The Gateway of the Database

Last week while browsing through the many feeds from blogs on my Google Reader, I came across a curious couple of contradicting entries offering apparently opposing perceptions on an issue that could soon confront readers and writers in literary journals, and ought to be a source of ongoing conversations. The pair of posts seemed to need each other for complete appreciation. Indeed, the two posts—“The Graveyard of the Database” by Kevin Prufer at Critical Mass and “Library Hack: lit mags, free” by Emily Lloyd at Poesy Galore—drew me into an unintended discussion with one another.

I was interested in Prufer’s remarks, especially since I admire his poetry and the publication he edits, Pleiades. I also found Lloyd’s comments constructive, particularly because I once worked as an editor at a print journal, and I have long wondered about how the best literary magazines could become more available to wider audiences. I recommend both posts.

In his statement, Prufer laments the drift of literary journal issues at libraries from paper copies to their presence on a database. He notes how his own university has canceled individual subscriptions to various journals—including Antioch Review, Kenyon Review, Sewanee Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review—in favor of making those publications available in a database. Prufer objects to this trend and questions the consequences such a shift may create. His conclusion: “beyond my own admittedly sentimental attachment to the printed page, there are a number of reasons why this is a bad thing.” Although I share with Prufer the sentimental attachment to paper volumes of magazines and prefer turning pages of a print journal, I cannot go so far as to share Prufer’s determination that this trend is necessarily “a bad thing.”

The rationale offered for Prufer’s evaluation begins with his opinion that literary journals differ from scientific journals or other publications found in databases because “magazines like The Kenyon Review” appeal “to a general audience.” Prufer doesn’t define what he means by “general audience”; however, since he contrasts the readership of literary journals with the “limited audience of scholars and scientists” he sees reading other publications present in a database, I can only ascertain Prufer imagines anyone who might like a good story, a quality poem, or even some critical commentary on contemporary literature would be among that general audience.

But doesn’t the expansion of availability made possible by the universal reach of databases enlarge the potential readership for literary journals? How many members of the reading public, who could be counted among the wider audience previously defined, have until now practically lacked access to most literary journals, whose limited distribution (except for the rare few one might find at a nearby Barnes & Noble store) leads to their being stocked only in university libraries or various specialized bookstores usually located in large cities or university towns?

As Emily Lloyd indicates, through the use of a database at one’s local library branch, all readers among the “no-longer-have-access-to-academic-libraries crowd” now can find the full texts of many literary journals that otherwise would be beyond a general audience’s grasp, including “American Poetry Review, The Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Chicago Review, The Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, etc.” Lloyd humorously points out: “Yes—you can be mildly disgusted by the current issue of Poetry for free without having to skim it surreptitiously at Barnes & Noble.”

But what of other concerns raised by Prufer? Through a comment contributed by Kevin Morrissey, the managing editor of Virginia Quarterly Review, Prufer suggests print editions of journals could become marginalized by the widespread access in databases. However, later in the blog post Prufer also cites Meg Galipault, the managing editor at Kenyon Review, as observing thus far no measurable impact on magazine sales due to the journal’s presence in a database.

Galipault does speculate: “I suspect, though, that eventually libraries will do away with periodicals completely and only offer access through the online services they subscribe to.” However, her comments cannot be seen as any indication the review’s overall readership will decline. On the contrary, the audience could grow as it becomes accessible to many more potential readers. Such a possible growth in exposure of literary journals to a greater contemporary audience also seems to argue against another of Kevin Prufer’s worries voiced when he wonders: “To offer these only on databases may be wonderful for researchers fifty years from now, but probably at the expense of the contemporary readership for whom they are intended.”

Also, when he quotes Ted Genoways, editor of Virginia Quarterly Review, as to the fact that some elite authors’ works (the examples delivered are a nonfiction piece by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and a fiction piece by Isabel Allende, both represented by the same agent) may not be available because their agent won’t allow “electronic rights,” that seems to me more a problem necessitating further negotiations with the agent, who should be willing to adapt with the technological transition much the way musicians have done. The fact that I can access online the latest releases by most musicians, including videos of them performing their songs, only increases attention in a new and larger audience, and brings greater interest in their other works.

On the other hand, Prufer provides an excellent point that characteristics associated with some special issues of literary journals could not be accurately reproduced in a database. He quotes Genoways: “comics by Art Spiegelman don’t translate well—and certainly the inserts and fold-outs we’ve run can’t really be digitized at all.”

I will acknowledge my own regular reliance on databases for much of my reading of recent journals. Just as I am now pleased to be able to read nearly any newspaper from all geographical regions (something impossible in the past), I also am delighted that I have access from my laptop at home to so many journals, more than my library could ever afford in individual subscriptions. I also will confess that due to my repeated requests the last twenty years or so, the university library still continues a fair share of subscriptions to literary journals I had recommended; however, ironically, now when I try to view these reviews from afar on my computer, I’m sometimes frustrated by the message that a particular journal is not available in the database because my university’s library still stocks it in the stacks of the periodicals room.

Another irony presents itself in the two posts by Kevin Prufer and Emily Lloyd. Prufer, editor of Pleiades, laments the transition of some of his other favorite literary journals to database, whereas Lloyd closes her comments by lamenting that not all literary journals are yet available on database: “if only it had the full text of Pleiades . . ..” Additionally, there appears to be a bit of irony in the way I arrived at Kevin Prufer’s thoughtful commentary, remarks I found only because they were posted on a blog and were among those stored among the numerous feeds to which I subscribe.

I do not believe the literary magazine will disappear as a result of technological evolution, though a few changes may occur. Almost all print literary journals have a presence on the web, and many permit access to their publications in electronic format as well. In some cases, full texts and archives are accessible, and occasionally additional elements allowed by the format, such as audio and video or simple linking to other texts, actually enhance the journal’s presentation. Admittedly, my students probably are more comfortable reading electronic media than I am, and future generations of readers might find no difference between the electronic text or the printed page.

Nevertheless, like Prufer, I enjoy reading the printed page; therefore, I continue my subscriptions to some journals I could read online. But I cannot afford to subscribe to all the journals I’d like to read, and neither can my university library. In the opening of his message, Prufer reveals he only visited the periodicals floor of his university’s library to look at the journals because “it had started to rain and I was on campus anyway.” In fact, at this time of year, as during other vacation periods, nearly all students and faculty in the university community are traveling elsewhere and unable to visit the library’s periodicals room; therefore, the library’s database provides a continuous presence for online reading anywhere at anytime of the year. Even during the academic year, I frequently find myself after hours or on holidays taking advantage of the convenience of reading the journals in the online database available from my library.

Hardcover books did not disappear with the introduction of cheaper and more convenient paperbacks, and home theaters have not wiped out presentations of films on the silver screen. In fact, the television networks are now making some of their shows available online, and I no longer have to worry about forgetting to record Kiefer Sutherland’s attempts to save the world when I am not home, perhaps away at a poetry reading, because I can catch them on my laptop the next day. In the spirit of this week’s previous posts concerning the Fourth of July, Walt Whitman, and democracy, I’d like to think free universal access of literary journals to readers provided by database inclusion at all libraries may eventually lead to a more democratic distribution of literature.

Perhaps I am too optimistic, but I hope the future will supply a situation that satisfies the desire for more availability of journals online free for everyone as requested by Emily Lloyd, yet allays those legitimate concerns correctly raised by Kevin Prufer. Moreover, I would like to see an environment in which Prufer would no longer consider his reviews published by magazines universally available for reading online as “destined immediately for the graveyard of the database.” Instead, I’d prefer to view a future in which all literary journals, including Prufer’s fine Pleiades, are democratically available for Emily and me, and all others. I’d like to discover that writers, editors, and readers then will perceive not “the graveyard of the database,” but the gateway of the database.