No, Abu Dhabi Is Not Paying To Digitize All of NYU's Library Holdings

Report exaggerated in student newspaper; rather, NYU plans digitization for collection development

Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 10/20/2009

• Student newspaper article picked up by the Chronicle
• Selective projects planned
• Abu Dhabi government paying for campus, library

An erroneous report yesterday in New York University’s student newspaper, Washington Square News, headlined NYUAD: All Bobst holdings will be digitized, claimed that the entire 5.1 million volumes in campus libraries would be digitized, courtesy of the government of Abu Dhabi, for use in NYU’s planned Abu Dhabi campus in the Persian Gulf.

Given that the purported announcement raised enormous questions about issues like cost and copyright, LJ queried NYU. Meanwhile, the article was picked up in the blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education, where two of three initial commenters also raised questions about copyright.

NYU response
Today, Josh Taylor, senior director, communications, NYU Abu Dhabi, sent a response to the Chronicle:

I encourage people to actually click over and read the Washington Square News story cited here in its entirety. This is a case of a reporter being 100-percent accurate with a quote, but drawing a wholly different conclusion than what she was actually told (or in this case, e-mailed).

From the story: "'We do plan on the future digitization of materials at Bobst, for access by those in Abu Dhabi, and elsewhere in the global network university, as curricular and research needs demand it,' NYUAD spokesman Josh Taylor wrote in an e-mail."

The final part of my quote is critical to understanding our long-term thinking on the subject. Digitizing for digitization’s sake isn’t a sound academic or economic strategy. However, digitizing as we identify specific curricular and research needs that would benefit from students and faculty being able to access materials in a city other than their own is an essential component of NYU’s vision for the global network university.

NYU Library dean: “digital collection development”
NYU Library dean Carol Mandel today told LJ that “our plan, pending more approvals, is to do some significant selected appropriate digitization projects. The first priority is that they serve curricular and research needs.” Other factors, she said, include accessibility, having appropriate permissions, and not duplicating work already done elsewhere.

While Mandel was not ready to discuss the size or cost of the project, she said that it was not, as implied in the article, mass digitization but rather “more akin to digital collection development.” Small projects, she said, could begin this year or next.

Because the government of Abu Dhabi is paying for the new university, the library digitization would be built into the costs, Mandel said. “It certainly supports more than we might have done previously,” she said, noting that previous digitization projects have been very selective or grant-funded

The first class of students in Abu Dhabi will gather at a temporary campus in the fall of 2010. The main campus should open in 2013.

Contact the author: noder@reedbusiness.com

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