10 posts tagged “lis articles”

I am honestly not sure what to make of this. This webinar, "'Big Challenges (and Opportunities) for Academic Libraries" (see the link here for some details) was something our director pretty much made us watch recently. I honestly expected a lot more given that a reason our director was making us watch it was as a prelude to upcoming work on strategic planning. I was not impressed by the content, and at times I found it a little condescending. Some of the (supposedly) revolutionary ideas they presented were things we have been doing already for years. Even when the boss managed to get through on the phone line to ask a question, asking the "now what?" (after we have done all that) question, we did not get a clear answer. The article by Walton (see citation below), which was the basis of the seminar, was not that much better.

One of my colleagues, who is a recent hire, commented that much of the presentation and article was a "fear" presentation, namely one of those gloom and doom presentations where they speculate about the fall of the library. And there is enough in the article to show that a lot of administrators, including Walton, contrary to his claims, who would not miss the library as we know it were it close tomorrow. Walton may claim he is in touch with libraries, but he is a consortium administrator. He has not been in the trenches for a while. So when he asks a question such as "is a great academic library based primarily in a great collection?" then answers that access is more important than ownership and does not address materials other than to reduce books and print, I have to wonder. Because where I currently work, there is nothing more embarrassing than having a student ask if we have books on X topic only to have to turn them away because we either do not have them (a very likely scenario for certain topics) or we have it as an e-book, in which case they look at you as if you just insulted their parentage (this happens fairly often too, and it will likely keep on happening as we increase electronic holdings in favor of print. Not a choice I really agree with, but I don't make that decision). Walton seems to agree with the assessment from other administrators that "books, except entertainment reading, were eventually going away" (page 90 in the article).And this is just one example. There is a lot in this presentation that seems alarmist and at times a bit overgeneralizing.

For the McCombs segment of the presentation, I just wanted to go down her list and say, "we do that, we do that, we do that other thing, that thing over there did not work," so on. I found it to be nothing more than restatements of the obvious. Allow to use some examples (quotations are from her presentation):
 

• "Created the 24/7 experience." This has been suggested in our campus a few times. It is just not going to happen. Unless there is a major hiring spree of extra staff to keep the library open, security to keep it safe, additional measures to lock down parts of the building, and so on, not happening. Those things cost money for one (something that McCombs did not mention anywhere in the presentation), and while some members of our administration like the idea (mostly because they do not have to stay late hours), in reality, they are not about to cough up funds or resources to make it happen. We don't do this literally, but we get close given our hours, plus the many resources on our website that are online 24/7.
  
• "Develop specific and unique connections with student life." This is one of the reasons my position was created: Outreach Librarian. I am constantly seeking ways to develop those specific and unique connections with student life. From maintaining relationships with campus groups and students to implementing, administering, and maintaining most of the library's 2.0 initiatives, I can say we do that already. Tell me what's next, don't just tell me something I know already. Yes, we do that.
  
• "Seen as innovative technology leaders." It must be nice when your campus (SMU in her case) has the resources to build an information commons or a student multimedia center. We barely managed to convert a conference room into a small practice presentation room for students to use. With significant effort and push by our instruction librarian, we finally got a hands-on teaching classroom for library instruction, a room that we do have to share with at least two other campus organizations (instructional design and interactive television) as part of the Faustian deal. And we had to fight for those things pretty much every step of the way, and let's not even add that the library has no control over a substantial amount of its space. We are working on this, but not easy.
  
• "Strong faculty support." With a few exceptions, this is pretty much non-existent. And it is not for a lack of effort on our part. Our director has put a lot of thought and effort into implementing a librarian liaison program for academic departments. Our librarians strive to work with faculty to meet their needs in various ways, and very often, we are met with derision, indifference (which seems to be the attitude of choice), and/or insults (I have been called incompetent a few times by them, for instance). When I hear that "strong faculty support" is some panacea, I just want to know how do you overcome their overall disrespectful attitudes for openers. Don't just tell me you need to have "strong faculty support." Give me specific steps to build it, or how to work around things when it is lacking. Not everyone works in the same utopian campus where faculty all fawn over the library. Lacking, but to be honest, not our fault.
  
• "Close relationship with central technology support services." Considering that we cannot even get our campus IT people to even make a phone call when they are doing some upgrade to the network or computer systems, I don't think this one is coming any time soon either. I could go on and rant about the many ways IT treats the library as an after thought or a bother, but I have more I need to write about. Lacking, but again, not our fault (communication and common courtesy are a two-way street. This is another thing that I often do not hear from many of these bright-eyed speakers).
  
• "Special Collections involved with faculty for both programming and research support." Our Archivist has been hard at work at this, considering that she has pretty much had to build Special Collections and Archives from the ground up. I think this recent success of hers illustrates very well how our archives department is involved. Yes, we do that.
  
• "Connections with the administrative community." To an extent, this is part of my job as well since I do a lot of the PR work for the library, so I strive to keep the administrative community informed. Our director spends a lot of time working with administrators as well. Yes, we do that.  
• "Do not shy away from the big assignments." Oh really? Our librarians work on various campus committees, and we have done work in things as big as accreditation. A few of the librarians, including myself, were on various committees dealing with the accreditation process. Yes, we do that. 
• "Volunteer." Yes. We do that too. 
• "Create networks of advocacy." Again, part of my job for one, especially in dealing with students. Something our instruction librarian does with her students. Something the archivist does with potential clients, faculty, and campus. So does our director. Yes, we do that. 
• "Be available to represent the university in any number of forums." To the extent this is possible, yes, we do that. 
• "DO NOT WHINE." I may vent, but I do not whine. I, along with colleagues, put my money where my mouth is. I just wish others would do the same. Expressing frustration over a lack that, more often than not, you have no control over, is not whining. Give me your resources, your information commons, and your very supportive faculty, and I will build you castles. I can only work with what I have. Yes, we do (or not do) this too. 

Even Mendoza, who represented a community college, did not tell me much new, and she added to the alarmist tone. Her presentation in terms of suggestions was pretty much fairly similar to McCombs.

So again, I am not sure what to make of this. Maybe I am just not the audience for this presentation since I happen to be pretty well read when it comes to the LIS literature as well as being familiar with the various reports cited like ECAR and OCLC. In this day and age, are there really libraries out there that need to be told this kind of thing? In a way, this was not too different than the times when my school district, back in the days when I was a school teacher, decided to have some teacher in-service day and inflict some "motivational" speaker (who very often had not been in a classroom for ages or not at all) to come tell us how to run our classrooms. So much for change. 

Anyhow, my two cents for what little they may be worth.

Oh, almost forgot, the citation for Walton's article:

Walton, Robert, "'Big' Challenges (and Opportunities) for Academic Libraries." Texas Library Journal (Fall 2009): 88-90.

Update note (10/29/09): Here is a link to the Jim Neal "New Directions" (link to YouTube video) speech that is mentioned in the webinar. Unless you are really curious, don't bother. It's an almost hour and half soporific presentation by an administrator from a large campus (read very well funded) telling the rest of us (who are nowhere near as well funded) what to do. I inflicted it on myself, and I could certainly write a whole post just replying to it, but to be honest, I am a bit tired of this whole affair. Some of us have to actually work for a living.  

I am posting this here because it seems Blogger is having another one of its "I am not working" days. I need to seriously consider moving my main blog someplace else. Unfortunately, here is not really an option since they restrict comments to registered users, something I dislike. Anyhow, here is the post.

I am not sure where I want to go with this piece. Initially, I just wanted to do a basic note on the article for my professional blog, but then I was interested in the questions the article posed. I listed the questions as part of the note. I guess I would like to expand the piece and answer the questions, using them as a way to explore a bit about how I think about reference services and collections. Maybe it would go along with the eventual statement of philosophy for librarianship I would like to finish writing out someday. Of course, as usual, time is a bit tight for me at the moment to work on a good draft, so I am storing it here for now in the hopes I can revisit it later.

Colson, Jeannie. "Determining Use of an Academic Library Reference Collection: Report of a Study." Reference and User Services Quarterly 47.2 (Winter 2007): 168-175.

Read via WilsonWeb.

With the summer over, the weeding in the reference collection is done for the moment. There are still items that can go, but they will have to wait until next summer (probably) when I might have some time for the project. Then again, given certain changes going on, I may either get back to it a lot sooner (if the space issue suddenly becomes more urgent), or we might put it off further in the future (if other things take precedence). I will spare my two readers the details. At any rate, this article goes well with some others I have been reading on the topic of reference collections and weeding (see here and here for examples).

In brief, the article describes a five-year shelving study at a small academic library. The study does not seem hard to replicate, and the author does include lessons learned from the study. What caught my eye was some of the questions that the study prompted, questions drawn from references in the literature review of the article (goes back to Nolan's 1991 article on "The Lean Reference Collection" published in C&RL).

Some of the questions I wanted to ponder on:

• What is the intended purpose of a reference collection?
  
• Should a librarian limit selection of reference items to the heavy use areas? Should areas with lesser use be weeded out with no new additions? What about new areas of knowledge?
  
• What about subject bibliographers? What is their role in ensuring a balanced collection? Should they select items because they are "right" or because they will be used?
• As for the Z call number range, like the author, I think subject bibliographies should be in their subject area to facilitate browsing and finding by the users.
  
• From the article, to consider: "Generally, online databases do not contain the content found in the high-quality volumes that populate academic reference collections. If print reference use is decreasing, can it be assumed that our students, faculty, and even librarians are less scholarly in their quests for information?" (174). I don't think it is as simple as that. A lot of the content in Gale books, to pick an example, is present in their virtual collections, which means, in theory at least, we could stick with the electronic and do without their print. But, having said that, it is not always the case. There are a lot of good print reference sources without an online counterpart.
  

Citation for the article:

McKnight, Susan. "Are There Common Academic Customer Values?" Library Management 29.6/7 (2008): 600-619.

Read via Emerald.

The only reason I read this article is because it was suggested in the LibQual+ listserv that I now have to follow. Since I am helping out in my library with the upcoming survey, which we are using as supporting material for the accreditation process (actually, they call it "reaffirmation" now), I am signed up to get their little e-mails. Anyhow, this article citation came in, and I found it. Though the title seemed promising, the article itself is pretty much very technical and a summary of observations/survey items more than anything else. For those of us with a more practical mind (i.e. like Joe Friday, we say, "just the facts, ma'am"), you may as well skip ahead to the conclusion to get the answer.

• The article's key question was: "Is there a core set of academic library values?" (600-601). This is from the article's opening. After you go through the methodology, the different tools used in addition to LibQual+, so on, you finally get your answer.
  
• The answer is yes (617). And the author is even helpful enough to list these core values. I am quoting them directly from the article on pages 617-618:
  
1. "appropriate library space"
   
2. "competent staff"
   
3. "core reading list materials"
   
4. "relevant collection (books and journals)"
   
5. "access tools, e.g. catalogue, online databases"
   
6. "communication of services via web site, signage and guiding"
   
7. "photocopiers and printers"
   
8. "appropriate opening hours"
   
9. "appropriate borrowing policies"
   
10. "information literacy skills training"
    

I will dare to say that there is nothing revolutionary on this list. I am sure that most academic librarians would say these are important academic library values. We probably have known for a while that these are things (in varying degrees) that our patrons value. What surveys like this do is simply validate what we know already. If nothing else, for library managers, this is the kind of information they can use as evidence when their bosses say, "what do you mean you want more space for the library?" or some other similar question.

So, library managers should probably look over this article. Librarians like me in the trenches, well, I just gave you the gist of it, so you can probably skip it.

Citation for the article:

Sharpless, Susan and Lynn Sutton. "Embedded Librarians: On the Road in the Deep South." C&RL News February 2008: 71-74, 85.

Read via print (forwarded copy)

This is another small note not quite enough to put on the main blog. The only reason I read this was because one of my colleagues forwarded it. The article basically details how two librarians were embedded into a service course at Wake Forest University. The course included a tour of the Deep South and a service component. I am not sure what my colleague had in mind when she forwarded this given that, due to a significant lack of resources, the kind of embedding described in this article (where at least two librarians would be off campus for a substantial amount of time) would not be feasible. However, there is some stuff to learn and consider from the item.

• "Roles envisioned for librarians included research assistance for daily assignments, design and maintenance of the course wiki, blog, and Flickr sites, planning and implementation of the service learning component of the trip, and, most importantly, as additional adult chaperones" (71). Some of this is basic stuff that librarians do already such as the research assistance. For the online stuff, there is a bit of troubleshooting as well as content creation involved. They went ahead and got a Pro account on Flickr, which is something I think my library should do at one point or another in order to make photos a bit more accessible.
  
• This is what the course instructors actually wanted the librarians to do. Notice that when you look at it, it is quite a bit of work:
  
• "provide resource lists to assist students with research guidance on the topics they were assigned to study."
  
• "offer a full range of technology support from troubleshooting hotel Internet access to facilitating daily postings onto the course website. . ." [the tech support seemed a bit much, but what I think is librarian comfort level. Because as much as the techie librarians love to portray themselves as technomavens, there are a good number of good librarians who are not necessarily technogeeks]
• "plan the service component of the trip at the Hancock County Library System" (72).
  
• Important to point out that their library is "the primary source for computer training for both faculty and students, and [they] participate in many campus technology initiatives" (73). I am not sure who is the primary source for computer training on our campus, but it is not us. In my former MPOW, there was a Teaching and Learning Center for the faculty to get computer training, but to be honest, they did not have much for the students there. We do not have a whole lot for the students here either aside from a set of online tutorials the university buys from a provider to learn things like how to use a Powerpoint. I am not saying this to be negative on MPOW, but it is a fact of reality that we provide a small computer lab, but no other training (aside from BI, but that is different). Again, even if we wanted to, we would not be able to be "primary source" for computer training.
  
• What I liked was that the librarians participated and wrote their own reflections as well as part of the experience.
  

Anyhow, a nice idea, but it seems a bit of wishful thinking at this stage.

Citation for the article:

Birdsall, William F. "The Chiasmus of Librarianship and Collaborative Research for Evidence Based Practice." Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 3.2 (2008): 65-75.

Read online (this is an open access journal. Article link opens as a PDF file. Journal homepage here).

This is just another article that I have not that much to say, but I still wanted to make a note in it someplace. In essence, the article is saying that we may be moving back to a more heterogeneous era in librarianship, somewhat similar to the previous century. By this, the author means going back to the notions of the library being maintained on the basis of local needs as opposed to the more homogeneous era we have now based on standards and bureaucracy set (in stone it seems) by the professional organization. A lot of this movement is being propelled by the 2.0 movement. Author also suggests considering local forms of knowledge, reviewing the literature on native forms of knowledge.

Well that is a bit pretentious title for a blog post: thoughts on leadership, as if I knew much about the topic. Sure, I have had a thought or two now and then.But I am certainly nowhere in the league of the folks at ACRL or certain high level library directors who write on the topic but likely have not walked among the troops recently. Once in a while the topic of leadership comes up in the librarian sector of the blogosphere, then it winds down, then comes back up again. It's one of those things you can count on. I have some interest in the topic, but since I know no one in their right mind would name me to direct their library, and I would not want to anyhow, I don't do more than give it some cursory thinking now and then. At any rate, I came across this little editorial in my readings:

McMenemy, David. "'Or you got it or you ain't': the nature of leadership in libraries." Library Review 57.4 (2008): 265-268.

Read via Emerald.

The thrust of the article is that the author believes that when it comes to leadership, you either have it, or you don't. At least that is the philosophy he agrees with. His point is that the notion of books and workshops to teach leadership skills is flawed. I agree to an extent. You either have the nature to be a leader, or you don't. However, you are not born with the skills, which means you have to do some learning, and those parts can be learned. Personally I think they can be learned by reading more of the classics and less of the leadership trendy books we find today. I think what Professor McMenemy is trying to say is that we should not equate leadership with management, which is something I would agree to as well. But I think when it comes to developing leadership the truth is somewhere in the middle. You need to have some of it in your nature, but the rest you can certainly train and polish.

McMenemy also says that experience is crucial, and this is true. Unfortunately the fact is that librarianship as a whole is very reluctant or short sighted when it comes to providing experiences for leaders to be groomed and to grow. This has also been written about in the librarian sector of the blogosphere, but other than getting written about, it does not look like the old guard have any interest or inclination in truly training leaders for the future. Succession planning is not exactly high on their radar, which not only means a lack of future leadership. It also means a possible loss of institutional memories if the experiences, information, and knowledge of those senior leaders is not passed down.

Here are some of the ideas from McMenemy's article:

• "Furthermore, I feel the discourse around leadership to be potentially troublesome, since the basis by which assumptions are made about leadership being something that can be taught lead to it being seen as just another management skill that can be acquired; the reality is that it is far more important than that, and such views trivialise something that is of vital importance in our profession" (265). Here is the key point in the article.
• One concern, and it is one we seem to be missing in the profession: "Thus positions that in the past were defined as professional librarians change their focus to become overtly management roles. The irony is that such positions were always so, but with a change in emphasis and discourse comes legitimacy in the eyes of other managers. Rather than being merely a librarian, one can say they are a manager, with all the potential this has for career development!" (266). Notice the use of the phrase "merely a librarian." If that does not raise an eyebrow or two, I am not sure what will.
  
• The eternal reminder. This is what I wish a few of those honchos in places like ACRL and a good number of the big research campuses would get through their skulls when they pontificate yet again about leadership: "Undoubtedly, while leaders may manage, managers do not necessarily lead. Leadership being interpreted as solely being about performance measures and achieve strategic objectives is a sad indictment of our professional discourse, yet it remains a cliche" (266).
  
• On certain leadership programs. I am sure to a savvy reader or two, they may be reminded of certain programs the national professional organization puts up: "Yet they [the programs] work on the basis of plucking a handful of people from the relative obscurity of their library to be chosen as future leaders; in essence a Pop Idol for librarians. My major concern with such initiatives relates to the criteria for selection and the danger that candidates can be chosen because they are young, are potentially good managers, and say the right things, which equates good leadership in the mindsets of some" (266-267). I don' think I can add much more to that. Then again, I am just a librarian in the field. I just happen to believe a lot of true leadership happens quietly in the front lines; those folks will never be plucked for some fancy program.
  
• "In our profession's leaders, we must seek more than a good manager or someone who has attended the correct courses; we must seek experience, vision, integrity, and an understanding of the potential of the organisation and the people within it. Just as importantly, we need leaders who wish to take their place as part of the profession, not see their roles as merely caretakers of a service" (267).
  
• Another concern that many so called "library leaders" seem to be missing: "The movement towards bringing people from outside of the profession to lead is dangerous because it presupposes that the notion of the leader as manager supersedes the experienced professional librarian as leader, and this is dangerous to the long-term viability of the profession" (267). The fact that our profession is willing to tolerate, and even endorse in some cases, bringing some non-librarian to run our facilities is, at best, disrespectful, at worse, a clear example of devaluing our profession.
  

This is just some random set of thoughts, which is why I am just scratching it here on this blog. I may consider adding a tag to this blog labeled "stuff the boss makes me read." Kind of like when Keith Olbermann does his celebrity segments and claims his producers force him to cover X or Y celebrity. While the boss did not put a gun on my head to read it, she did chase me down to put it in my hands. Now that I have time to think about it, it reminds me of that old cartoon where Daffy Duck is trying to evade the little man from the draft board. Anyhow, the boss gave us the copy of the article. In fact, she even included her notes in the photocopy, which I found myself sort of answering or probing as I read. So, first, the article citation:

Waters, John K. "The Library Morphs." Campus Technology April 2008: 52-58.

Read via: my boss bringing it over (she probably got it online at www.campustechnology.com here.)

This is the type of thing that I know would have fallen on my aggregator sooner or later. Heck, it may be there now since I am a bit behind on my feed reading. Work has been busy around here, what can I say? Anyways, the piece is basically an overview of Ohio State's plan to renovate their big library at the cost of $109 million dollars. I wish I had that problem,so to speak. But snark aside, there are some things to consider, which I am guessing is why my boss picked it up. That she just got back from some conference out East dealing with library spaces may also have something to do with it. Anyways, we are digressing.

The essence of the article is the idea, which is becoming somewhat old by now given all the hype it has gotten in the L2 circles, that libraries are becoming flexible learning spaces. It is the same idea that goes along reducing book and materials collections to make more spaces for students. This does sound like a great thing, but the skeptic in me always wonders at what price. What are we losing in the process? I just think that a sense of balance is being lost.

Some of the notes then:

• At Ohio State, their ten-year renovation is nearing completion. One of the things they did was reduce their materials, specifically books. They did not necessarily get rid of them. They used a combination of compact shelving and off-site storage. However, they did reduce their volume count from 2 million to 1.25 million. Ohio State is still doing collection development, and they have an "influx" of books. Influx is not a problem here. And my boss helpfully jotted down that we reduced our own volume count from 215,000 to 180, 000. Our volume count will probably be further reduced as we move with some aggressive weeding to make some more learning spaces. Which is fine except that a lot of materials are not going to be replaced. Given that the collection is pretty much at close to zero growth already, I personally have my concerns. The boss knows about it; I am not saying anything new here.
  
• The guy at Ohio State also points out that one needs to recognize "the growing amount of quality resources available online, and the impracticality of shelving an endless influx of books" (54). First, those quality resources that are available online are often not free. Not only are they not free, but they cost a lot, and the cost keeps rising. In our case, since the materials budget is frozen in time, every time the cost of those online resources goes up, it means we cut even more away from the other types of materials. I will leave the two readers of this blog to take that to a logical conclusion. Second, as for the impractical influx, that is what selective collection development is for. It is what a librarian is trained for: to make decisions as to what goes in the collection and what does not. I get the slight impression that remark is made by someone who does not have to worry (as much) about a materials budget and can pretty much get anything his heart desires.
  
• At Ohio State, "there's a very robust wireless infrastructure and lots of places to plug in a laptop" (54). We lack the first one, and we are trying to address the second one. If we give our boss credit for something, it is a healthy enthusiasm, "can do" attitude. I think we can get some more plugs in for those laptops students bring in. I am not so sure about getting the infrastructure to be more robust. Money can do a lot of things, but you have to have it.
  
• This definitely caught my attention. In part, it is something I have known: that often the spaces students use for their studying are places that are out of the way. "[Scott Bennett, a library design consultant] says that his own surveys show that some of the most productive learning spaces on campus are among the most disregarded: empty classrooms or 'accidents of architecture' filled with cast-off furniture and yet crowded with students. Computer labs, he says, don't rate highly on these surveys" (54).
  
• In their renovation, Ohio State has two instruction rooms (56). My boss wrote in the margin that we need instruction space. She won't get a disagreement from me there. She also wrote that we need to improve our individual and group study rooms. She won't get disagreement from me there either. Here's my take: how do we actually do it? More importantly, do it, not just implement some short term band-aid? Seeing my instruction librarian linger between an inadequate meeting room in the library for doing instruction or having to walk all over campus to use someone else's computer lab or electronic classroom is something I find sad to say the least. As someone who had to work without instruction space for a few months during a renovation, I certainly feel some of her pain. I could say more on this topic, but that would be another story for another time.
  
• One other thing I found problematic is the observation by Lynn Scott Cochrane, of Denison U. in Ohio, that students don't distinguish between books, media, and computer software, that it is all one thing to them (58). This statement is used to justify taking more resources online. But I think it is also indicative of another serious problem: the lack of good information literacy skills. One of the early discoveries we are making in our recent usability testing is that students are not as knowledgeable in this regard. They have difficulties interpreting a citation in order to locate an article. They cannot tell the catalog (which you use to find books) from an article database. I don't think that should be a point of pride nor something to brag about. It should not be a promo point either to simply surrender to the electronic waves. This is something I have considered as I read some other items in the literature: here, here, here, and here for instance. But what do I know? I am just a reference and instruction librarian in the trenches.
  

Anyways, there are my two cents. If my boss asks at some point if I read the article, I may just send her this link. I am not sure yet. I don't want to sound negative. I think we do need to offer better spaces for students to take control of their learning. I believe our role as librarians, one of the roles at least, should be that of facilitators. But I also think that in order to facilitate, you have to have resources to offer. And not everything is online. A lot of it is, but not everything. While Google Books may let you search for a lot of content, you are not going to get everything from it; eventually, Google will prompt you to buy the book and very "helpfully" point you to Amazon or a similar vendor. Same thing with Google Scholar, though we can often make that work with our databases. You may get better search interface with Google Scholar, but you still have to pay for the premium content somehow. Contrary to some trendy people's thinking, the future is not necessarily free. It costs, and it costs a lot. Add to it that electronic sources are not owned, but merely rented, and one should at least show some concern. Can we reduce our print materials? Sure, and we should do so, but we should do so with good judgment and thinking. And we should keep some print items and offer them as well. It's a matter of balance. Then again, what do I know? I am just a mere librarian in the trenches.

For some stupid reason, Blogger is refusing to publish the draft for this note. It has published other posts, but for some reason, the text of this one keeps choking, even when I just copy it to a new post and try it that way. Anyhow, I am tired of trying to get Blogger to work, so here goes. Note to self: I really need to leave Blogger one of these days. Anyways, here is the post.

Citation for the article:

Lewis, David W. "A Strategy for Academic Libraries in the First Quarter of the 21st Century." College and Research Libraries 68.5 (September 2007): 418-434.

Read via WilsonWeb.

This article is clearly geared to large campuses, but there is an idea or two here worth looking at for those of us in the smaller trenches. However, and this is my humble opinion, the author seems a bit too ready to give up on the library in favor of some infotopia concept. Then again, as of late, if one looks at the library literature as well as a good number of the library blogs, it seems the doomed library articles are the popular stuff these days. Having said that, as I mentioned, there are a few things worth considering.

"Academic libraries must find and articulate their roles in the current and future information ecology. If we cannot or will not do this, our campuses will invest in other priorities, and the library will slowly but surely atrophy and become a little used museum of the book" (419).

For me at least, this is a rationale for the current marketing plan I am drafting for our library. We clearly add value to the campus community, but we need to do a much better job of pointing that out to the community. We especially need to get the attention of the administrators who in the end are the ones who hold the purse strings. I will go on and say that seeing a library slowly atrophy into that little used book museum is not a pretty sight.

Lewis lists five assumptions and then five items to his strategies. In brief, here are the five strategies then that Lewis proposes (see page 420)

1. "complete the migration from print to electronic collections.
2. "retire legacy collections.
3. "redevelop the library as the primary informal learning space on the campus."
4. "reposition library and information tools, resources, and expertise so that they are embedded into the teaching, learning, and research enterprises."
5. "migrate the focus of collections from purchasing materials to curating content.
   

As usual, I tend to have a question or two when someone makes a set of assumptions or puts out a sweeping plan. For example, when it comes to discussing the increased use of online journals and the resulting decrease in library use (because you can get them in your office, for instance), we get to the part where tools like SFX can link journal articles from one database to another. The whole "it may not be on Academic Search Premier, but it might be on Lexis, and the SFX takes you there" line. As usual, it sounds nice in theory, and a resolver like SFX has often been a lifesaver. But as usual, there are complications, one of them being the issue of embargoes where it turns out the article you want is not there thanks to some publisher restriction. The point of this? Maybe the whole idea of migrating everything to an electronic collection is not that great, at least not initially. Can we get to a point where more can be accessible online? Sure we can, but as long as publishers don't play nice (and I don't consider teasing me with a citation only to hide it in an embargo as playing nice), it is not all going to go online. More importantly, are there really that many savings, which is Lewis's argument for this strategy. Just a passing thought.

As for government documents, which Lewis sees as parallel to e-books, I just wonder about issues in Gov Docs. In particular, the concern that many of those online documents can be easily changed, or they can just simply disappear at the whim of a government agency.

As for the whole idea of retiring the legacy collection, keep in mind this would be applicable to a large research library with the goal of having a large collection, a lot of which would be for historical purposes. This would likely be a lot different for a teaching campus where the collection is primarily to support the undergraduates and their curriculum. At least, that was a thought running in my mind as I read that part of the article.

On the part about redeveloping the library space, which is Lewis's third strategy. I was not in agreement with some of it. Some notes:

• "The aim is to create comfortable, lively, and active spaces where students can interact with each other, with information and with technology and where support for the use of library resources and technology can be found" (423).
• "What is needed is a new mix of different kinds of spaces and work environments that can accommodate different uses and possess different ambiances. Library space will need to be shared with a variety of partners, and it is likely that the distinction between the library and other informal campus space will blur" (423). I can still live with most of this, so to speak. Yes, we will be looking forward to forming partnerships and sharing some space. A writing center, other services, certainly would fit in this mission. However, it is the next statement on Lewis's list that I find problematic.
• "The redevelopment of library space should be an attractive philanthropic opportunity and will likely be funded in large part with external funds. In the longer term, it may be possible for some space to be returned to the campus for nonlibrary uses" (423). No, it's not the philanthropy part I have a problem with. It's the returning space to the campus idea. In our case at least, considering the campus has mostly raided the library space, and not exactly to our interest or that of our students, I think it is the campus that owes us space. The fact that, for instance, a good number of rooms are currently used for meetings that could be held in other buildings while we languish without an adequate library instruction room is simply shameful (there, I said it, and if my director reads this, then so be it). This returning space idea may be nice and trendy, but it certainly is not practical when it comes at the space of raiding and gutting your facility to the detriment of students. And I am not talking just instructional space: student study rooms, alteration of spaces for some of those nicer informal learning areas that Lewis argues for, etc. could be happening if the campus had the decency to return our space to us. Just another passing thought.

A few other musings:

• "Undergraduates live on the Web. They begin, and often finish, their research with Google, and mostly use the library as a place to study. This is a sadly-accepted truth among librarians, but we all like to think that faculty and graduate students are different" (424). Of course, a lot of us know this is not true in regards to faculty and graduate students. Faculty avoid the library like the plague if they can ("just show me how to get the journals in my office and leave me alone" syndrome) and graduate students pretty much start learning the bad habits of their faculty mentors, though for now, they do tend to still use the library.
• Here is something that made me think: this is why the students learn less and plagiarize more. It's the "good enough" mentality.Lewis is discussing what some studies he points to reveal: ". . .if the library chooses to stand alone, it will be bypassed. Alternative information sources may not be as extensive or as authoritative as those housed in or subscribed to by the library, but they are good enough and they fit easily and seamlessly into the lives that our students, and increasingly our faculty, live" (424). It's that idea of settling for less which can be troublesome.
• Instruction will likely change, and that is the nature of it: it is dynamic and evolves to meet needs, but you still have to teach some basics. Lewis writes:
• ""While the tool-based approach of much of the traditional library instruction activities will probably become less important, new topics such as evaluating the authority of resources, academic integrity, and intellectual property have entered the library's domain" (424). I would not discount the so-called traditional library instruction activities just yet.
• "There are obvious opportunities to place librarians in centers for teaching and learning and to involve them formally in undergraduate research programs" (424). This is pretty obvious and straightforward.
• "Blogs aimed at individual courses or department audiences should be explored, as should a library presence in social spaces like MySpace or Facebook" (424). The first part of that sentence I can certainly agree with. The second part about the social spaces is definitely debatable. See here, here, and here.
• Lewis advocates for flexibility in staffing and in staff. Basically, you need a good organizational culture that is willing to experiment and learn, hire the right people with the right skills, invest in staff development, and be committed to organizational development (430).
• These two strategies, in general, caught my attention:
• "Begin with simple projects that meet the needs of undemanding users and then move up market to provide services to more demanding users. In practice, this means beginning with services to students and only moving to faculty services when some expertise has developed. This is contrary to the approach academic libraries usually employ" (431). It may seem counterintuitive, but it actually makes sense to start small and work your way up. Doing this allows you to develop your experience and expertise as you move on up.
• "Don't ask users what they want; rather, watch what they do with the tools you provide" (431). This should be self-explanatory. Cut down on the surveys and actually look at what is happening in your library. To do so, you may have to leave your desk and pace your library once in a while.

Citation for the article:

Black, Coral and Susan Roberts. "Learning the Social Way: Enhancing Learning in a Traditional Setting." New Review of Academic Librarianship 12.2 (2006): 83-93.

Read via Interlibrary Loan.

This article was very minimal on details of how things were done, which is why I initially picked it up. Ordinarily, I would not have bothered to post about it; I am certainly not posting about it at The Gypsy Librarian. Besides, to add to my woes today, Blogger was acting up yet again. However, since it reminded me of some similarities to my library now, I wanted to at least notes those small details. Otherwise, the article is pretty lackluster. In the brief abstract, the authors claim that "the case study here provides an in-depth exploration of a 'minor' redevelopment that has had major impact on learners." The article is not really one with much depth. It goes through the mandatory literature review and then lists some of the changes they did. Their changes were small given they have restrictions when it comes to funding. This was what caught my eye given that we have some significant funding restrictions here as well as well as space restrictions, but in the end, I did not get a whole lot of out of the article. Basically what they did was do some changes to promote a more informal, social setting in their library by doing the following (see page 88 for the list):

• More express terminals for quick access to Internet, e-mail and the catalog.
  
• A small cafe area was added.
• Group study spaces with informal seating and group rooms.
  
• More wireless technology for laptops, including checking out their own.
  

Some of these things are things we do or are working on such as the express access terminals. We need to add more power points, but given the age of our building, and the outdated design, drilling and so on to add new electrical points. When we recently added new furniture for  the reference area computer stations, the drilling for the power points under the tables was quite an odyssey. I will say it was worth it, but it was a major event (we had to close for two days).