When a Library Isn't a Library

Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, posted an announcement late last week in response to so many people being stuck at home because of the pandemic. It reads, in part: "Today, the Internet Archive is working with hundreds of public, school and university libraries to digitize their core collections and make them freely available over the Internet... This week, the Internet Archive created a National Emergency Library of 1.4 million digitized books to serve the needs of students, educators and learners who can now access them from home." Clicking over to this so-called National Emergency Library, the only real explanation reads, in total: "Announcing the National Emergency Library, a collection of books that supports emergency remote teaching, research activities, independent scholarship, and intellectual stimulation while universities, schools, training centers, and libraries are closed."

All of this sounds very good and altruistic. Except maybe it isn't. Not exactly anyway. I'll let Hugo and Nebula award winner and writer of things like Marvel's Ghost-Spider, Seanan McGuire, explain...

Hey, so: libraries are good and legit and pay for the books they offer. This is why sometimes you have to wait. Because they are constrained by their budgets.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 29, 2020

What the Internet Archive is doing right now--allowing unlimited downloads of books under copyright, for which they have not paid, and have no legal right--is not serving as a library. It's piracy.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 29, 2020

I don't get all my bills forgiven forever because I'm an artist, making art for a living. I don't get a discount at the grocery store. I get paid when people buy my books.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 29, 2020

We need art. If this social distancing is driving anything home for us right now, it's that humans need art to survive. We feed on stories. We tell stories to distract from an empty belly, a cold house, or the fear of disease.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 29, 2020

(And no, I'm not saying only art matters. We need food, heat, and medical care more.)

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 29, 2020

But I'm as locked in right now as the rest of you. I'm fighting to keep telling stories while I'm so scared that I can't sleep at night.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 29, 2020

And people stealing my livelihood under the guise of being a respectable nonprofit providing a genuinely essential public service is just insult and monetary injury piled atop legitimate fear.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 29, 2020

This doesn't help me work. If the veil of "we're a real nonprofit" makes enough people think this is somehow okay, it could mean my publishers stop BUYING my work.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 29, 2020

All the services my publishers provide cost money. They need to make a profit on me not to drop me. That's the game.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 29, 2020

But if I get dropped, I stop writing. I start working a day job again, and maybe go back to fanfic or maybe die of a broken heart, I don't know.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 29, 2020

Humans thrive on stories, but stories lie to us, and all the stories about authors are Richard Castle. Millionaires who don't really work.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 29, 2020

I have no money. I pay the bills for three households at minimum. I support my cats. I work sixty hours a week, minimum. The current lock-in is the longest I've been able to stay home in years. I'm exhausted.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 29, 2020

People stealing my life's work in the guise of charity is wrong. It's cruel and it's petty, and it's wrong. Please don't steal from authors. Please don't steal from me. I don't steal from you.

Please.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 29, 2020

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