Author Scott Turow and US Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner discussed the future of authors, books, and libraries at the Newberry Library in Chicago February 22 at the second of the “Conversations at the Newberry” series. Turow, currently in his second term as president of the Author’s Guild, spoke passionately about the rights of authors and the guild’s fight against the Google Books Project. He also advocated for the future of libraries.
“What I love about libraries is the access to books. This world of knowledge is available for nothing,” Turow said. If information is only available on the internet, “what happens to the young, the poor, and the elderly? It would be unfortunate if this attempt to broaden is excluding. It shouldn’t be the case that the world of knowledge is closed to those who can’t afford it.”
Posner, a prolific author whose academic focus is on the application of economics to law, chose to open his remarks on how the internet simplifies research, particularly for academics. At times his comments suggested that he hasn’t visited a library recently, however. Browsing online and even finding books through Amazon is preferable to going to a library, he said. “Libraries are dying. Looking in the card catalog? It’s hopeless. If you want to do research, you do it digitally.” Pointing out how few students he has seen in the University of Chicago Library, he said, “College students don’t go to libraries. It’s just not efficient research. I don’t think libraries can compete.”
On the topic of ebooks, Turow talked about how he enjoys reading ebooks during airplane trips because he can have several titles accessible in a compact format. Ebooks have also provided advantages for publishers, he said, such as reduced costs for printing, warehousing, and shipping. But for authors, the ebook age has brought perils.
“Book piracy is becoming rampant,” Turow said. For a bestselling author who has the weight of a publisher behind him or her to enforce copyright, it is not as damaging as it is to those who sell on a smaller scale where margins are already thin.
Posner, whose current research includes intellectual property, called copyright “a tremendous blockage of access. Copyright is a terrible briar patch for authors, and a bonanza for lawyers. I know there is a downside, and I understand Scott’s defense of the Author’s Guild,” Posner said. But, he added, “Too much copyright protection hurts the author” by stifling free creative expression.
Listen to the full program (1:10:28) at Chicago Amplified on National Public Radio’s Chicago affiliate WBEZ.
