Sarah E. Thomas and Carl A. Kroch
14.1 Introduction
A few years ago, a librarian at a major U.S. academic institution was drafting a charge for a university-wide task force that was, at the university librarian’s request, examining the organizational structure of the library for potential efficiencies. Seeking to convey the complexity of the modern library, she described the role of the information professional as “knowledge manager.”
She was hesitant about using the phrase, suspecting that the academics who would be participating in the review might construe it as jargon. Nonetheless, in the search for something that was more expansive in capturing the breadth of services librarians provide and that got beyond the simple equation of the library with the management of physical objects, she succumbed. To her chagrin, the draft charge, reviewed by a distinguished dean, came back with the words “knowledge management” crossed out and neatly replaced by the following sentence: “The library acquires and stores books.” She knew her road lay uphill.
The equation of libraries with books was underscored in the OCLC report Per- ceptions of Libraries and Information Resources (DeRosa, 2005) When asked to list two positive associations with the library, respondents in the OCLC survey most frequently named “Books” (18%), and when asked: ”What is the first thing when you think about a library,” approximately 70% named “books.” Libraries have contributed to the sense that books define them by emphasizing their vol- ume counts, with the clear implication being that the bigger the count, the more excellent the library. With the explosive growth of collections in the 1960s, library buildings constructed in the latter half of the 20th century often empha- sized towers of books stacks as a defining feature. In a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario, it sometimes seems that most library users think primarily of libraries as repositories for books and papers, while the larger pub- lic has already written off the warehouse function as obsolete, believing that the
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conversion of the world’s published and printed knowledge by Google and oth- ers is more than a satisfactory substitute for libraries.
14.2 Box of Books
The massive structures of university libraries often reinforce the concept of the library as principally a “box of books.” Carole Wedge, president of the centuries- old architectural firm Shepley Bulfinch, Richardson & Abbott, noted that most libraries were built as boxes to house print collections. At the same time she conceded that it was “unlikely there will be libraries without books for a long time.”
(Blumenthal, 2005) Large fortresses designed to hold millions of volumes effi- ciently, 20th-century libraries were dominated by their collections and the func- tions required to manage them. Thousands of square feet were dedicated to the card catalog, always located in a prominent space. Readers began their targeted searches here and made a virtue out of browsing because arcane rules and the limi- tations of the paper catalog so often frustrated their quest to find documents. An imperative for libraries was the adjacency of technical services staff to the card catalog, since they needed to be able to use and update this access tool to do their work. At the same time, their backroom labors were walled off from patrons, for whom the toil and expense of cataloging remained largely invisible. Circulation desks occupied the front lines, the first and last station encountered when entering and leaving the library, contributing to the idea of the library as an agent of control.
The placement of library assistants or student workers at this initial point of contact often strengthened the impression of librarianship as a clerical occupation.
These design features, as sensible as they were for their time, became liabilities in the Information Age. They tended to underscore a stereotypical and outdated view of libraries. Libraries were about storing and checking out books, and librarians were clerks and functionaries rather than professionals.
14.3 Information Access
At the same time this misperception of libraries was taking hold in the general public and even among some in the scholarly community, destabilizing changes were taking place in academic libraries. The increasing volume of titles published throughout the world and the rising cost of purchasing them made comprehensive collections unattainable. Many libraries, in response to economic pressures, shifted to promoting access to information over ownership of books, channeling resources first into interlibrary loans and increasingly, in to electronic collections. New technologies and digital resources made feasible a new concept of the library, one in which the physical library played an expanded role, in which storage options for books increased, and in which new services emerged to complement the expectations of the Internet society.
For a time, it was fashionable in the press to portray libraries as falling into a state of decline, with headlines such as “The Deserted Library” (Carlson, 2001)
or “Choosing Quick Hits Over the Card Catalog,” an article about students pre- ferring the “chaos of the Web to the drudgery of the library.” (Leibovich, 2000) Such reports reflected the transition of libraries from a largely book-dominated environment to one in which books were only one of many services, and where for some library clients, those other services ascended in importance.
In bricks and mortar libraries of the early 21st century, many changes are occur- ring. One of the most seismic is the transfer of millions of volumes to high-den- sity, non-browsable storage facilities located at the perimeter of campus or at some distance from the university center. Approximately one-third of Harvard University Library’s fifteen million volume collection, for example, is housed in the Harvard Depository Library. Major institutions are managing their collec- tions differently, as central locations, with few exceptions, most notably the Uni- versity of Chicago, can no longer accommodate growth. More commonly, libraries now separate high use material from low use, and they supplement access to remote materials by augmenting bibliographic records with table-of- contents data when feasible. New delivery models compensate for self-service or central library access. For example, at Cornell University, when a reader needs access to a chapter in a book or an article in a journal, library staff scan the portion of the document in question (always adhering to copyright regula- tions), and place the digitized version on a server, emailing the requestor that he can retrieve the item at his convenience. The ease and flexibility of this service have made it a preferred option for most library users, and have led to the intro- duction of similar services within on-campus libraries as a means of overcom- ing the fragmentation of collections in unit libraries in a world in which interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary scholarship is increasingly the norm.
The Johns Hopkins University, for instance, offers scan on demand to the desk- top and the “Eisenhower Express” for delivery of items from the library to departmental offices. The University of Virginia supports LEO (Library Express On-Grounds), a library-subsidized, free-to-faculty service that delivers library materials to departmental mailboxes.
Such services reflect what user surveys and other reviews of contemporary information-seeking behavior routinely document. Hundreds of libraries in the United States and abroad have used the LibQual survey instrument to collect data on service quality and to identify gaps between user perceptions of desired quality of service and the quality of service they experience at their local insti- tution. At Cornell three library surveys conducted over the past four years have guided the library in the development of its new services and in the allocation of its resources. Although those surveyed rated the Library’s services highly, often quite close to their ideal, there is room to improve in several areas.
LibQual respondents consistently indicated they wanted increased access to online resources, and that they wanted to be able to locate information on their own, rather than through an intermediary. Such results argue for allocating a greater proportion of the materials budget to electronic journals and databases and to investing more in improving web access so finding library resources, both collections and expertise, is more intuitive. Another question on the sur- vey, about where users seek information, demonstrates the increasing reliance on the web. Respondents report that their daily use of Google or another such
search engine is twice as frequent as their consultation of library web pages.
Although faculty use of the physical library is modest and in decline, under- graduates and grad students continue to visit libraries regularly and they seek sanctuary for quiet reading and writing as well as places where they can work together and use computers.
The LibQual results reflect aspects of differing ways various generations approach scholarship. Joan Lippincott of the Coalition for Networked Informa- tion has written and spoken extensively on the “net generation” students and the ways in which library services can best serve them. Lippincott notes that the millennials, as the cohort born in 1982 has sometimes been called, are “digital natives,” never having known a world without the Internet. The Net Generation is entirely comfortable with multimedia and has a strong visual and graphical orientation. They often learn by trial and error, like advancing through levels in video games, rather than by first mastering the instruction manual or reading the guide to the library. Highly social, they frequently work in groups, mix work and play, and multitask with ease. They are informal and seek comfort and con- venience. Taking into account the characteristics of NetGen students, Lippincott recommends integrating library resources within Google or other popular Internet search engines, incorporating visual cues and elements into library online services, designing services for delivering information on mobile devices, and creating physical environments that support both solitary and team-based learning styles (Lippincott 2005).
14.4 Transformation of Libraries and Librarians
As a result of changes in society and the expectations of their user communities, libraries have transformed themselves from repositories for books, organized around library functions that are meaningful to the cognoscenti but obscure to most, to service-oriented organizations that integrate physical and virtual cultures. Library buildings are changing dramatically in their use, and conse- quently, in appearance. Although books remain a valued, vital, and substantial element of library service, increasingly the proportion of user, staff, and collec- tion space in central facilities is shifting, with a larger share devoted to users.
Among the many new features that are becoming standard are cafés, where students and faculty alike tarry and mingle, taking advantage of wireless access, comfortable seating, and the amenity of food and drink.
At Cornell the café replaced the periodicals reading room, a sunny but desolate corner room that had experienced sharply declining usage in the last decade of the 20th century. The popularity of the café, with over 1000 customers per day, resulted in sharply increased foot traffic into the main humanities and social sciences library. Not entirely coincidentally, the library experienced a surge of 16% in the circulation of books housed within its walls. Following a relocation of the media center to the same centrally located facility, use of DVDs and other media soared as well. A new, smaller, but equally visible periodicals room, cre- ated out of a staff workroom, holds a pared-down inventory of journals, a
reduction made possible by the number of titles that can now be consulted elec- tronically. In deference to the need for quiet space, and as a counterweight to the busy humming of the café, the new periodicals room was designated a lap-top free quiet zone. At the same time, its modern incarnation enjoys the same soft upholstered leather chairs that users invariably turn to face outward along a broad swath of window, enabling students to observe the steady stream of Cornellians passing on one of the university’s most active pedestrian thorough- fares. Contemporary students prize “seeing and being seen” and the structured companionship of working alongside others.
New construction in academic libraries highlights the visibility of activity within libraries, often through the use of copious glass curtains which reveal what’s going on inside to those passing by and which connects those within to the larger community. In contrast to the protective concrete fortresses that shaded books in the past, modern libraries reveal a beehive of activity, with readers, students at computers, and other intellectual pursuits serving as invit- ing models that draw others in. As students now tend to begin their workdays later than in preceding generations and as they continue their reading and writ- ing until the wee hours of the morning, brightly illuminated libraries serve as beacons of warmth and security on what are often otherwise darkened central campuses. Libraries have accommodated the new student lifestyle with longer hours. At Cornell and many other academic libraries, at least one library build- ing stays open 24 hours a day several days per week. The safety of students and the challenging of staffing late night hours have been addressed at Cornell by hiring security guards from a firm that normally contracts with museums to supply gallery attendants. The library trains these individuals to provide a firm but gentle adult presence. Other major libraries, such as Engineering and the humanities and social sciences library, remain open until 2 am when the university is in session.
One of the most highly desired services is online access to information. Library now routinely offer wireless connectivity, lockers where laptops may be secured housed and recharged, loaner laptops, and vast rooms filled with computers known as “Information Commons.” At Indiana University the library and the University’s Information Technology Services are partnering to provide enriched computer access in 35,000 square feet located in two central library locations. Indiana describes the Information Commons as “a place for students to interact, get technology support and research assistance, attend technology or research workshops or classes and work together in groups or individually on course assignments.” (http://ic.indiana.edu/)
14.5 New Services
In addition to innovative use of their physical environments, libraries are devel- oping a host of new services, often in concert with faculty or IT operations, to meet the demand of any time, any place information and assistance. Social networking software, blogs, chat reference, and other forms of Internet-based
communication are becoming common means of supporting user needs. Refer- ence librarians are using MySpace and Facebook to become part of the commu- nities they serve and to engage students on the territory they inhabit. They establish mobile outposts with laptops and printers in residence halls and cafe- terias, as evidenced by reports of research librarians at Duke University (Dougan, 2005). They produce podcasts and infiltrate writing seminars and other classes to teach information literacy.
At Cornell new services include support to help researchers migrate data from superseded technologies to current modes of information capture and the cre- ation of Vivo (http://vivo.library.cornell.edu/) a virtual life sciences portal that connects researchers, laboratories, tools, and bibliographic infor- mation in a flexible gateway that unifies distributed and heretofore discon- nected resources at a highly decentralized university. Plans are underway to extend the concept of Vivo to other parts of the Cornell community, including international studies and the social sciences.
The Digital Consulting and Production Service, known as DCAPS (http://
dcaps.library.cornell.edu/), offers an array of assistance to clients, includ- ing faculty, graduate students, visiting researchers, and other institutions. To facilitate access to distributed expertise within the library and the university, the library has created a “one-stop shopping” approach that simplifies the effort of the client in getting a response to a question that often requires multiple inputs from organizations across the university. DCAPS staff will consult with individuals or teams writing grant proposals or planning projects that have dig- ital imaging or data management components. They respond to inquiries relat- ing to copyright and intellectual property, working in conjunction with the Counsel’s office. They provide the expertise in digitization that enable faculty to create a library of e-clips of interviews with entrepreneurs or a database of epig- raphy for classical scholars. As more of the research and teaching within the university has a digital component, they support data curation, archiving, and reuse, helping work rise from ephemeral to enduring and from individually- based to community-owned.
14.6 Collaboration
A growing area of support and collaboration for librarians lies in scholarly communication. Librarians disseminate information about authors’ rights, developments in open access, public policies in the information arena, and the economics of scholarly communication. Many libraries now manage institu- tional repositories (IR) as a service that captures, preserves, and makes acces- sible the intellectual output of a college or university, and they are working actively with departments and colleges to populate these databases. At Cornell there are several initiatives to support open or economical access to scholarly findings. In addition to supporting college-based repositories, such as Digital Commons @ILR (output from the College of Industrial and Labor Relations) or DSPACE, the IR for the university, the Cornell University Library has
reallocated over $300,000 annually to operate arXiv.org, the e-print server that holds over 400,000 articles in physics, computer science, mathematics, and quantitative biology. Hundreds of thousands of researchers around the world depend on the arXiv for up-to-date knowledge of new developments in their field.
The Cornell University Library also supports Project Euclid, a web service that hosts almost 50 journals in mathematics and statistics, including two of the top- ranked titles in math. The initiative was originally seeded and supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, but after five years has achieved sustainability, based on a business model that relies on publisher fees and user subscriptions to the online journals. Although not all content is free at the moment of first publication, about two-thirds of the articles in Project Euclid are available to all with an Internet connection without charge.
Software developed for Project Euclid has been generalized and extended by Cornell and the Pennsylvania State University Libraries with funding from the Mellon Foundation to support online content management of journals, confer- ence proceedings, and monographs. This software, known as DPubS, or Digital Publishing System (http://dpubs.org/) is now available as an open source product through SourgeForge.net. One of the applications for the software is to facilitate joint ventures between university presses and libraries. At Penn state, for example, the library and the press are collaborating on making available sev- eral online journals relating to the history of Pennsylvania and they have plans to develop support for other disciplines such as Romance Studies and nutrition.
Such activities require a close connection with disciplinary experts and with other entities, such as publishers, computer scientists, or information technolo- gists. Librarians are increasingly active in reaching out to others than they have been in the past, when their central role was to build, organize, manage, and pre- serve physical collections for primarily local and captive audiences. Today’s users are diverse and distributed, and as a result, libraries are transforming into highly interactive collaborative organizations. They use technology to integrate physical and virtual collections and services and to provide an expanding suite of convenient, customizable, and personalized information tools and products.
Library facilities reflect the trend in universities and in society to cater to a vari- ety of learning styles, and they are more frequently facilitating partnerships and collaboration by multiple academic entities, such as university presses, IT organizations, faculty, and researchers. In response to societal changes that tend to blur the distinction between work and intellectual activities, they accommodate aspects of both in their buildings. Their focus on the user and on tailoring their information products to the user’s preference stands in marked contrast to an earlier, more library-centric era. And, with users choosing to con- sult alternative information resources such as Google, libraries are responding to the pressure of competition. They are quickening the pace of change, becom- ing more experimental, federating resources with other institutions to offer a stronger, more comprehensive product, and marketing their services more aggressively and in a manner that seeks to differentiate them as specialized and uniquely valuable for their defined communities.