‘Cultural heritage’ and radical forgeries: Two less-common arguments against digitization

When you think of the people adamantly opposed to digitization, and their motivation for that position, who comes to mind? Greedy corporate executives, perhaps?

Talking with people at the Hilandar Research Library at The Ohio State University about attitudes among curators, however, I have learned of a surprising group of people just as staunchly opposed to digitization, on very different grounds.

Unlike most in their profession, some librarians in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe are opposed not only to digitization of medieval Slavic manuscripts, but any form of distribution. Their reason essentially boils down to politics, but it’s a far more nuanced case than big businesses buying longer copyright terms.

Cultural heritage

The Hilandar Research Library has the world’s largest collection of medieval Slavic manuscripts on microform, amounting to more than 2 million pages.

The library’s collection includes microfilms from the city of Saratov, in Russia. A former closed city, it served as a storing house for manuscripts in addition to a military aircraft manufacturing site. The request for microfilms of these manuscripts, with the motive of preserving the text in some way and making it accessible to scholars, was met with suspicion by the manuscripts’ caretakers and the local community. They viewed the manuscripts as part of the country’s cultural heritage, which no one should use to make money. As it turns out, the library runs off an endowment, and provides photocopies to scholars without charge.

Nonetheless, the librarians in Saratov insisted, and the terms of use were established. No photocopies can be made. If a scholar is willing to come to Columbus, Ohio, and sit in front of a microfilm machine, he or she may read the manuscripts. With the thought that microfilm could be copyrighted, but the contents of medieval manuscripts couldn’t possibly be, I requested permission to type one up, but was denied on the grounds that it would “violate the spirit of the agreement.” Limited portions of manuscripts may be typed, as a sort of scholarly fair use. As a result, these manuscripts will remain largely inaccessible and unstudied.

Changing history

Even those generally unopposed to photocopy distribution of manuscripts tend to be wary of digitization. Even with something as rudimentary as Microsoft Paint, one can fairly convincingly modify a scan of a microfilm and rewrite the history of the region. In places where national, linguistic, and ethnic groups have fought for decades or centuries over their claim to a certain land, retouched “ancient” manuscripts could add fuel to an already dangerous fire.

Were this possibility likely, then the general hesitation about digitizing the microfilm would certainly be understandable. However, one must take into consideration that most, if not all of those who would buy into doctored manuscripts and ignore the rebuttal of actual scholars are so fanatical as to believe anything that supports their cause–even without the “proof” of a doctored microfilm. Furthermore, these individuals generally lack the training in linguistic history to do a halfway-convincing job, making the “forgeries” a joke to anyone except the most extreme radicals who wouldn’t be able to understand them anyway. Looking at the situation in real terms instead of hypotheticals, it seems that this argument against digitization doesn’t hold up. But rational or not, this remains a point of concern for librarians.

Who wins? Who loses?

Unlike the copyright clampdowns for personal gain that we see from large corporations, I feel like there are no winners in this case of distribution restriction. Preserving cultural heritage is very important, but how much richer would that heritage be if scholars were more freely able to study and provide insight into it. Perhaps journal publishers might agree to donate back to the Saratov library a reasonable percentage of the profits from any issue containing a paper using those texts. Or, the library could put together its own nonprofit journal for those articles, although that scenario could easily deteriorate into censorship.

If the microfilm images were digitized, the “winners” would be the scholars and, indirectly, the public at large as more research is done on their collective cultural heritage. The lunatics would gain little from forgeries–if they took the time to create them–as they could only “preach to the choir.” Withholding the images means scholars and the public lose out, while the ultra-nationalists simply gain nothing they can’t do already.

A possible solution

Even if the argument against digitizing the microfilm images were to hold, there is no argument whatsoever against making transcriptions of these manuscripts available online for scholars. Without the manuscript images, the only possible “forgeries” would be simply text. Scholars working with the Saratov manuscripts could perhaps publish in a non-profit (web-based?) journal, giving appropriate credit to the Saratov library and sending the library a copy of their paper. The Hilandar Library could put its time and money towards transcribing manuscripts once, instead of running through ink and paper making many photocopies. In this way, it could become an even better resource, and more easily reach scholars worldwide.

The widespread use of the printing press resulted in a reconceptualization of the book. The modern printed book is generally read by one person over a relatively short period of time. In contrast, handwritten manuscripts were meant to be read by many people over a long period of time. If manuscript content were available in a Unicode and xml-based format, it could return to its original domain of use, only more accessible. Until political attitudes change, however, these manuscripts must continue to be read on microfilm in the Midwestern United States, or at best, on photocopies made and shipped out time and again.