After the Book (eBook)

Information Services for the 21st Century

George Stachokas (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF | EPUB

2014 | 1. Auflage
224 Seiten
Elsevier Science (Verlag)
978-1-78063-405-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Libraries and librarians have been defined by the book throughout modern history. What happens when society increasingly lets print go in favour of storing, retrieving and manipulating electronic information? What happens after the book? After the Book explores how the academic library of the 21st Century is first and foremost a provider of electronic information services. Contemporary users expect today's library to provide information as quickly and efficiently as other online information resources. The book argues that librarians need to change what they know, how they work, and how they are perceived in order to succeed according to the terms of this new paradigm. This title is structured into eight chapters. An introduction defines the challenge of electronic resources and makes the case for finding solutions, and following chapters cover diversions and half measures and the problem for libraries in the 21st century. Later chapters discuss solving problems through professional identity and preparation, before final chapters cover reorganizing libraries to serve users, adapting to scarcity, and the 'digital divide'. - Describes how electronic resources constitute both a challenge and an opportunity for libraries - Argues that librarians can re-define themselves - Puts the case that libraries can be reorganized to optimize electronic resource management and information services based on contemporary technology and user needs

George Stachokas is the Electronic Resources Librarian at Auburn University. Prior to this he served as Head of Resource Services and Special Assistant to the Dean for Project Management at Purdue University - West Lafayette, Electronic Resources Librarian at Indiana State University and Chair of the Resource Advisory Committee of the Academic Libraries of Indiana (ALI) consortium. His research interests include electronic resources management, organizational change in libraries, and collection development. George holds an MLIS degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an MA in History from Indiana State University, and a BS in Economics from Purdue University - West Lafayette.

Textauszug

2

Diversions and half measures

Abstract

Despite the shift to electronic information, many libraries are still organized in ways that have not fundamentally changed since the 1970s. More personnel in technical services still manage print resources instead of electronic resources. The hybrid library, previously a useful concept, is now a distraction that is delaying the transition to fully electronic service.

Key words

electronic library

electronic resources

hybrid library

information as object

library as place

resistance to change

Modern librarians have changed quite a bit since the late nineteenth century. Card catalogs have been replaced by OPACs and more recently by sophisticated discovery services such as Encore, Primo, EDS, and Summon. Print subject indexes were replaced by CD Rom and later by searchable online databases. Gazetteers, almanacs, and encyclopedias have yielded to their more convenient online versions. Most government information in the USA is now produced in electronic form. Electronic Resources Librarians, Emerging Technology Librarians, Metadata Librarians, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Librarians, and Bioinformatics Specialists are just some of the new types of professionals who owe their new positions to the increasing use of electronic resources.

While libraries have changed with the times, have they changed enough? Has change in libraries kept pace with changes in technology, user needs, and preferences? That is a difficult question to answer and libraries vary quite widely in their overall adaptability, but more often than not the answer is probably no. Well established libraries continue to operate as if their physical facilities do not need to change and seem to resist fundamental reform and reorganization. Instead, a number of models that were previously progressive, such as the hybrid library, continue to distract librarians from the need to develop viable fully electronic libraries.

Library as place

Library as place has been a concern for many librarians almost as soon as the first computer appeared in libraries. What is the role of the library as a physical structure when the storage and retrieval of physical items becomes less important? With the exception of special libraries and branches of larger libraries, most public and academic librarians are used to being able to work in, identify with, and consider at least one building as their library. The literature of library as place is rich and diverse, with many different perspectives, including those who argue that the library should no longer be a physical place at all.

Change is not decline

William F. Birdsall argues that the library must retain its physical presence as a means of garnering support, especially for public libraries, through the power of imagery and the appeal to the senses that monumental public buildings can evoke in users (Birdsall, 1994, pp. 68–9). Fried Weise also notes the power of the physical library as a symbol of learning and a direct connection to our collective intellectual past (Weise, 2004). William Gosling, writing at the end of the last century, predicted that libraries would continue to need to provide books and other on-site services to meet the needs of students in academic libraries for many years to come (Gosling, 2000).

Turning again to the question of how books and other physical materials are actually used, there is considerable evidence that circulation of print items has sharply declined during the last 20 years. Charles Martel has looked at these statics from a number of sources, including ARL, the National Center for Education Statistics, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries, as well as specific institutions such as the University of Maryland and California State University (Martell, 2008). Drawing on just a few examples, ARL has reported that circulation in medical libraries has fallen from 4,849,000 in 1995 to 2,056,000 in 2006, while circulation fell 26 percent in libraries of the Association of Southeastern Research Librarians from 1999 to 2006 (Martell, 2008). Circulation for Ivy League institutions, private universities, and ACRL were relatively flat showing increases of around 2 percent during roughly the same period (Martell, 2008), but this could reflect a delay in developing online services across the very large ACRL group.

Writing around the turn of the century, Scott Carlson noted how many academic library buildings seemed deserted in 2001. Circulation, usage of print materials, fell by 20 percent from 1997 to 2001 while reserve loans had fallen by 60 percent. Meanwhile, usage of electronic journal articles had increased by 350 percent since 1999 and searches in databases by 800 percent (Carlson, 2001). Carlson discussed how librarians were beginning to relax rules, install comfortable furniture, and even offer spaces for socialization and recreation like cafes in order to keep gate counts high, although noting that evidence was unavailable regarding the impact on the learning experience (Carlson, 2001).

Change is not decline. Libraries responded to the challenge of electronic resources with new efforts at space planning in the early 2000s. Joseph Rizzo summarized four underlying considerations that must be addressed when planning library space: (1) choice – meaning space that is comfortable and convenient for users; (2) community – the need for human interaction; (3) communication; and (4) and expectations – does the space feel right to users? (Rizzo, 2002). Academic libraries should be reorganized as campus hubs with different spaces for welcoming students, socialization, collaborative learning, and reflective learning, as well as physical collections. Snack bars, presentation rooms, and artistic displays that show positive attributes of the academic institution were other possible uses of space (Rizzo, 2002). A case study of the Loughborough University Library in the UK raised questions about the tension between communal space that can be used for contemplation and personal study with social space that lends itself well to conversation and group work, but not necessarily intensive work (Bryant et al., 2009). While many academic libraries in North America, the UK, and Oceania now have designated quiet areas, implementation may not be successful if the library is too small or attempts to include too many different types of space in a limited area.

Any discussion of the library as place must also consider the hybrid library, a concept developed in the 1990s that sought to combine the best features of the traditional library with the electronic or digital library. Essentially, libraries would continue to provide print collections while increasing the number of electronic resources (databases, online journals, and increasingly e-books). Another underlying assumption has been the ongoing need to improve library web pages and search and discovery tools. Arguably a half-way step between a traditional and fully electronic library, the hybrid library assumes the continued importance of the library as a place. The US Digital Libraries and the Electronic Libraries Program (eLib) in the UK are just some examples of digital library initiatives that were launched during this period. Charles Oppenheim and Daniel Smithson studied the development of hybrid libraries in the UK in the late 1990s and discovered there was considerable diversity of opinion regarding what a hybrid library should be in practice (Oppenheim and Smithson, 1999). One of the main problems in implementing hybrid libraries was cultural, not technological, as library staff and some users were resistant to innovation (Oppenheim and Smithson, 1999).

Does function follow form?

To some extent, all libraries have faced the problem of adapting changes in function to less than flexible organizational structures. Some staff members who had worked in libraries for decades suddenly found that their skills and experience were no longer necessary for the library to fulfill its mission in the 1990s. Shelving books, checking out books, applying labels, opening boxes, and preparing shipments to the bindery are all tasks that do not require advanced skills, although a good aptitude for customer service, tact, and the ability to work well with others would certainly be helpful. Even many libraries in the twenty-first century continue to have veteran staff members who are arguably not well prepared to take jobs in other industries as their own work is made redundant by automation, electronic resources, and changes in service. As a result, change sometimes occurs more slowly than administrators, professionals, and users would like. Fundamental change, even when systemic efforts are made, is often distorted as a kind of practical compromise in which function follows form rather than the other way around. I will not cite any specific examples for obvious reasons, but as a general case, one might consider situations in which work that could be performed by one person is shared by three or four due to historical divisions between workflows or departmental organizations. Worse yet would be work that is simply not performed or performed very slowly.

Oded Nov and Chen Ye have studied how resistance to change (RTC) has influenced the development of digital and hybrid libraries. Measures of personal differences of library personnel such as computer self-efficacy, computer anxiety, and RTC...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.9.2014
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Buchhandel / Bibliothekswesen
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Unternehmensführung / Management
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Wirtschaftsinformatik
• ISBN-10: 1-78063-405-6 / 1780634056
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78063-405-0 / 9781780634050