids who was involved in that protest. I was very excited she was acting with such civil di disobedien disobedience. And at the frivederal level president obama, who i respect very much, included cuts at the federal level. We are pressure on libraries and at the same time more need than over for their services. How do we make a positive argument for libraries in the digital age . I think that is important for our democracy. I think it all goes back in some respects to why we had Public Libraries, Free Libraries to begin with. A lot of the history dates back to the middle of the 19th century. A most important part about it in my view is if you can see just above the door are three amazing words which are free to all. I still get chills every time i see them. The idea you should have an institution when the whole point saying no matter how much you have or the education level you should have access to the knowledge that is necessary for your to be informed and engaged and delighted in the democracy. And the fact that this seemed radical in 1850 is amazing because now it seems obvious. But the movement for Public Libraries kicks off at this moment. I realize that is why i should have had the fifth picture, the free library in philadelphia. That is a few years later in history but growing from civil pride and importance. The carnegie libraries as well are part of that. There has been an incredible expansion in libraries and we are at another moment where we have to think about the next chapter of Public Libraries and libraries of all sorts. The reason i think it is crucial is increasingly the knowledge we create and cuerate in society is not to say we will not have books. That is not the argument. I think this particular technology is a great one. It is Great Holding the material in this format but when we create information it is provided in additional format but three these devices that are mobile and cloud based. Crucial to part of this story is also those who hold the knowledge in the cloud are private actors by and large. If you look at the names in any image of the cloud it is almost all private companies. There are not public spaces online in the same way we have public spaces in the analog world and physical world. I think that matters. I think it could matter because if we dont in fact keep information in public hands, knowledge in public hands and provide access on a free to all bases in the digital era i think it could make problems worse between the haves and have foughts. Nots imagine a world in which libraries only have meter access to information held online when people who have access to funds can buy whatever they want and bring it on their kindle. That is not a great outcome for libraries. It is not a crazy potential problem. A few years ago in particular, those who worked in libraries know there have been a series of tussles between publishers and libraries about trying to figure out the bases on which we will lend electronic books to individuals. Just out of curiosity, if you were to read a novel would prefer it in a printed format . Very Strong Majority of the crowd. How many people prefer an ebook . I would say it depends on how big the book is. I would say that is about a quarter of the audience. How many people are more or less agnostic and happy to be in either format . I am in the third category. At night i like this. But on the plane it is much easier to have all of the books on the kindle. It is a wonderful thing except when the battery runs out or you are taking off or landing and not allowed to use it. It is people who the growth is in the third category. People who actually often like digital books as well as physical books. People who buy a lot of digital books buy a large number of physical books. The habits are changing. At the same time, publishers are worried about what their Business Model is going to look like. Many publishers have not allowed libraries to license on the same terms as physical books as ebooks. Particularly the most valuable and sought after books. Off the bat, librarians are in a difficult position. In a digital era can they do the same things they did in an analog area. You think about the role of a librarian of bringing physical objects to a place and lend it out. That is wonderful and important. Once they bought the book under u. S. Law you could tear it up, give it to someone else, sell it at a secondhand bookstore and librarians have broad rights to do what they want. In a Digital World it is not so. Librarians go from being owners of the physical material to leasers of the material. If they stop paying the licenses to the book sellers, the to publishers, they might not have a collection. It is a very different world. And some of the contractors have been annoying. Some say you cannot read it allow if you have an ebook form. One was an early agreement between Book Publishers and libraries and in that the libraries were told you may lend it 26 times if you buy it. If you purchase it you may lend it 26 times on the premise the goes away after that. So hard to imagine. A physical object would have gone away. That rule has not held up particular as the way books are sold. But you see the problem. Librarians may be in the position not to do the free lending. That is not a great version of the future to me if, in the digital era, there is no potential for broad access we have less access for the public on a freetoall bases and we need to figure out how to head that off. The exciting part, from my perspective, is we are at a moment where we can design a Bright Future and we can imagine a different kind of a future to build from. This image shows the building of Boston Public Library and you can imagine a similar image of the building of this particular structure here. Why i like this moment is that i think we are, as we were 150 years ago, at a moment where we can figure out what we want to future of libraries to be when it is combination of the digital and analog. I think we are at a moment where we can step forward we can create something vastly better that builds upon the best of what librarians have done and public and private libraries and what is happening in silicone valley and on the web that has brought us very broad access and exciting developments in technology. I think we have to think like designers and have to build like innovators in new and exciting ways. I often think about this particular design which is the building that i worked in at Harvard Law School. This is the side elevation of lang dale hall. If you imagine what it was like to build a Great Library like this. You imagine process people went through. It involves bringing together architects, teachers, librarians and imagine a space for teaching, for people to come in ask do work and think about these environments. I think we are at a similar moment where we need to bring together the information architects of the digital age with the librarians and users of today along with people who have designed physical and Digital Spaces and i think this is a moment where we can make something that is really, really exciting. If you scroll back a little over a century you may any of the language in the charter for the free library of philadelphia. There was a commitment on the part of the city to build the free library for the people of use of philadelphia, general library that is free to all, same language above the Boston Public Library. This is the moment to pivot. Building an institution and a set of systems that will support the public in a similar way only in a digital era. Several years ago, a group of people came together and this happened at an institute in cambridge, massachusetts, where a group of 40 people made a commitment where they wanted to build something that will be a platform for open distributed network of online resources to draw from universities, archives, museums and educate and empower everyone. This sounds like a crazy, naive thing to say on one level but it sounds like a commitment that would support them in ways that are designed for the digital area and connect the digital and analog. You might say they sounds but what do we need to create such a thing. We need to setback and say what are the elements of the libraries in the digital age . What do we need to create that will be supportive of libraries . Not in any case of replacement of what happens in a physical space like this but something that is going to support it. I think people that serve the libraries whether it is research or public, and ultimately i think it is about training and development of humans. It is thinking about libraries in structurally a different way. One of the arguments i make in the book and think we need to pivot toward is stop thinking about libraries as individual n institutions and see them as platforms. I think this is important tech nilogical speak. I think in this moment, one thing libraries can do best is draw on other aspects of innovation in our society. I think there has been so much amazing developments whether in silicone valley or places with very large commitments to rnd in the Technology World to develop things that libraries havent done yet. I think if we take those same techniques that made the internet and web so powerful and apply them with the kinds of skills and commitment librarians have i think we can make something terrific and do it in a collaborative way. If you think about libraries not being stand alone institutions all trying to collect the same objects in a competitive way. And i know when working as a librarian at harvard there was a sense if we had the biggest stack of books we had the best library. I think that is an old way of thinking. Rather how can we collaborate to serve the communities we have. Thinking about the digital Public Library of america, we thought about building a platform that will support all libraries and be something that will bring both materials together, but also to bring people together in a way that is productive. This is, i think, the most technical my slides get for this presentation. What it is describing is an open system with lots of open codes th that technoligist can share and anybody can export that information and create different forms of it to serve particular communities. So four years after that commitment to make an Online National library, which we have, it can be found online. If you have a smart phone urics go to dp. La and access the digital Public Library of america. It has contributions from 1600 institutions and more than 10 million objects all curated by librarians. The Nation