January 2001
Volume 16
Number 10
From Inside the Library: A Perspective on IT
Libraries have been discussed here and many other places in the context of re-organizations with IT departments. Issues on the digital side of librarianship are the express purview of organizations like the Coalition for Networked Information and D-Lib. But what is the view from a representative academic library, absorbed in the daily business of curriculum and research support? Librarians here follow the cutting-edge developments from a distance, although with interest. In this way librarianship is no different from any other profession. The purpose here is to look at the ways libraries have already changedCand are still changingCin response to information technology.
The bedrock of libraries has always been their collections. Now even that certainty has become less solid. Acquisitions continue, though slowed in some cases by restricted budgets and in most others by rising costs. Very few believe they need to acquire fewer books or other materials. Overall it is probably fair to say that fewer books are being purchased by libraries, but that trend is shaped in part by the patrons= requests for other Amaterials@: e.g., audio and video tapes, CD-based resources, and now DVD as well. For their part, librarians have moved resources from paper subscriptions to electronic, to stretch budget dollars but also to position libraries for what is anticipated to be an accelerating trend away from possession and towards assurance of access, mostly via electronic means.
There is other evidence that the notion of Acollection@ is crumbling. Inter-library loan has grown strongly in importance to supplement the holdings of every library. Few libraries, for that matter, stand alone today; most belong to regional associations or consortia. Online catalogs increasingly bring the ability to show listings (often HTML links) for materials not housed in the home collection.
There have even been speculations on what libraries might learn from the example of Amazon.com, where a combination of high technology and the lowest common denominator of demand shapes a new mode of books distribution. Are collections even necessary? Not far behind is Napster, where ownership itself seems in question as a precept. What future would libraries have, as institutions, if in the future information were exchanged in a minimally brokered or mediated system? These are the frontiers of thinking related to collections and by no means widely supported in the library community.
Collection and possession
Still, possession of printed paper is not what it used to be, neither as an
end in itself nor as the unquestioned means to assuring access. Regardless of
the merits of this trend, it is important to note that it has come about without
wide discussion in the academic community. In very few instances has a
deliberate policy of de-emphasizing the Ahome@
collection been undertaken. No library would care to be accused of taking that
direction, regardless of the rationale.
In effect, the capabilities brought to libraries by digital information technology have brought a near-crisis in the activity known as Acollection development.@ The term denotes a convergence of decisions and processes inside the library that result in purchases of books, periodicals, and other Amaterials.@ As noted above, to some extent the term has even been extended to include acquisition of access rights, on a license or subscription basis.
Collection development is in reality a fairly passive exercise: the budget for purchases is carved up and allocated to academic departments via a formula that is common to most academic libraries. Requests for new acquisitions trickle back to be charged against the departmental quotas. Not unusually, staff librarians supplement this process by adding selections according to their own judgment and sense of needs in the collection. It is not really as simple as that, but neither is it much more, in most cases.
Most academic libraries are overdue for a discussion of the criteria for collections development. The conversations needed are internal and externalCwithin the profession (and the local staff) and the faculty and students. What must be bought and held? What can be secured through some assurance of access short of physical possession? How do questions of medium (paper or electronic formats, for example) connect with choices of subject areas to be covered? What does the availability of all of ancient Greek literature in electronic form tell us about the urgency of buying (or replacing, repairing, and otherwise tending) paper books in Greek history and literature? That is pointedly controversial, to be sure, but not far afield from the discussions neededCand typically not taking place.
Stewardship
A second bedrock tenet of librarianship is, logically enough, stewardship
over the collected volumes. Here, too, the digital era has added special
pressures to what we normally consider a well-understood topic. Safeguarding the
condition of books, replacing lost volumes, repairing the worn or damagedCthese
tasks the library=s user community
takes for granted. But stewardship actually begins with the commitment to retain
books and other materials indefinitely, or nearly so.
With publication growing and diversifying at a pace that is literally impossible to comprehend (the Ainformation explosion@), by what criteria do we decide what still merits a place in the finite storage ranges of library buildings? Where is the library that could hope to build new additions fast enough to keep all of the old with all that we might hope to add?
On the smallest scale of decision-making comes the choice of whether to repair, replace, or just discard a worn book. Many of these happen to be art history booksCsome scholarly treatises with illustrations, others mostly collections of images with identifying information. In the latter case, at what point would we decide that accessible online collections lessen the need to keep that category of book? On the other hand, might Aprint on demand@ technology (digital collections of text ready to be sent to a book-printing device upon establishment of the right to copy or the payment of a royalty) restore the ability to own books that until now would only come back into print if attracted by a mass market? Stewardship is a topic that libraries and librarians might want to bring forward before the issues get more heated under pressure from constrained resources.
Catalog
The list or enumeration of the collection is also at the core of what we
understand a library to be. Originally constrained to what is owned and housed
by the library, it has been extended now to include works outside this scope,
let alone physical possession. This change is more public and recognizable than
the shifts and rumblings in collection development and stewardship.
But for librarians, the extended range of items contending for classification and inclusion causes disturbing difficulties. The most obvious of these is the sheer size of the task. Cataloging the Internet would be equivalent to bailing an ocean. But other challenges derive from the uncertainty of sources, the volatility of documents on an electronic network, and even the emergence of new document types (e.g., e-mail, threaded discussions, and multimedia).
To contend with these complications of traditional cataloging, librarians have developed online finding aids that stop short of the detail and authority of catalogs per se but still provide useful guidance. Lists of links to vetted information sources are another way in which the guide function of the catalog has been adapted to less tractable information.
Knowledge and guidance
Not to be overlooked, librarians themselves have always been essential to
our core concepts of what a library is and what it provides to its patrons.
While little more than a decade ago the library profession seemed strained to
accommodate itself to computers and networks, that challenge has receded.
Libraries have always included technical processes, and today=s
tools have not proven impossibly difficult for most librarians. For the most
part, library users do not need instruction as much with search engines and
navigational aids so much as with the identification and evaluation of sources.
It might seem something of a paradox, but in the age of vastly extended access to information, the needs of patrons have moved more toward help with the Acontent@ of the disciplines they are studying than with reaching that information.
The special challenge for bibliographic assistance in academic libraries today is to find ways to promote more active cooperation with faculty, who in many cases are also struggling with the greatly expanded scope of information available in their fields of study. All too often students come to the reference desk with questions that reveal just how disoriented they are andCby implicationCtheir instructors might be.
Opportunities
Most immediately and fundamentally, librarians must try to encourage and
lead campus discussions about how the core characteristics of libraries are
changing. For too long there has been a siege mentality, as libraries felt more
uncertainty and threat than had been known for quite a while.
Now the rest of the educational community is beginning to show signs of discomfort, while libraries are relatively better adjusted to the challenges of digital information.
Instructional outreach could be substantially increased and specialized for academic disciplines. The day of the general introduction to bibliographical resources has run its course. Improved partnership with faculty will be necessary to develop stronger offerings to students across the whole curriculum. The staffs of smaller libraries will undoubtedly need to rely on colleagues at regional and consortial neighbor institutions to help cover the spread of disciplines necessary.
The increasing use of courseware management software opens an ideal opportunity to explore a larger role in curricular support. CMS systems include electronic course reserves, shared Alibraries@ of HTML-based resources, and extensive opportunities to link and cross-reference information. In short, the task of marshaling, organizing, preserving, and exploiting greater amounts of information than in the past will open chances for librarians to work closely with classroom faculty.
Archives and special collections
Most libraries house archives and special collections that are seriously
under-used in the institution=s
instructional program. The reason to look at these with fresh eyes in the light
of digital technologies is that scanning, database, finding aids, and the Web
lift many of the barriers to using these materials in the curriculum. A real
opportunity exists for even small libraries (academic but also public) to bring
forward unique information that is generally kept locked away.
In the academic world, the true economy of the web consists of the exchange of information: giving as well as receiving. Until now much of the information brought into wider circulation via the web has been published materials transposed into digital format (e.g., topographic maps, back issues of journals, and scanned monographs). But ventures such as the American Memory Project and the American Social History Project have shown us how to convert all-but-forgotten information objects into compelling resources.
Librarians have the opportunity to revisit their archives and special collections in collaboration with faculty and students to assess how their contents might be used and made more accessible. In the era of networked information, the unique holdings of libraries represent a distinctive contribution most institutions can make to scholarship.
Technological explorations
Twenty years ago, librarians had to be dragged into the age of the network.
But today there is no reason why libraries should need to wait for others to
discover the utility of new tools that might well influence changes not yet
anticipated. Personal Digital Assistants (such as the Palm Pilot and
competitors) could have substantial potential as aids to gathering personalized
informationCespecially in their
ability to Azap@
information by infra-red broadcast. E-books, this year=s
hot item, open interesting questions about the future of reading media. Both of
these technologies are within the means of most libraries to acquire for
experimentation. Library buildings are good candidates for wireless Internet,
given the extent of space in them not yet networked and the fact that students
tend to colonize whatever useful spaces they can find in them.
IT and the Library
None of the above requires any organizational change for libraries.
Furthermore, most of these ideas fit within the long history of useful
adaptations and fundamental self-sufficiency that have been justifiably proud
traditions of libraries.
Rather than waiting until forced by circumstances or, worse, the late recognition of change on the part of faculty and students, libraries have good opportunities now to lead the discussion of their own futures. TW
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