In response to the publication that was the subject of the last post, "The Library in Crisis," the administration of the UC Davis library wrote their own statement of the case. Such a specific engagement of issues is not common in an atmosphere of conflicting policies and budgetary claims. In compressed form, the responses to the statements of the original document are as follows:
1. UCDavis has plunged in the ARL rankings from 25 to 60 where other UC libraries have maintained or improved.
ARL rankings do not tell the full story and must be considered in the context of the institution. Also, most of the other UC libraries have declined in rank in the same time period.
2. UCDavis's budget should be larger than other campuses because of its diversity of disciplines.
The proportion of lab science at UC Davis compared to other campuses has declined suggesting that UC Davis's requirement for a relatively larger library budget has decreased. Moreover, the UC Davis library has gathered a reserve fund of money for special needs.
3. Insufficient support for the Level 5 collection in Enology.
There is no backlog in purchasing materials for this collection.
4. Lack of essential titles for history and delays in interlibrary loan.
Some titles were omitted as part of clerical error during a shift in approval plans, and the missing titles have been purchased. Interlibrary loan rates at UCDavis are comparable to the other UCs.
5. Dissolution of the government documents department.
The subject specialists are available for consultation, and the consolidation of this department is consistent with a general trend among libraries. The trend is driven by the fact that 98% of government documents are available online, obviating the need for a physical collection.
Henry, Helen, and Gail Yokote. "UC Davis General Library Observations Related to 'The Library in Crisis.'" University of California, Davis, 2009.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
The Library in Crisis
A report has recently come to my attention, written by a faculty task force at UC Davis purporting to outline a crisis situation at the campus library. As part of its overview, it touches on many themes of the future of the libraries in our discussion.
In a subject based on statistics, the report actively and instructively attempts to sift through them for conclusions. It claims that the library has suffered a long-term trend of underfunding that predates the current budget crisis. While expenses associated with new technologies have grown rapidly in the last 15 years, the UC Davis library's budget has remained stable at around $16 million. This equates to an effective loss of funding. Coincident with this decline in funding, the report cites a precipitous drop in ACRL ranking from the top 25 in the 1980s to a current position of around 60, among the bottom of the UC's. Underfunding is further exacerbated, according to the report, by the fact that UC Davis has an enormous range of disciplines to serve--greater than any of the other UC's and possibly any in the nation! Presumably this range derives from the campuses background agriculture and veterinary medicine although what these disciplines are and why UC Davis should have so many is not spelled out in the report.
To assess the damage from underfunding, the report makes a case study of several departments. The Enology collection in the Biology/Agriculture department is a Level 5 collection designed to gather everything of interest and shortfalls in its budget impact the entire world as a result.
The mathematics department has been forced to cut back on key journals in its field.
As a result of underfunding, researchers in history no longer have access to major reference resources and books and interlibrary loan introduces critical delays in their work that sets them at a disadvantage compared to their peers.
The consolidation of the government documents department into other departments has made it difficult to consult with experts over the material.
For allowing this situation to come to pass, the committee blames the faculty who have allowed their library committees to lapse and the library administration for failing to communicate historical trends. For its recommendations, the report calls for increased funding necessary to restore the place of the UC Davis libraries to the top 30 in the ACRL rankings and to set up an active system of faculty and library committees with regular communication. The report ends with a warning that without access to the digitized information that contains the essence of current research, scholars "do not have a chance" to be competitive.
The report can be viewed at:
Waldron, Andrew, et al. The Library in Crisis: University of California, Davis, 2008.
http://academicsenate.ucdavis.edu/documents/library_task_force_report_072308.pdf
In a subject based on statistics, the report actively and instructively attempts to sift through them for conclusions. It claims that the library has suffered a long-term trend of underfunding that predates the current budget crisis. While expenses associated with new technologies have grown rapidly in the last 15 years, the UC Davis library's budget has remained stable at around $16 million. This equates to an effective loss of funding. Coincident with this decline in funding, the report cites a precipitous drop in ACRL ranking from the top 25 in the 1980s to a current position of around 60, among the bottom of the UC's. Underfunding is further exacerbated, according to the report, by the fact that UC Davis has an enormous range of disciplines to serve--greater than any of the other UC's and possibly any in the nation! Presumably this range derives from the campuses background agriculture and veterinary medicine although what these disciplines are and why UC Davis should have so many is not spelled out in the report.
To assess the damage from underfunding, the report makes a case study of several departments. The Enology collection in the Biology/Agriculture department is a Level 5 collection designed to gather everything of interest and shortfalls in its budget impact the entire world as a result.
The mathematics department has been forced to cut back on key journals in its field.
As a result of underfunding, researchers in history no longer have access to major reference resources and books and interlibrary loan introduces critical delays in their work that sets them at a disadvantage compared to their peers.
The consolidation of the government documents department into other departments has made it difficult to consult with experts over the material.
For allowing this situation to come to pass, the committee blames the faculty who have allowed their library committees to lapse and the library administration for failing to communicate historical trends. For its recommendations, the report calls for increased funding necessary to restore the place of the UC Davis libraries to the top 30 in the ACRL rankings and to set up an active system of faculty and library committees with regular communication. The report ends with a warning that without access to the digitized information that contains the essence of current research, scholars "do not have a chance" to be competitive.
The report can be viewed at:
Waldron, Andrew, et al. The Library in Crisis: University of California, Davis, 2008.
http://academicsenate.ucdavis.edu/documents/library_task_force_report_072308.pdf
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
College students' perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources
This is a subset of a broader study that is focused on college students. This group tends to use the library more than other groups although, according to their own statements, less than before as a result of the internet. An overwhelming percentage began with internet search tools before moving to the library. A higher percentage than other populations use the library for studying. College students also retain a faith in the value of a library as an ideal and a potential source of valuable information. Their biggest recommendation is to make the library more physically convenient. More details can be found at:
De Rosa, Cathy. College Students' Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: A Report to the OCLC Membership. Dublin, OH: OCLC Online Computer Center, 2006.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/reports/2010/digitalinformationseekerreport.pdf
De Rosa, Cathy. College Students' Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: A Report to the OCLC Membership. Dublin, OH: OCLC Online Computer Center, 2006.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/reports/2010/digitalinformationseekerreport.pdf
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Marian the Cybrarian
A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education by an English professor, mounts a stirring defense of librarians and libraries--even claiming that the library profession has never been so vital and valuable as now when it is facing budget cuts.
The article begins with personal observations including the "beer test": "They are among the most likeable people you'll find at any college. They have the intellectual curiosity of academics without the aloofness and attitude often displayed by professors."
The book moves on to summarize a recent book spelling out the case for libarians in the future:
Marilyn Johnson. This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All (HarperCollins, 2010).
Much of the review is given over to the response of the director of the Harvard Library to an unnamed scientist who suggested that Harvard deal with its budget problems by dumping the contents of the Widener Library in the Charles River. The response, exhibiting "balance" and "control" reviews a number of issues familiar to the library community. Of unexpected prominence is the suggestion for faculty and even student researchers to post their finding directly online--with the aid of librarians--and thus circumvent the time-consuming and exclusive avenue of journal publishing. The full article can be found here:
Benton, Thomas H. "Marian the Cybrarian." Chronicle of Higher Education May 20, 2010.
http://chronicle.com/article/Marian-the-Cybrarian/65570/
The article begins with personal observations including the "beer test": "They are among the most likeable people you'll find at any college. They have the intellectual curiosity of academics without the aloofness and attitude often displayed by professors."
The book moves on to summarize a recent book spelling out the case for libarians in the future:
Marilyn Johnson. This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All (HarperCollins, 2010).
Much of the review is given over to the response of the director of the Harvard Library to an unnamed scientist who suggested that Harvard deal with its budget problems by dumping the contents of the Widener Library in the Charles River. The response, exhibiting "balance" and "control" reviews a number of issues familiar to the library community. Of unexpected prominence is the suggestion for faculty and even student researchers to post their finding directly online--with the aid of librarians--and thus circumvent the time-consuming and exclusive avenue of journal publishing. The full article can be found here:
Benton, Thomas H. "Marian the Cybrarian." Chronicle of Higher Education May 20, 2010.
http://chronicle.com/article/Marian-the-Cybrarian/65570/
Monday, May 24, 2010
Perceptions of libraries and information resources
This summarizes a report commissioned by OCLC on user behavior gathered from around the world. It draws its results from a worldwide survey and amounts to a hymn to the information explosion. Users report satisfaction with the internet and a preference for it over the library for its rapid, convenient access to information that is considered satisfactory. Conclusions for libraries consist of:
(1) Libraries are perceived as being about print books.
(2) Libraries should better advertise their presence and could offer different formats and content.
(3) Libraries are advised by the respondents to increase their collections.
A longer summary of the report can be found at:
De Rosa, Cathy. Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: A Report to the Oclc Membership. Dublin, OH: OCLC Online Computer Library Center, 2005.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/reports/2010/digitalinformationseekerreport.pdf
(1) Libraries are perceived as being about print books.
(2) Libraries should better advertise their presence and could offer different formats and content.
(3) Libraries are advised by the respondents to increase their collections.
A longer summary of the report can be found at:
De Rosa, Cathy. Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: A Report to the Oclc Membership. Dublin, OH: OCLC Online Computer Library Center, 2005.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/reports/2010/digitalinformationseekerreport.pdf
UCDavis: Discussion of the Future
Future of UCDavis Libraries
1. Reference
a. Need to identify the population we are serving recognizing that there are different needs for each e.g. instruction for on-campus undergrads vs. information for community members throughout the state of California; patrons throughout the world
b. Need to define the reference service; for example does it include outreach functions as well as service to individual users.
c. Currently an evaluation/assessment program for reference has been sketched out that includes surveys at the reference desk and a plan for focus groups. After some delays this program is scheduled to resume in May 2010. Some issues for the evaluation effort include:
* identifying user needs and behaviors and their variations between campuses
* differentiating between the wants that users express and the needs that we can identify as professionals
* making full use of the data collected on user behavior; details tend to be compressed or eliminated in the way that the data is compiled
* a more sophisticated analysis of the data is necessary
d. The defining development of the last couple years in reference has been a reduction of service points in which the government documents, information, and bioag desks have been closed and their staff consolidated at the former hss desk which now serves as the reference desk of the Shields Library. Some discussion remains on the extent to which this has been done at the other branch libraries. Issues regarding consolidation are:
* driven by budget reduction to compensate for attrition now and in the near future
* reduction in demand for reference depending on which numbers are used
* lack of availability of librarians to users
* inefficiency in terms of increased off-desk reference
* dilution of subject expertise
* lack of responsiveness to subject users
e. Alternatives
* chat reference - working with remote campuses not efficient; staffing issues pose a barrier to more service
f. Optimal future:
* relating reference service to the overall mission of the library and university
* more elaborate training for reference personnel
* exploration of technologies for remote reference such as chat reference and online tutorials and guides
* an expectation of a new hybridization of reference with instruction, access services, and other units
* restoration of subject-specific service points
2. Relationship with Information Providers
a. Need to question the relationship between librarians and vendors
* the role of finances
* interface design
* types of pressure to be deployed on vendors to gain better service and products; working on the advisory board of a product can be fruitful
* Davis has a large cluster of liaisons with vendors
* additional usage data from vendors necessary
b. The distributed model at both the library and the particular vendor can cause challenges. For example, the parties who are involved in the negotiation are often different than those who have direct experience with user interaction, or, on the vendor side, are involved with development of the product.
* the interest of universities and database providers does not coincide and needs to be better understood; vendors want more money, libraries want better service
* the role of open access materials needs to be considered: free vs. good; a tendency for quality sources to be disregarded in favor of free ones; Google, Wikipedia; lack of permanence and control of resources; the details of the Google digitization effort are relevant
c. The role of instruction in promoting web sources through source evaluation techniques is important for users
d. The trend in this area appears to be towards outsourcing with its pluses and minuses
* implications for the future of interlibrary loan
e. Optimal Future: More influence with database vendors to provide user-friendly products at lower prices. Single interface for all databases. Finding role for ILL in future when more material available as e-books and restricted. Need to preserve fair use. Work to turn the University into more of an information provider through e-scholarship e.g. journals, research units, and conferences. Marketing of these products is important. The university can produce textbooks and instructional materials for students, and the library can assist with best practices.
3. Personnel
a. Outgrowths of the budget crisis
* more work is expected in the same time interval as before
* subject divisions are being eroded
b. New relationship between librarians and non-librarian staff; e.g. "library professional" is a super LA-5
* work needs to be done on succession planning and mentoring
* An issue is to consider at what point it is necessary to rehire as opposed to reassign positions within the library
c. New opportunities for professional development of staff.
* Request P.I. status for librarians as many grants for AF employees are not accessible as P.I. status is required before applying for the grant (travel grant).
* pathways for coursework and additional degrees
* manage tension between generalist/specialist
d. Optimal Future: As the lowest-staffed library in the UC system, Davis needs an increase in personnel to preserve the level of expertise necessary for a post-doctoral institutions. The current system of consolidation and reduction of personnel results in bad referrals and inefficiency. Regardless of the ingenuity in doing more with less, there is a level of staffing, we can't below without a critical loss in quality. More support needs to be given for staff to pursue formal training and certification.
4. Technology
a. communications technology: e.g. libguides, Second Life, chat reference, Skype (bibliographer groups), Facebook, YouTube,
* new hardware to support communication and mobility (headsets, microphones, webcams for live video, choice of laptop vs. desktop computer)
* training & technology support for new project initiatives and content creation: opportunity to explore the use of new and old technologies in a "sandbox environment" to foster our in-house creativity, collaboration and peer-to-peer learning (requires rethinking of budget and time allocations, initiated by librarians with systems support)
* security/permissions issues stand in the way of using some useful technologies; (these restrictions, in some cases, originate at the campus level)
* social networking may not be relevant to the library's future; publicity tools not reference
* tutorials limited by rapid change of databases which make them irrelevant; tutorials may be viable if limited to major resources or perhaps as links to tutorials by vendors
* library chat for each reference desk: needs to be localized to campus rather than current 24/7 which brings in questions throughout the system; chat should incorporate text messaging
* Next Generation: inadequacy of Next Generation interface; overwhelming resource which floods the user with information; retain local catalog with local notes, easy search of UCDavis titles; improved accuracy/precision of a local catalog
b. preservation/archiving technology: currently lack infrastructure to support digitization (produce, access), onsite; increased coordination necessary with CDL
* benefits to a shared workflow in cataloging and preservation throughout the system
* shared cataloging (CDL) being overwhelmed; need improved coordination between campuses; revamped so that process expedited with equal contributions; a SWAT team approach necessary to deal with backlogs
c. Instructional technology
* Endnote offers opportunities for new involvement with research practices
* use of clickers under consideration
d. optimal future: local catalog, improved infrastructure to support digitization; shared cataloging; mobile versions of catalog and small mobile applications to support general library research (undergraduates)
5. Collections
a. system vs. local collections
* books need local/core collections; system-wide collection for journals only
* approval plans under review; trend in libraries is to evaluate usage of print monograph similar to electronic resource review; changes in scholarly monograph publishing may signal evolution of approval or blanket plan to something more patron-driven for time of need for certain categories of material
* analysis of unique aspects of collection especially regard to the lack of permanence in digitized collections
b. reduce local footprint
* cannot reduce the footprint but must expand to support growth of programs at the university and larger volume of publications; ebook vendors are not available for this purpose; the local collection needs to be able to support growth.
* On the other hand, SOPAG collection space planning report claims that no more space is available. Libraries need to reach a 0% growth rate within five years to fit within available space. Long-term plans call for de-duplication of system holdings.
* cuts have already put significant strain on preservation and binding. More money and personnel will be needed in future to maintain the materials that we have.
c. optimal future: Physical constraints require a streamlining of collections throughout the system, but local collections should be shaped to support growth of programs on campus as much as possible.
6. Buildings
a. consolidation
* space already tight before the proposed closure of PSE
* while the Davis libraries have not reduced hours in response to budget cuts like other UC campuses, the hours are already low; they should be restructured to match times of student use
b. Rearrangement of space
* information commons forming on the first floor where there are no reference desks
* partnership with other entities to support a visual media commons (space, hardware, software, librarians and technical assistants) integrating media access and creation with media literacy topics taught by librarians.
* more group study rooms are necessary and more outlets for laptops
* fundraising: the building can provide sources for funds with the sale of merchandise, food, and space rentals for outside events.
c. optimal future: preserve the space that we have and redesign for efficiency to enable enhanced study environment for students and sale of products to generate funds for the library.
7. Campus Roles
a. Instruction
* UWP instruction
* integrated courses, subject specialists
* Re: Search Start paper consulting service
* classes for Learning Skills Center: STEP, term paper workshops
* orientations for new students and graduate students in all departments
* online tutorials and other tools under development
* EndNote to teach research and citation management at all levels.
* subject specialists given new freedom to design subject guides.
b. Outreach
* liaison work
* marketing
* advertising with fliers/ads to dorms
* reference service
* campus committees: academic federation committees, campus administrative advisory committees, LAUC
* webpage: blogs
* consulting: technical services (meta-data, preservation); archives/special collections
c. Optimal future:
* continued robust activity in existing areas
* sponsored seminars with academic focus; cultural events
* library research awards: writing contests
* formalizing/institutionalizing instruction with credit classes,
* technology: mobile bulletin boards in library lobby
* expansion into new areas of service: EndNote to improve research skills
8. Library Networks
a. ILL UCs
b. shared cataloging within UC
c.national cooperative cataloging
d. UCs repository of research programs in the state by act of legislation
e. CDL participation in national/international digitization
f. expansion outside of organizational boundaries to regional operations e.g. to include CSUs, other consortia
g. chat reference - national/international networks
h. networks to include public libraries, community colleges
i. Networks are driven by cost savings and have adverse effects on local institutions. As an example Google Books does not digitize anything with individual copyright. Many networked efforts pose problems in areas of preservation, omission, poor-quality of work
j. Optimal future - continued expansion in scale and cooperativity of networks with attention to preserving local specificity of collections.
9. Organizational Cultures
a. Communication issues with library administration
* Structure of library bureaucracy needs to reexamined; the library management contrasts with the rest of academia in remaining static while deans and department heads rotate
* There needs to be improved lines of communication
* Quicker responses
* administration counterclaims: communication efforts ignored, need two-way communication with timely input to administration in the spirit of the Principles of Community; difficult, unavoidable decisions should not be cause for shooting the messenger
* dangers of toxic self-perpetuating culture of negativity and inaction among librarians/staff
* free-form committees offer advantages over rigidly agenda-driven ones
* previous discussion indicates an information bottleneck in the practice of filtering communications from administration to staff through department heads; suggested remedies were to publish all minutes and to use notation clearly indicating action items, this has been unevenly adopted.
* need to consider ways to create an innovative environment that is proactive and encourages a sense of creativity and freedom to explore solutions to our challenges
* need to find ways to cultivate library community for example through social events such as ice cream socials and planned retreats
b. Communication with systems
* claims that Systems restricts access to technology and does not respond adequately to requests
* counterclaims that Systems acts to maintain security and must deal with technical challenges that are not apparent outside
c. Optimal future
* Improved communication with regular face-to-face meetings among parties involved e.g. Systems representation on RISC.
* A "Velvet Revolution" of an improved communal culture with frequent social activities
1. Reference
a. Need to identify the population we are serving recognizing that there are different needs for each e.g. instruction for on-campus undergrads vs. information for community members throughout the state of California; patrons throughout the world
b. Need to define the reference service; for example does it include outreach functions as well as service to individual users.
c. Currently an evaluation/assessment program for reference has been sketched out that includes surveys at the reference desk and a plan for focus groups. After some delays this program is scheduled to resume in May 2010. Some issues for the evaluation effort include:
* identifying user needs and behaviors and their variations between campuses
* differentiating between the wants that users express and the needs that we can identify as professionals
* making full use of the data collected on user behavior; details tend to be compressed or eliminated in the way that the data is compiled
* a more sophisticated analysis of the data is necessary
d. The defining development of the last couple years in reference has been a reduction of service points in which the government documents, information, and bioag desks have been closed and their staff consolidated at the former hss desk which now serves as the reference desk of the Shields Library. Some discussion remains on the extent to which this has been done at the other branch libraries. Issues regarding consolidation are:
* driven by budget reduction to compensate for attrition now and in the near future
* reduction in demand for reference depending on which numbers are used
* lack of availability of librarians to users
* inefficiency in terms of increased off-desk reference
* dilution of subject expertise
* lack of responsiveness to subject users
e. Alternatives
* chat reference - working with remote campuses not efficient; staffing issues pose a barrier to more service
f. Optimal future:
* relating reference service to the overall mission of the library and university
* more elaborate training for reference personnel
* exploration of technologies for remote reference such as chat reference and online tutorials and guides
* an expectation of a new hybridization of reference with instruction, access services, and other units
* restoration of subject-specific service points
2. Relationship with Information Providers
a. Need to question the relationship between librarians and vendors
* the role of finances
* interface design
* types of pressure to be deployed on vendors to gain better service and products; working on the advisory board of a product can be fruitful
* Davis has a large cluster of liaisons with vendors
* additional usage data from vendors necessary
b. The distributed model at both the library and the particular vendor can cause challenges. For example, the parties who are involved in the negotiation are often different than those who have direct experience with user interaction, or, on the vendor side, are involved with development of the product.
* the interest of universities and database providers does not coincide and needs to be better understood; vendors want more money, libraries want better service
* the role of open access materials needs to be considered: free vs. good; a tendency for quality sources to be disregarded in favor of free ones; Google, Wikipedia; lack of permanence and control of resources; the details of the Google digitization effort are relevant
c. The role of instruction in promoting web sources through source evaluation techniques is important for users
d. The trend in this area appears to be towards outsourcing with its pluses and minuses
* implications for the future of interlibrary loan
e. Optimal Future: More influence with database vendors to provide user-friendly products at lower prices. Single interface for all databases. Finding role for ILL in future when more material available as e-books and restricted. Need to preserve fair use. Work to turn the University into more of an information provider through e-scholarship e.g. journals, research units, and conferences. Marketing of these products is important. The university can produce textbooks and instructional materials for students, and the library can assist with best practices.
3. Personnel
a. Outgrowths of the budget crisis
* more work is expected in the same time interval as before
* subject divisions are being eroded
b. New relationship between librarians and non-librarian staff; e.g. "library professional" is a super LA-5
* work needs to be done on succession planning and mentoring
* An issue is to consider at what point it is necessary to rehire as opposed to reassign positions within the library
c. New opportunities for professional development of staff.
* Request P.I. status for librarians as many grants for AF employees are not accessible as P.I. status is required before applying for the grant (travel grant).
* pathways for coursework and additional degrees
* manage tension between generalist/specialist
d. Optimal Future: As the lowest-staffed library in the UC system, Davis needs an increase in personnel to preserve the level of expertise necessary for a post-doctoral institutions. The current system of consolidation and reduction of personnel results in bad referrals and inefficiency. Regardless of the ingenuity in doing more with less, there is a level of staffing, we can't below without a critical loss in quality. More support needs to be given for staff to pursue formal training and certification.
4. Technology
a. communications technology: e.g. libguides, Second Life, chat reference, Skype (bibliographer groups), Facebook, YouTube,
* new hardware to support communication and mobility (headsets, microphones, webcams for live video, choice of laptop vs. desktop computer)
* training & technology support for new project initiatives and content creation: opportunity to explore the use of new and old technologies in a "sandbox environment" to foster our in-house creativity, collaboration and peer-to-peer learning (requires rethinking of budget and time allocations, initiated by librarians with systems support)
* security/permissions issues stand in the way of using some useful technologies; (these restrictions, in some cases, originate at the campus level)
* social networking may not be relevant to the library's future; publicity tools not reference
* tutorials limited by rapid change of databases which make them irrelevant; tutorials may be viable if limited to major resources or perhaps as links to tutorials by vendors
* library chat for each reference desk: needs to be localized to campus rather than current 24/7 which brings in questions throughout the system; chat should incorporate text messaging
* Next Generation: inadequacy of Next Generation interface; overwhelming resource which floods the user with information; retain local catalog with local notes, easy search of UCDavis titles; improved accuracy/precision of a local catalog
b. preservation/archiving technology: currently lack infrastructure to support digitization (produce, access), onsite; increased coordination necessary with CDL
* benefits to a shared workflow in cataloging and preservation throughout the system
* shared cataloging (CDL) being overwhelmed; need improved coordination between campuses; revamped so that process expedited with equal contributions; a SWAT team approach necessary to deal with backlogs
c. Instructional technology
* Endnote offers opportunities for new involvement with research practices
* use of clickers under consideration
d. optimal future: local catalog, improved infrastructure to support digitization; shared cataloging; mobile versions of catalog and small mobile applications to support general library research (undergraduates)
5. Collections
a. system vs. local collections
* books need local/core collections; system-wide collection for journals only
* approval plans under review; trend in libraries is to evaluate usage of print monograph similar to electronic resource review; changes in scholarly monograph publishing may signal evolution of approval or blanket plan to something more patron-driven for time of need for certain categories of material
* analysis of unique aspects of collection especially regard to the lack of permanence in digitized collections
b. reduce local footprint
* cannot reduce the footprint but must expand to support growth of programs at the university and larger volume of publications; ebook vendors are not available for this purpose; the local collection needs to be able to support growth.
* On the other hand, SOPAG collection space planning report claims that no more space is available. Libraries need to reach a 0% growth rate within five years to fit within available space. Long-term plans call for de-duplication of system holdings.
* cuts have already put significant strain on preservation and binding. More money and personnel will be needed in future to maintain the materials that we have.
c. optimal future: Physical constraints require a streamlining of collections throughout the system, but local collections should be shaped to support growth of programs on campus as much as possible.
6. Buildings
a. consolidation
* space already tight before the proposed closure of PSE
* while the Davis libraries have not reduced hours in response to budget cuts like other UC campuses, the hours are already low; they should be restructured to match times of student use
b. Rearrangement of space
* information commons forming on the first floor where there are no reference desks
* partnership with other entities to support a visual media commons (space, hardware, software, librarians and technical assistants) integrating media access and creation with media literacy topics taught by librarians.
* more group study rooms are necessary and more outlets for laptops
* fundraising: the building can provide sources for funds with the sale of merchandise, food, and space rentals for outside events.
c. optimal future: preserve the space that we have and redesign for efficiency to enable enhanced study environment for students and sale of products to generate funds for the library.
7. Campus Roles
a. Instruction
* UWP instruction
* integrated courses, subject specialists
* Re: Search Start paper consulting service
* classes for Learning Skills Center: STEP, term paper workshops
* orientations for new students and graduate students in all departments
* online tutorials and other tools under development
* EndNote to teach research and citation management at all levels.
* subject specialists given new freedom to design subject guides.
b. Outreach
* liaison work
* marketing
* advertising with fliers/ads to dorms
* reference service
* campus committees: academic federation committees, campus administrative advisory committees, LAUC
* webpage: blogs
* consulting: technical services (meta-data, preservation); archives/special collections
c. Optimal future:
* continued robust activity in existing areas
* sponsored seminars with academic focus; cultural events
* library research awards: writing contests
* formalizing/institutionalizing instruction with credit classes,
* technology: mobile bulletin boards in library lobby
* expansion into new areas of service: EndNote to improve research skills
8. Library Networks
a. ILL UCs
b. shared cataloging within UC
c.national cooperative cataloging
d. UCs repository of research programs in the state by act of legislation
e. CDL participation in national/international digitization
f. expansion outside of organizational boundaries to regional operations e.g. to include CSUs, other consortia
g. chat reference - national/international networks
h. networks to include public libraries, community colleges
i. Networks are driven by cost savings and have adverse effects on local institutions. As an example Google Books does not digitize anything with individual copyright. Many networked efforts pose problems in areas of preservation, omission, poor-quality of work
j. Optimal future - continued expansion in scale and cooperativity of networks with attention to preserving local specificity of collections.
9. Organizational Cultures
a. Communication issues with library administration
* Structure of library bureaucracy needs to reexamined; the library management contrasts with the rest of academia in remaining static while deans and department heads rotate
* There needs to be improved lines of communication
* Quicker responses
* administration counterclaims: communication efforts ignored, need two-way communication with timely input to administration in the spirit of the Principles of Community; difficult, unavoidable decisions should not be cause for shooting the messenger
* dangers of toxic self-perpetuating culture of negativity and inaction among librarians/staff
* free-form committees offer advantages over rigidly agenda-driven ones
* previous discussion indicates an information bottleneck in the practice of filtering communications from administration to staff through department heads; suggested remedies were to publish all minutes and to use notation clearly indicating action items, this has been unevenly adopted.
* need to consider ways to create an innovative environment that is proactive and encourages a sense of creativity and freedom to explore solutions to our challenges
* need to find ways to cultivate library community for example through social events such as ice cream socials and planned retreats
b. Communication with systems
* claims that Systems restricts access to technology and does not respond adequately to requests
* counterclaims that Systems acts to maintain security and must deal with technical challenges that are not apparent outside
c. Optimal future
* Improved communication with regular face-to-face meetings among parties involved e.g. Systems representation on RISC.
* A "Velvet Revolution" of an improved communal culture with frequent social activities
Friday, May 21, 2010
UCLA: Discussion of the Future
Summary of LAUC-LA Informal Meeting 4/7/10
Diane Mizrachi, LAUC UCLA Division Chair
This year, Statewide LAUC has initiated a dialog among its members on topics of interest to our future. On April 7, 2010, approximately 25 LAUC-LA members met for an informal meeting to look at two specific issues and how they impact the future and can be improved upon. The first issue is ensuring and improving upon the value of librarian professional expertise by the university community, and the second looks at the development of a new generational catalog – Next-Gen Melvyl. Below is a summary of our discussions.
In the values discussion we identified what specific expertise we posses and want to be valued for, and then created a list of suggestions. These questions may seem obvious but it is important from time to time to take stock of what we do and what we would like others to value about what we do. At the LAUC Southern Regional meeting at UC Irvine on May 6, UCSD UL Brian Schottlaender discussed a study he did recently of academic library job postings which reflects the evolution of skills and knowledge needed in our profession. These kinds of studies and introspection are important for us when visualizing and planning towards the future of libraries and librarianship.
Discussions identifying our expertise seemed to cluster around three general areas: expertise we have acquired through our studies in MLIS/MIS programs and on-the-job experience, subject expertise, and collaborations.
What we do and expect to be valued for:
• Our expertise above the layman acquired through our professional training and experience:
o Knowing how information is organized, stored, accessed
o Fluency in all sorts of information tools and resources,
o Knowledge of information vocabulary, collections
o Organizing, classifying information, integrating and evaluating
o Recognition of the "Invisible substrate" principle (by Marcia Bates): people don't realize that there's a science to information organization - having subject expertise doesn't necessarily mean one knows how to organize it best for retrieval & use
o Long term commitment to viability and direction of our collections, researchers have a short-term view.
o Library instruction to end-users and staff:
we plan, prepare, implement and evaluate our library instruction--help people learn how to learn
o Expertise with e-resources - licensing, acquiring, delivering, & maintaining are more complex than with print
o Scholarly communication issues & intellectual property
faculty perspective--where they publish affects what we can buy in the future
student perspective—plagiarism
o Training new librarians, new professionals and interns
o Functional expertise as important as subject expertise--undergrad services, metadata, cataloging, etc.
o Because we have mental models of information organization from our training, we can apply these models to new situations
o Create new standards--technical services; how to fix something when broken; integrating new materials into existing;
• Subject expertise
o Subject specialty becoming more important as general surfing becomes easier & more possible.
o Language expertise – our ability work with information in a multitude of languages
o tension between librarians who may make recommendations related to specific subject areas, and those who don't--partly dependent on subject expertise of the person--e.g., synthesizing information
• Collaborations
o The more we work with faculty and students the more they respect us.
o We offer different perspectives on information than researcher – more holistic
o Networking to other collections & libraries
o Groups with different expertise work together
o Bringing people into shared spaces (web, 2nd life), commons
Current and Future Needs and Suggestions
• We get questions from the larger community because we’re UCLA. We need to be valued for our role in the community as a whole.
• Need an atmosphere where ideas and creativity can flow without fear of reprisal
• Every grant should have a dollar amount and librarians written in as personnel
• More investment in preservation of digital data
• Need to highlight our instruction expertise to make this expertise more visible.
• Partner with faculty in teaching classes
• Increase collaboration and partnering across library, campus and off-campus communities
• Partner with businesses to improve search functionality--cataloging, instruction--librarian as search engine
• Find a mechanism for librarians to serve on relevant faculty committees
• Need greater communication to the university community about what we do and our value
• Great publicity and marketing of librarians
Personalize the librarians so we’re not just an institution
• Greater extension of the integration of IL into the general curriculum
• Investigate the adoption of the Management and law Library models of integrating/embedding librarian into other departments
• Encourage more transparency between librarians & administration and vice-verse
• Create a forum for non-LAUC library specialists (e.g. may be MLIS holders but position not in librarian series)
• LAUC should take a bigger role in reminding admin that we are here to advise them on services and policies--check in with us--we are the ones who work directly with users and want to provide assistance in making decisions
• Implement student fees for library services (address student-fee to library services)
• Education
• Information universe is increasing in complexity, not decreasing
Continue professional training and development
• We need to keep updated with newest developments in searching, licensing, purchasing of information in all formats
Questions for Further Discussion
• Should we re-think our status and promote acquiring faculty status?
• Merging and changing of units and roles has created fewer opportunities for librarians to lead nationally and internationally--less subject specific areas--e.g., government docs, how can we reverse this?
• Collocation principle has slipped – do we even still value that? Libraries would say yes but how do we convey that?
Issue 2: Next-Gen Melvyl
Pros:
• faceted searching; many international institutions are listing their materials; one place to search for information, books, journals, articles
• Only catalog that offers my library, UC libraries, OCLC libraries, all libraries
• Will be possible to see all in-process records
• Each campus may adapt default display
Cons:
• federated search doesn't look for articles from all dbs we license
What are the most important pieces of advice that you would give to the designers of Next-Gen Melvyl?
• Implement an Authority Control for author listings
o Attend to the de-duping problem
• Implement Browse Headings Searches for authors & subjects (like our current OPAC)
• Change display from relevance to alphabetical by author name or subject heading
o Sort facet searching by author name or other reasonable way, not by # of records
• Provide guidance on how to search vernacular for materials published in non-Latin scripts
• Make smaller icons, so less scrolling needed
• If reporting locally, UCLA materials should be the default display
• Implement options for focused searches--Catalog only, Catalog + articles, Articles only
• Include RLF paging mechanism
• Include notice to users that it doesn't search all licensed databases
• Make it easier to find E-books:
• Add types of searches--
o search for specific item--e.g., Nature (journal)
o Call number
o better book series searching
o Searching: known item or subject – “start of” for titles, subjects, & keyword in subject
• Graphic design of records daunting--info spread out all over page; hard to figure out what sort of item you're looking at
• Ability to select items from search list to email, rather than have to go into record to email
• Option to display brief or detailed record
• Allow log-on users to do customize their displays
Diane Mizrachi, LAUC UCLA Division Chair
This year, Statewide LAUC has initiated a dialog among its members on topics of interest to our future. On April 7, 2010, approximately 25 LAUC-LA members met for an informal meeting to look at two specific issues and how they impact the future and can be improved upon. The first issue is ensuring and improving upon the value of librarian professional expertise by the university community, and the second looks at the development of a new generational catalog – Next-Gen Melvyl. Below is a summary of our discussions.
In the values discussion we identified what specific expertise we posses and want to be valued for, and then created a list of suggestions. These questions may seem obvious but it is important from time to time to take stock of what we do and what we would like others to value about what we do. At the LAUC Southern Regional meeting at UC Irvine on May 6, UCSD UL Brian Schottlaender discussed a study he did recently of academic library job postings which reflects the evolution of skills and knowledge needed in our profession. These kinds of studies and introspection are important for us when visualizing and planning towards the future of libraries and librarianship.
Discussions identifying our expertise seemed to cluster around three general areas: expertise we have acquired through our studies in MLIS/MIS programs and on-the-job experience, subject expertise, and collaborations.
What we do and expect to be valued for:
• Our expertise above the layman acquired through our professional training and experience:
o Knowing how information is organized, stored, accessed
o Fluency in all sorts of information tools and resources,
o Knowledge of information vocabulary, collections
o Organizing, classifying information, integrating and evaluating
o Recognition of the "Invisible substrate" principle (by Marcia Bates): people don't realize that there's a science to information organization - having subject expertise doesn't necessarily mean one knows how to organize it best for retrieval & use
o Long term commitment to viability and direction of our collections, researchers have a short-term view.
o Library instruction to end-users and staff:
we plan, prepare, implement and evaluate our library instruction--help people learn how to learn
o Expertise with e-resources - licensing, acquiring, delivering, & maintaining are more complex than with print
o Scholarly communication issues & intellectual property
faculty perspective--where they publish affects what we can buy in the future
student perspective—plagiarism
o Training new librarians, new professionals and interns
o Functional expertise as important as subject expertise--undergrad services, metadata, cataloging, etc.
o Because we have mental models of information organization from our training, we can apply these models to new situations
o Create new standards--technical services; how to fix something when broken; integrating new materials into existing;
• Subject expertise
o Subject specialty becoming more important as general surfing becomes easier & more possible.
o Language expertise – our ability work with information in a multitude of languages
o tension between librarians who may make recommendations related to specific subject areas, and those who don't--partly dependent on subject expertise of the person--e.g., synthesizing information
• Collaborations
o The more we work with faculty and students the more they respect us.
o We offer different perspectives on information than researcher – more holistic
o Networking to other collections & libraries
o Groups with different expertise work together
o Bringing people into shared spaces (web, 2nd life), commons
Current and Future Needs and Suggestions
• We get questions from the larger community because we’re UCLA. We need to be valued for our role in the community as a whole.
• Need an atmosphere where ideas and creativity can flow without fear of reprisal
• Every grant should have a dollar amount and librarians written in as personnel
• More investment in preservation of digital data
• Need to highlight our instruction expertise to make this expertise more visible.
• Partner with faculty in teaching classes
• Increase collaboration and partnering across library, campus and off-campus communities
• Partner with businesses to improve search functionality--cataloging, instruction--librarian as search engine
• Find a mechanism for librarians to serve on relevant faculty committees
• Need greater communication to the university community about what we do and our value
• Great publicity and marketing of librarians
Personalize the librarians so we’re not just an institution
• Greater extension of the integration of IL into the general curriculum
• Investigate the adoption of the Management and law Library models of integrating/embedding librarian into other departments
• Encourage more transparency between librarians & administration and vice-verse
• Create a forum for non-LAUC library specialists (e.g. may be MLIS holders but position not in librarian series)
• LAUC should take a bigger role in reminding admin that we are here to advise them on services and policies--check in with us--we are the ones who work directly with users and want to provide assistance in making decisions
• Implement student fees for library services (address student-fee to library services)
• Education
• Information universe is increasing in complexity, not decreasing
Continue professional training and development
• We need to keep updated with newest developments in searching, licensing, purchasing of information in all formats
Questions for Further Discussion
• Should we re-think our status and promote acquiring faculty status?
• Merging and changing of units and roles has created fewer opportunities for librarians to lead nationally and internationally--less subject specific areas--e.g., government docs, how can we reverse this?
• Collocation principle has slipped – do we even still value that? Libraries would say yes but how do we convey that?
Issue 2: Next-Gen Melvyl
Pros:
• faceted searching; many international institutions are listing their materials; one place to search for information, books, journals, articles
• Only catalog that offers my library, UC libraries, OCLC libraries, all libraries
• Will be possible to see all in-process records
• Each campus may adapt default display
Cons:
• federated search doesn't look for articles from all dbs we license
What are the most important pieces of advice that you would give to the designers of Next-Gen Melvyl?
• Implement an Authority Control for author listings
o Attend to the de-duping problem
• Implement Browse Headings Searches for authors & subjects (like our current OPAC)
• Change display from relevance to alphabetical by author name or subject heading
o Sort facet searching by author name or other reasonable way, not by # of records
• Provide guidance on how to search vernacular for materials published in non-Latin scripts
• Make smaller icons, so less scrolling needed
• If reporting locally, UCLA materials should be the default display
• Implement options for focused searches--Catalog only, Catalog + articles, Articles only
• Include RLF paging mechanism
• Include notice to users that it doesn't search all licensed databases
• Make it easier to find E-books:
• Add types of searches--
o search for specific item--e.g., Nature (journal)
o Call number
o better book series searching
o Searching: known item or subject – “start of” for titles, subjects, & keyword in subject
• Graphic design of records daunting--info spread out all over page; hard to figure out what sort of item you're looking at
• Ability to select items from search list to email, rather than have to go into record to email
• Option to display brief or detailed record
• Allow log-on users to do customize their displays
Thursday, May 20, 2010
UCSF Response to UC Commission on the Future
The Librarians Association of the University of California (LAUC) is an official unit of the University charged with advising system-wide, campus, and library administration on the best course for the continued vitality of the University's libraries. More information about the purpose and history of LAUC is available here: http://gort.ucsd.edu/lauc/about.html.
On behalf of the San Francisco Division of LAUC, I am writing to respond to the first round of recommendations posted by the Working Groups of the UC Commission on the Future. This is a follow-up to the statements made by librarians representing many LAUC divisions last fall, as representatives of the working groups visited individual campuses. Those statements stressed the importance of a vibrant library system for the continued vitality of UC.
Without a central place to access and utilize the fruits of UC's scholarly endeavors, the impact of UC's research efforts will be minimized. Furthermore, the next generation of leaders-today's students-will not excel without the benefit of a robust library system.
The working groups have put forth many ideas to ensure a brighter future for UC. This was an enormously difficult task accomplished within a short period of time. Of the recommendations offered, we would like to suggest two areas in which librarians could be valuable partners:
* Education and Curriculum Working Group: "Continue timely exploration of online instruction in the undergraduate curriculum, as well as in self-supporting graduate degrees and Extension programs." Many UC librarians today develop online instructional modules as supplements to individual consultations or classroom-based workshops. Given the plethora of online resources provided and managed by UC Libraries, in many cases today there is less need to visit physical libraries than previously. Librarians have responded by developing the capacity to interact with patrons within their own contexts, and this expertise would be useful as UC contemplates modes of online instruction.
* Research Strategies Working Group: "Create multicampus, interdisciplinary 'UC Grand Challenge Research Initiatives' to realize the enormous potential of UC’s ten campuses and three national laboratories on behalf of the state and the nation." This is a transformative, bold idea. Librarians can assist in developing the infrastructure to manage such a large project, from creating the digital repositories required to store the records of these investigations centrally to providing the skilled staff to manage them. One possible approach would be for the California Digital Library, which serves all 10 campuses, to distribute the results of these investigations on its eScholarship platform. This would maximize impact for the state and nation, and world, because eScholarship is an open platform available for viewing by all.
We offer these suggestions in a spirit of genuine collaboration and in recognition of the difficult days for UC that lie ahead.
Sincerely,
Marcus Banks
LAUC-SF Chair, 2009-2010
marcus.banks@ucsf.edu
On behalf of the San Francisco Division of LAUC, I am writing to respond to the first round of recommendations posted by the Working Groups of the UC Commission on the Future. This is a follow-up to the statements made by librarians representing many LAUC divisions last fall, as representatives of the working groups visited individual campuses. Those statements stressed the importance of a vibrant library system for the continued vitality of UC.
Without a central place to access and utilize the fruits of UC's scholarly endeavors, the impact of UC's research efforts will be minimized. Furthermore, the next generation of leaders-today's students-will not excel without the benefit of a robust library system.
The working groups have put forth many ideas to ensure a brighter future for UC. This was an enormously difficult task accomplished within a short period of time. Of the recommendations offered, we would like to suggest two areas in which librarians could be valuable partners:
* Education and Curriculum Working Group: "Continue timely exploration of online instruction in the undergraduate curriculum, as well as in self-supporting graduate degrees and Extension programs." Many UC librarians today develop online instructional modules as supplements to individual consultations or classroom-based workshops. Given the plethora of online resources provided and managed by UC Libraries, in many cases today there is less need to visit physical libraries than previously. Librarians have responded by developing the capacity to interact with patrons within their own contexts, and this expertise would be useful as UC contemplates modes of online instruction.
* Research Strategies Working Group: "Create multicampus, interdisciplinary 'UC Grand Challenge Research Initiatives' to realize the enormous potential of UC’s ten campuses and three national laboratories on behalf of the state and the nation." This is a transformative, bold idea. Librarians can assist in developing the infrastructure to manage such a large project, from creating the digital repositories required to store the records of these investigations centrally to providing the skilled staff to manage them. One possible approach would be for the California Digital Library, which serves all 10 campuses, to distribute the results of these investigations on its eScholarship platform. This would maximize impact for the state and nation, and world, because eScholarship is an open platform available for viewing by all.
We offer these suggestions in a spirit of genuine collaboration and in recognition of the difficult days for UC that lie ahead.
Sincerely,
Marcus Banks
LAUC-SF Chair, 2009-2010
marcus.banks@ucsf.edu
Monday, May 17, 2010
Library Barbecue
The issue is the viability of libraries and the question is: "As higher education confronts shortages in hungry times, will officials who previously viewed the library as a sacred cow think it's time for a barbecue?"
The answer according to Barbara Fister in an article in Library Journal.com is: "Don't light the charcoal yet." Fister tested a number of provocative and alarmist statements about the future of libraries posted in TAIGA, a listserve for AUL's. These included: "Librarians who are not productive will be reassigned or fired." These were tested against the views of non-librarian university administrators and the conclusion is that administrators were more optimistic about the future of libraries than librarians themselves. Administrators cited the high use of libraries by faculty and staff; the importance of those with specialized knowledge to help research; the value of a physical space for diverse areas of the university to interact in the process of learning; and the vital importance of the library to the mission of the university and higher learning in general. Dan Greenstein of the UCs was cited as the only one surveyed who was a university administrator who also had a library background. His views which have provoked some controversy is that libraries will continue to thrive but mainly in the form of a single, mostly digitized repository. Campus libraries will be reduced to special collections for local holdings.
The message from administrators generally is not to despair but not to be complacent either. Administrators called on librarians to be more forceful in making their case for the value of libraries.
Fister, Barbara. "Critical Assets: Academic Libraries, a View from the Administration Building." Library Journal.com (2010).
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6726948.html
The answer according to Barbara Fister in an article in Library Journal.com is: "Don't light the charcoal yet." Fister tested a number of provocative and alarmist statements about the future of libraries posted in TAIGA, a listserve for AUL's. These included: "Librarians who are not productive will be reassigned or fired." These were tested against the views of non-librarian university administrators and the conclusion is that administrators were more optimistic about the future of libraries than librarians themselves. Administrators cited the high use of libraries by faculty and staff; the importance of those with specialized knowledge to help research; the value of a physical space for diverse areas of the university to interact in the process of learning; and the vital importance of the library to the mission of the university and higher learning in general. Dan Greenstein of the UCs was cited as the only one surveyed who was a university administrator who also had a library background. His views which have provoked some controversy is that libraries will continue to thrive but mainly in the form of a single, mostly digitized repository. Campus libraries will be reduced to special collections for local holdings.
The message from administrators generally is not to despair but not to be complacent either. Administrators called on librarians to be more forceful in making their case for the value of libraries.
Fister, Barbara. "Critical Assets: Academic Libraries, a View from the Administration Building." Library Journal.com (2010).
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6726948.html
Campus Learning Spaces
A recent study at the University of Washington on qualities of optimal learning spaces invites some attention as that institution is comparable to many of the UC campuses. The study gathered data from a variety of sources including surveys, focus groups, and usage statistics of various kinds. The results seem to validate the notion of an information commons. Specifically, the recommendations were to maintain traditional general access computers while removing obstacles to the use of laptops. In particular, the study called for multiple, convenient recharging stations. The physical environment was also important with users calling for quiet, "comfy" chairs, and spaces for both individual and group study. The complete report can be viewed at:
http://www.washington.edu/lst/news/2010/techsurvey_report
http://www.washington.edu/lst/news/2010/techsurvey_report
UL's Corner: San Diego
In his keynote address at the Irvine Assembly on the future of librarianship at UC on May 6, Brian Schottlaender, UL at UC San Diego, discussed some issues that have appeared in our ongoing discussion. First, the indication is that the system is rapidly running out of physical space for its collection and for this reason as well as for increased efficiency, the trend is for shared repositories among libraries. A new entity is emerging called the "collective collection" which links together shared repositories. While offering some promise, the collectivization of materials raises numbers of significant questions about responsibility, decision-making and vast logistical problems that include matters of access and permanence. (One study suggests that exactly 11 copies of a document assure its permanence!) One example of the collective collection is the Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST) composed of the UC as well as other major universities and extending to Canada.
Brian also discussed the profile of the future librarian. The qualities that have appeared in other discussions of this topic have now been amplified to an almost superhuman level of capability and diversity. The future librarian will be a generalist with multiple advanced credentials, versatile, self-motivated, a team player, possessed of good technological and communicative skills, comfortable with business models and adept at strategic and tactical thinking. These qualities have been distilled from a number of studies. The powerpoint slides from Brian's presentation can be viewed here:
http://www.ucop.edu/lauc/assembly/spring_2010_schottlaender.ppt
Brian also discussed the profile of the future librarian. The qualities that have appeared in other discussions of this topic have now been amplified to an almost superhuman level of capability and diversity. The future librarian will be a generalist with multiple advanced credentials, versatile, self-motivated, a team player, possessed of good technological and communicative skills, comfortable with business models and adept at strategic and tactical thinking. These qualities have been distilled from a number of studies. The powerpoint slides from Brian's presentation can be viewed here:
http://www.ucop.edu/lauc/assembly/spring_2010_schottlaender.ppt
Monday, May 10, 2010
Study of Information Seeking Behavior
OCLC researchers analyse and synthesise studies of digital information seekers
Library information provider OCLC Research has announced that its scientists, in partnership with JISC, have released a study titled 'The Digital
Information Seeker: Report of Findings >From Selected OCLC, RIN and JISC User Behaviour Projects'. The report seeks to analyse and synthesise 12 separate
studies to make it easier for information professionals to better understand information-seeking behaviours of library users. The study, authored by Dr.
Lynn Silipigni Connaway and Dr. Timothy J. Dickey, OCLC Research, was funded by JISC, and was presented during the JISC Annual Conference in London in
April.
The report is here http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/04/07/digital-information-seekers-new-report-analyzes-and-synthesizes-12-separate-studies/
Library information provider OCLC Research has announced that its scientists, in partnership with JISC, have released a study titled 'The Digital
Information Seeker: Report of Findings >From Selected OCLC, RIN and JISC User Behaviour Projects'. The report seeks to analyse and synthesise 12 separate
studies to make it easier for information professionals to better understand information-seeking behaviours of library users. The study, authored by Dr.
Lynn Silipigni Connaway and Dr. Timothy J. Dickey, OCLC Research, was funded by JISC, and was presented during the JISC Annual Conference in London in
April.
The report is here http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/04/07/digital-information-seekers-new-report-analyzes-and-synthesizes-12-separate-studies/
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
UL's Corner: Merced
R. Bruce Miller, University Librarian
1. Reference
What constitutes reference services when all users ask Google and are satisfied with the results? Why would anyone go to the library for reference help? How can we become more involved in developing more sophisticated, semantic-based online access to scholarly information?
2. Library relationships with information providers
Some information providers exist in order to make a profit. Others are non-profit and seek only to cover expenses. Regardless of motivation, the costs are real. We are in a symbiotic relationship in which there is no gain in forcing a provider out of business and that is not sustainable if the library faces costs for which there the budget is insufficient. How can we ensure, for the information providers, that necessary business costs are met and that profits are commensurate with value received and, for the library, that allocated funds can be used for the greatest benefit for our users?
3. Personnel
Increased outsourcing and greater reliance on end-user self service reduces the need for library staff who do routine and repetitive tasks. Those who do work in the library must be highly capable and empowered professionals. How should we develop existing staff and librarians to better prepare them for increased professional responsibility?
4. Technology
Essentially all incoming freshmen own a laptop and most of them also have smart phones. Within a few years, all of our constituents will have mobile computing capabilities that enable full access to the resources of the library, any time and any place. In this context, what is the role of the library in providing technology?
5. Collections
The complete content for the bulk of our journal collections is effectively online. Within a few years, the majority of our monograph collections will also be online. Additionally, our users will have online access to large quantities of scholarly monographs not held within the UC Libraries via HathiTrust. With such ready access to this vast amount of materials, will users abandon use of information resources within the UC Library Collection that are not online? If yes, what should we do differently?
6. Buildings/Facilities
If all users have personal computers with ready access to the Internet and library services and information resources are available online 24/7, why will any users come to a library building?
7. Library campus roles
Librarians comprehend the issues that surround complete life-cycle curation for digital assets. What is the role of the library in working with faculty and students before, during, and after the creation of digital scholarly information resources?
8. Library networks
“Network” is a very broad term that could include OCLC, professional associations, consortia, and even individual professional relationships. One can make a case that the value of a network is directly correlated with provision of access to information resources. How can we weave together myriad information resources that reside in balkanized information systems so that the end user can easily seek information and still be reassured that their search has been thorough?
9. Organizational Cultures in libraries
See comment and question above in 3. Personnel.
1. Reference
What constitutes reference services when all users ask Google and are satisfied with the results? Why would anyone go to the library for reference help? How can we become more involved in developing more sophisticated, semantic-based online access to scholarly information?
2. Library relationships with information providers
Some information providers exist in order to make a profit. Others are non-profit and seek only to cover expenses. Regardless of motivation, the costs are real. We are in a symbiotic relationship in which there is no gain in forcing a provider out of business and that is not sustainable if the library faces costs for which there the budget is insufficient. How can we ensure, for the information providers, that necessary business costs are met and that profits are commensurate with value received and, for the library, that allocated funds can be used for the greatest benefit for our users?
3. Personnel
Increased outsourcing and greater reliance on end-user self service reduces the need for library staff who do routine and repetitive tasks. Those who do work in the library must be highly capable and empowered professionals. How should we develop existing staff and librarians to better prepare them for increased professional responsibility?
4. Technology
Essentially all incoming freshmen own a laptop and most of them also have smart phones. Within a few years, all of our constituents will have mobile computing capabilities that enable full access to the resources of the library, any time and any place. In this context, what is the role of the library in providing technology?
5. Collections
The complete content for the bulk of our journal collections is effectively online. Within a few years, the majority of our monograph collections will also be online. Additionally, our users will have online access to large quantities of scholarly monographs not held within the UC Libraries via HathiTrust. With such ready access to this vast amount of materials, will users abandon use of information resources within the UC Library Collection that are not online? If yes, what should we do differently?
6. Buildings/Facilities
If all users have personal computers with ready access to the Internet and library services and information resources are available online 24/7, why will any users come to a library building?
7. Library campus roles
Librarians comprehend the issues that surround complete life-cycle curation for digital assets. What is the role of the library in working with faculty and students before, during, and after the creation of digital scholarly information resources?
8. Library networks
“Network” is a very broad term that could include OCLC, professional associations, consortia, and even individual professional relationships. One can make a case that the value of a network is directly correlated with provision of access to information resources. How can we weave together myriad information resources that reside in balkanized information systems so that the end user can easily seek information and still be reassured that their search has been thorough?
9. Organizational Cultures in libraries
See comment and question above in 3. Personnel.
UL's Corner: Irvine
The UC ULs and library directors have offered to share their thoughts on the nine topic areas that have defined out discussion of the future of librarians and libraries at UC, and the UL's Corner will post the contribution of the campuses as they come in. The LAUC Committee on Professional Governance would like to thank the ULs for their participation. This edition comes from Irvine thanks to:
Carol Ann Hughes, Associate University Librarian, Public Services
Deborah Stansbury Sunday, Associate University Librarian, Administrative Services
1. Reference - As statistics for reference desks drop and e-reference
grows, at what point should we stop drop-in reference desk assistance
and depend on electronic means?
2. Library relationships with information providers - How do we
demonstrate that their current pricing models are counterproductive in
terms of keeping us, their customers, able to control costs effectively?
3. Personnel - How do we build capacity across existing staff without
overburdening them?
4. Technology - To what extent/at what rate do libraries need to
incorporate social networking capabilities into our services in order to
maintain relevancy to our community of users?
5. Collections - How do we assure that we have the right amount and
kinds of space for both physical and electronic collections?
6. Buildings/Facilities - How can we best be persuasive in the campus
conversation about the scarcity of prime real estate on central campuses?
7. Library campus roles - How do we convey the "value proposition" of
libraries to faculty beyond that of a 'buying club' (which is their
growing perception of us according to the recent Ithaka report.)
8. Library networks - How do libraries leverage our membership in
multiple networks to get a satisfactory return on investment?
9. Organizational cultures in libraries - The culture of most internal
library functions is changing as the work changes, but at a difference
pace in different units. How can we best help staff develop
complementary goals and help them keep moving collaboratively across
units as these changes occur?
Carol Ann Hughes, Associate University Librarian, Public Services
Deborah Stansbury Sunday, Associate University Librarian, Administrative Services
1. Reference - As statistics for reference desks drop and e-reference
grows, at what point should we stop drop-in reference desk assistance
and depend on electronic means?
2. Library relationships with information providers - How do we
demonstrate that their current pricing models are counterproductive in
terms of keeping us, their customers, able to control costs effectively?
3. Personnel - How do we build capacity across existing staff without
overburdening them?
4. Technology - To what extent/at what rate do libraries need to
incorporate social networking capabilities into our services in order to
maintain relevancy to our community of users?
5. Collections - How do we assure that we have the right amount and
kinds of space for both physical and electronic collections?
6. Buildings/Facilities - How can we best be persuasive in the campus
conversation about the scarcity of prime real estate on central campuses?
7. Library campus roles - How do we convey the "value proposition" of
libraries to faculty beyond that of a 'buying club' (which is their
growing perception of us according to the recent Ithaka report.)
8. Library networks - How do libraries leverage our membership in
multiple networks to get a satisfactory return on investment?
9. Organizational cultures in libraries - The culture of most internal
library functions is changing as the work changes, but at a difference
pace in different units. How can we best help staff develop
complementary goals and help them keep moving collaboratively across
units as these changes occur?
UC Irvine Libraries [LAUC-I] "Academic Librarians & Our Future"
Pauline Manaka pdmanaka@uci.edu
LAUC Irvine is hosting the semi-autonomous Southern California Regional Meeting of UC Librarians on Friday May 6, 2010, from 10:00a -3:00p. This is in order to continue the dialog on the future of academic libraries and library professionals. The planning of the event is led by Dana Peterman, LAUC-Irvine chair, and a supporting cast of Kristin Andrews, LAUC-I chair of the Academic Librarianship Committee and Becky Imamato, LAUC-I chair of the Program Committee. There has been a great deal of input and support by other members of LAUC-I, Bob Johnson, Mitchell Brown, and from the LAUC Committee on Professional Governance, myself and Matt Conner. For details, please refer to the website, http://lauci.lib.uci.edu/springprogram2010/index.html
At the University level, two committees relating to the library, with membership of faculty, library staff and administrators were appointed. The library and the university have been working together to discuss planning for the future in general, but also to appointment an interim library director. A “Planning for the Future of Libraries” report was shared and discussed with library staff; and the appointment of an interim acting library director is due shortly.
Some of my thoughts about the future of academic libraries are influenced by a quote from Rene Descartes, “I think, therefore, I am”[1]. This reassures me that some of the changes ahead, are needed, and can be greatly influenced by the decisions that evolve from our communication, no matter how uncertain things might be right now. The reports generated from the November LAUC Northern California Assembly, the upcoming UC Irvine meeting and subsequent discussions will have a meaningful influence, only when we challenge ourselves accordingly! Whatever the outcome, change is inevitable, and we are better of working as a part of the change process! For those who will be attending the meeting on Friday at UCI please contact Dana Peterman if you wish to serve as a recorder for a discussion group. Please send Dana questions on this, if you need further information. Looking forward to seeing you!
LAUC Irvine is hosting the semi-autonomous Southern California Regional Meeting of UC Librarians on Friday May 6, 2010, from 10:00a -3:00p. This is in order to continue the dialog on the future of academic libraries and library professionals. The planning of the event is led by Dana Peterman, LAUC-Irvine chair, and a supporting cast of Kristin Andrews, LAUC-I chair of the Academic Librarianship Committee and Becky Imamato, LAUC-I chair of the Program Committee. There has been a great deal of input and support by other members of LAUC-I, Bob Johnson, Mitchell Brown, and from the LAUC Committee on Professional Governance, myself and Matt Conner. For details, please refer to the website, http://lauci.lib.uci.edu/springprogram2010/index.html
At the University level, two committees relating to the library, with membership of faculty, library staff and administrators were appointed. The library and the university have been working together to discuss planning for the future in general, but also to appointment an interim library director. A “Planning for the Future of Libraries” report was shared and discussed with library staff; and the appointment of an interim acting library director is due shortly.
Some of my thoughts about the future of academic libraries are influenced by a quote from Rene Descartes, “I think, therefore, I am”[1]. This reassures me that some of the changes ahead, are needed, and can be greatly influenced by the decisions that evolve from our communication, no matter how uncertain things might be right now. The reports generated from the November LAUC Northern California Assembly, the upcoming UC Irvine meeting and subsequent discussions will have a meaningful influence, only when we challenge ourselves accordingly! Whatever the outcome, change is inevitable, and we are better of working as a part of the change process! For those who will be attending the meeting on Friday at UCI please contact Dana Peterman if you wish to serve as a recorder for a discussion group. Please send Dana questions on this, if you need further information. Looking forward to seeing you!
Monday, May 3, 2010
Acquiring - Roles for defining collections for research and tenure/promotion
Acquiring - covers acquisitions and Faculty Promotion and Tenure
Mitchell Brown, UC Irvine (mcbrown@uci.edu)
Other questions for consideration of joint collections raise questions of electronic books and free resources.
“We must take care not to embrace mediocrity but continue the tradition of excellence.”
Posted by Linda Vida.
UCB Spring Assembly Discussion Topics Wednesday, April 21, 2010
http://laucassembly.blogspot.com/2010/04/ucb-spring-assembly-discussion-topics.html
Mitchell Brown, UC Irvine (mcbrown@uci.edu)
The promotion and tenure process for faculty still requires peer-reviewed and print book length material, which they (ironically) don't use in their assignments -
- How do we justify their purchase with decreased use among the largest populations (i.e. undergraduates)?
- This affects our collecting because it contradicts our ability to reduce our reliance on expensive subscriptions.
Other questions for consideration of joint collections raise questions of electronic books and free resources.
- Is it time to have CDL negotiating consortial e-book licenses?
- What will be the role of open access material in building library collections?
“We must take care not to embrace mediocrity but continue the tradition of excellence.”
Posted by Linda Vida.
UCB Spring Assembly Discussion Topics Wednesday, April 21, 2010
http://laucassembly.blogspot.com/2010/04/ucb-spring-assembly-discussion-topics.html
Thursday, April 29, 2010
LAUC-SB Future of Librarians in the UC discussion
Statewide LAUC has charged CPG to discuss the future of librarians within the UC. LAUC-SB had an animated discussion of the issue on April 21. The following notes are from that discussion.
The UC Library Collection white paper as it stands now does not really focus on the role of librarians. It spells out the future of libraries but not librarians. Are librarians still subject specialist or collection managers? And how does this affect reference and other duties that we currently perform? If this is the way we are going in UC, what does it mean to be a librarian?
OCLC Research Report and ITHAKA Faculty survey both indicate an eroding role of librarians in academia. It’s a good barometer for how librarians are perceived by faculty and the outside world. The library was perceived in very high terms as a buyer of information but lower and lowering value as a gateway function. This negative perception of librarians is smaller than 20% but that percentage has doubled since the last survey in 2006. One way to approach the discussion is from the outside looking in.
What librarians need to do is better advertise or expose the role of the librarian in the role of gatekeeper. We are the ones purchasing access to all the content and as such we are doing a good job of quality control. One issue is that many faculty and graduate students is that they think they’re doing enough. They are finding enough materials through Google scholar or Google books. Are there things we have always done that we don’t need to do anymore? Since we are competing with someone who does it better? Then this is an issue of marketing and how we are putting ourselves out there.
These faculty also know who the big names are in their fields and need to be kept track of. However, in terms of interdisciplinary research, faculty don’t necessarily know who the big names are outside their direct field. The faculty will most likely go to faculty in the other departments rather than to the library to find out what they’re missing.
The faculty think that they can get to the information if they want and whenever they want regardless of whether there are librarians or who the librarians are. One reason faculty approach librarians is when they fail to find what they are looking for. That allows librarians to skip the first 20 steps of the reference interview. The big problem though is that faculty are failing earlier than they are aware of. If this is true, how are graduate students and undergraduate students faring?
It’s a cycle that’s difficult. We don’t want to withhold information so that patrons must come into the library because they won’t care. They just won’t use any information that is not easily available. But by making everything easily available, we also fuel the misperception that librarians are irrelevant in the use of libraries.
When you look at the future of libraries and librarians, it seems that a lot of the most exciting things are happening at CDL. That makes the role of libraries and librarians at places like UCSB that much more precarious. However, CDL has always drawn on the expertise of librarians at UCSB and tried to keep us involved. They will most likely keep on doing this. We can also take the initiative and find places within CDL that are open to us to make bigger contributions than we have in the past. Also, keep in mind that CDL has always been a very small operation and has a very small staff. They need the librarians at the campuses to participate in all of their endeavors. No one can do it by themselves anymore and this is especially true of the UC Library system. We need to keep looking for partners and funding sources to keep all of our projects moving forward.
The building as a place to study is not important to faculty but students find a place to study very relevant for their needs.
Perhaps one way to go is to become data repositories as opposed to document repositories. That would mean that many librarians need formal training in mining that data. It is its own specialty. There are requests coming in from graduate students and faculty and it’s an area that most librarians are not currently specialists in. It’s all somewhat similar to what we’re currently doing in terms of pointing people in the right direction. Perhaps this is an esoteric position where not all the campuses need or have data librarians. Perhaps 2 or 3 libraries have these positions who act as reference points for all librarians to confer with as the need arises.
Perhaps what will happen is that librarians will move out of individual libraries to CDL. One need that is on the radar at UCSB is to find out where libraries and librarians fit into the world of publishing.
CDL does not serve faculty or students directly so they particularly vulnerable to budget cuts during times of budget difficulties. What they do is manage things at a system wide level.
eScholarship program, platform and services have been set up. The role of advocacy and outreach is something CDL has been doing but something we can do as well.
What can LAUC do? We can respond. We can let faculty know how we fit into their comments and suggestions for the library. We can rewrite our job descriptions and continue to advocate for ourselves. What do we see our jobs to being in these scenarios? What does this tell us about where we need to concentrate? What do we need to actually make us function?
If you were writing your replacement’s job description, what needs do you think should be met that aren’t being met currently? What will job descriptions, new position postings look like in the future? We’ve got training series currently in the works for the coming year regarding collection management and scholarly communication.
The UC Library Collection white paper as it stands now does not really focus on the role of librarians. It spells out the future of libraries but not librarians. Are librarians still subject specialist or collection managers? And how does this affect reference and other duties that we currently perform? If this is the way we are going in UC, what does it mean to be a librarian?
OCLC Research Report and ITHAKA Faculty survey both indicate an eroding role of librarians in academia. It’s a good barometer for how librarians are perceived by faculty and the outside world. The library was perceived in very high terms as a buyer of information but lower and lowering value as a gateway function. This negative perception of librarians is smaller than 20% but that percentage has doubled since the last survey in 2006. One way to approach the discussion is from the outside looking in.
What librarians need to do is better advertise or expose the role of the librarian in the role of gatekeeper. We are the ones purchasing access to all the content and as such we are doing a good job of quality control. One issue is that many faculty and graduate students is that they think they’re doing enough. They are finding enough materials through Google scholar or Google books. Are there things we have always done that we don’t need to do anymore? Since we are competing with someone who does it better? Then this is an issue of marketing and how we are putting ourselves out there.
These faculty also know who the big names are in their fields and need to be kept track of. However, in terms of interdisciplinary research, faculty don’t necessarily know who the big names are outside their direct field. The faculty will most likely go to faculty in the other departments rather than to the library to find out what they’re missing.
The faculty think that they can get to the information if they want and whenever they want regardless of whether there are librarians or who the librarians are. One reason faculty approach librarians is when they fail to find what they are looking for. That allows librarians to skip the first 20 steps of the reference interview. The big problem though is that faculty are failing earlier than they are aware of. If this is true, how are graduate students and undergraduate students faring?
It’s a cycle that’s difficult. We don’t want to withhold information so that patrons must come into the library because they won’t care. They just won’t use any information that is not easily available. But by making everything easily available, we also fuel the misperception that librarians are irrelevant in the use of libraries.
When you look at the future of libraries and librarians, it seems that a lot of the most exciting things are happening at CDL. That makes the role of libraries and librarians at places like UCSB that much more precarious. However, CDL has always drawn on the expertise of librarians at UCSB and tried to keep us involved. They will most likely keep on doing this. We can also take the initiative and find places within CDL that are open to us to make bigger contributions than we have in the past. Also, keep in mind that CDL has always been a very small operation and has a very small staff. They need the librarians at the campuses to participate in all of their endeavors. No one can do it by themselves anymore and this is especially true of the UC Library system. We need to keep looking for partners and funding sources to keep all of our projects moving forward.
The building as a place to study is not important to faculty but students find a place to study very relevant for their needs.
Perhaps one way to go is to become data repositories as opposed to document repositories. That would mean that many librarians need formal training in mining that data. It is its own specialty. There are requests coming in from graduate students and faculty and it’s an area that most librarians are not currently specialists in. It’s all somewhat similar to what we’re currently doing in terms of pointing people in the right direction. Perhaps this is an esoteric position where not all the campuses need or have data librarians. Perhaps 2 or 3 libraries have these positions who act as reference points for all librarians to confer with as the need arises.
Perhaps what will happen is that librarians will move out of individual libraries to CDL. One need that is on the radar at UCSB is to find out where libraries and librarians fit into the world of publishing.
CDL does not serve faculty or students directly so they particularly vulnerable to budget cuts during times of budget difficulties. What they do is manage things at a system wide level.
eScholarship program, platform and services have been set up. The role of advocacy and outreach is something CDL has been doing but something we can do as well.
What can LAUC do? We can respond. We can let faculty know how we fit into their comments and suggestions for the library. We can rewrite our job descriptions and continue to advocate for ourselves. What do we see our jobs to being in these scenarios? What does this tell us about where we need to concentrate? What do we need to actually make us function?
If you were writing your replacement’s job description, what needs do you think should be met that aren’t being met currently? What will job descriptions, new position postings look like in the future? We’ve got training series currently in the works for the coming year regarding collection management and scholarly communication.
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Consequences of Changing University Pedagogy and Teaching Habits
The future of library pedagogy is an uncertain yet exciting one during these transitional times. At the UCs and nation-wide, we live in an era of shrinking budgets, increasing student populations, and hiring freezes in library staff. What strategies can UC librarians implement to deal with the changing university pedagogy?
What has changed in teaching?
Some classes are even larger than before. Fewer papers are being assigned and those that are assigned may be shorter or less reliant on secondary literature. Faculty expectations of student works trend toward the use of multimedia, and creative works. Resources for student work are increasingly derived from material not owned or easily curated by librarians, such as websites and proprietary or massaged data. In line with the work that faculty are themselves conducting as researchers, work is increasingly cross- and inter-disciplinary. This is particularly true at University of California where the influence of research on teaching has long been a value of the institution. Though it does not represent a dramatic change in philosophy for some subject areas, expensive library resources in professional schools are cordoned off from the rest of the university. Parallel, and in some ways contrary to these trends, course management systems have created a closed system appearance to courses in which all content needed to pass or succeed appears to be contained within a single interface.
Some of changes in student behavior have both led to a decreased reliance on library resources and an increased emphasis on the pedagogy.
Regardless of the reason, students are familiar with searching and with multimedia creation. They are less likely to feel they need assistance. They use texting and instant messaging for most casual communication and more frequently than face-to-face or telephone. They use information that is created for them reasonably effectively, but are less likely to pursue difficult-to-find material. They don’t need to use a library catalog or database when Google Scholar and Google Books are good enough. In other words, in spite of the added value that traditional reference transactions and instruction bring to the table, fewer students avail themselves of those services without active promotion from librarians or faculty. In addition, those students who choose substitute mediums for reference transactions and instruction are pre-disposed to a communication style in which an expected answer is both shorter and presumed pre-contextualized to their need.
Using one of the nine topics covered in the fall assembly here are some of the implications that result from pedagogy changes.
Some of these ideas were compiled from the conversations that have gone on before with some commentary. We could pilot the effectiveness of any approach on every campus, then compare results. Another might be to share how each approach has been evaluated and what factors were known to have made it succeed. Choose one of these ideas and run with it. Here’s an example that could be further articulated. What would you vote and commit to do?
Integrate information literacy into the academic curriculum.
Drivers in this direction include:
Our familiarity with the standards.
How faculty understand those standards as a part of a traditional pedagogical rubric.
Correspondence with existing pedagogies.
Drivers in the opposite direction include:
Perception by faculty that information standards are their purview.
Insufficient content to establish separate, large-scale courses.
Overly large classes.
Inability to provide more time to the task of teaching over time given competing responsibilities.
Campus roles
In our role as librarians, we have countered pedagogical and student trends by framing ourselves as campus consultants. We’ve created “your personal librarian” programs. We’ve become part of curriculum planning. We’ve attempted programmatic collaboration in instruction by partnering with lower division writing programs. In some cases, we have embedded ourselves in course management systems and created information commons. We’ve even worked out how to meet students where they live by using texting, chat, Facebook, “how to’s” and tutorials (http://www.youtube.com/user/PsycINFO) , and anything else we can think of – all without dropping other services.
*What are the rewards for this to the library?
*What kinds of technology, education and personnel will be needed to facilitate this approach?
*What is the life-cycle for teaching and how can we update it if it’s taught by faculty?
*How and how often will we evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy?
*What would/will you do personally to support or analyze this approach?
Other suggestions we might discuss include:
*Focus on the information commons to create the library as central to the life of the university. Embed the tools of production, such as video, and include less common units such as career centers within the library.
*Publish outside the library literature to illustrate our collaborative and integral roles.
*Create talking points for librarians so that they can actively promote libraries and librarians.
*Act as campus consultants by taking on projects of interest to faculty and researchers that we might normally avoid (e.g. the digitization project that resulted in the Rorty program/conference (http://virtualpolitik.org/rorty/)
*Get involved in the academic senate by changing the role of the librarian or the status of librarians in all of our institutions.
Ultimately, however, what we might consider is, how much of this should we be taking on? What should we outsource and share with consortiums and vendors?
What has changed in teaching?
Some classes are even larger than before. Fewer papers are being assigned and those that are assigned may be shorter or less reliant on secondary literature. Faculty expectations of student works trend toward the use of multimedia, and creative works. Resources for student work are increasingly derived from material not owned or easily curated by librarians, such as websites and proprietary or massaged data. In line with the work that faculty are themselves conducting as researchers, work is increasingly cross- and inter-disciplinary. This is particularly true at University of California where the influence of research on teaching has long been a value of the institution. Though it does not represent a dramatic change in philosophy for some subject areas, expensive library resources in professional schools are cordoned off from the rest of the university. Parallel, and in some ways contrary to these trends, course management systems have created a closed system appearance to courses in which all content needed to pass or succeed appears to be contained within a single interface.
Some of changes in student behavior have both led to a decreased reliance on library resources and an increased emphasis on the pedagogy.
Regardless of the reason, students are familiar with searching and with multimedia creation. They are less likely to feel they need assistance. They use texting and instant messaging for most casual communication and more frequently than face-to-face or telephone. They use information that is created for them reasonably effectively, but are less likely to pursue difficult-to-find material. They don’t need to use a library catalog or database when Google Scholar and Google Books are good enough. In other words, in spite of the added value that traditional reference transactions and instruction bring to the table, fewer students avail themselves of those services without active promotion from librarians or faculty. In addition, those students who choose substitute mediums for reference transactions and instruction are pre-disposed to a communication style in which an expected answer is both shorter and presumed pre-contextualized to their need.
Using one of the nine topics covered in the fall assembly here are some of the implications that result from pedagogy changes.
Some of these ideas were compiled from the conversations that have gone on before with some commentary. We could pilot the effectiveness of any approach on every campus, then compare results. Another might be to share how each approach has been evaluated and what factors were known to have made it succeed. Choose one of these ideas and run with it. Here’s an example that could be further articulated. What would you vote and commit to do?
Integrate information literacy into the academic curriculum.
Drivers in this direction include:
Our familiarity with the standards.
How faculty understand those standards as a part of a traditional pedagogical rubric.
Correspondence with existing pedagogies.
Drivers in the opposite direction include:
Perception by faculty that information standards are their purview.
Insufficient content to establish separate, large-scale courses.
Overly large classes.
Inability to provide more time to the task of teaching over time given competing responsibilities.
Campus roles
In our role as librarians, we have countered pedagogical and student trends by framing ourselves as campus consultants. We’ve created “your personal librarian” programs. We’ve become part of curriculum planning. We’ve attempted programmatic collaboration in instruction by partnering with lower division writing programs. In some cases, we have embedded ourselves in course management systems and created information commons. We’ve even worked out how to meet students where they live by using texting, chat, Facebook, “how to’s” and tutorials (http://www.youtube.com/user/PsycINFO) , and anything else we can think of – all without dropping other services.
*What are the rewards for this to the library?
*What kinds of technology, education and personnel will be needed to facilitate this approach?
*What is the life-cycle for teaching and how can we update it if it’s taught by faculty?
*How and how often will we evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy?
*What would/will you do personally to support or analyze this approach?
Other suggestions we might discuss include:
*Focus on the information commons to create the library as central to the life of the university. Embed the tools of production, such as video, and include less common units such as career centers within the library.
*Publish outside the library literature to illustrate our collaborative and integral roles.
*Create talking points for librarians so that they can actively promote libraries and librarians.
*Act as campus consultants by taking on projects of interest to faculty and researchers that we might normally avoid (e.g. the digitization project that resulted in the Rorty program/conference (http://virtualpolitik.org/rorty/)
*Get involved in the academic senate by changing the role of the librarian or the status of librarians in all of our institutions.
Ultimately, however, what we might consider is, how much of this should we be taking on? What should we outsource and share with consortiums and vendors?
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
On Ubiquitous Instruction
David Michalski
Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian
University of California, Davis
michalski@ucdavis.edu
Unlike our counterparts in the bookstores, corporate libraries and even some public libraries, education is central to our mission in the research university. The social promise of the university is to improve the society that supports it by making its members more knowledgeable, more inventive, more skilled, and wiser. As librarians we have a unique role in this mission. Our instruction differs from that of the lecturer or professor. Our teaching is at its core dialogical. Our pedagogy is based on a certain art of conversation.
There is no shortage of studies in the library literature on the “reference interview” or “reference transaction” as it is often called. The reference process has been meticulously analyzed by information scientists and planners who seek to break it into bits in the effort to locate the kernel, or coin of value passed from the librarian to the patron. The interview, however, is not like a vending machine. The student cannot simply pay for information and walk away. Our practice is better understood as a diagnostic one, one that assesses both the interpersonal and social context of each project, and leads to decisions, which attempt to enable not only access, but the incrementally improved ability of the patron to take possession of library as a tool and field in their quest to reorganize information as knowledge.
Librarians, who imagine their role reduced to the mechanics of information delivery, are often left with a sense of purposelessness. A symptom of this lack arises in the current anxiety about the future. It surfaces in a discourse that depicts a contemporary competition between the librarian and the machine. Such questions about the future, dismiss the historic impact librarians and scholars have had on information technology since the profession began. Librarians have had prominent roles working to marshal the efficiencies of technology in the service of our core values. Today, we must reaffirm these efforts by translating our values and pedagogic mission into the info-space of the digital environment, not positioning our values against the digital realm. In part, this means imbuing our machines with the conversational and dialogic skills nurtured by our human practice. We ought to ask: How can people leaving library interaction (whether online or in person) be better prepared to discover and understand the information environment? How can our tools, websites and our people, not only provide easy access to known documents, but teach discovery techniques and the diverse ways in which information is organized? As heuristic devices, how can our tools train better researchers? It is no more appropriate for a search engine or catalog to simply churn out singular responses to a question than it is for a reference librarian to act simply as a medium for the exchange of information. Our exchanges must be value-added. Our catalogs and search tools must facilitate the construction of better formed questions and more sophisticated thinking. It is not an easy task to develop such tools and sites, and it is made even more difficult by a growing gap between search tool designers and librarians, but it is our professional charge and it is worth the effort.
One alarming consequence of treating our tools as simply location devices is the impact this outlook has on our own service roles. When the digital reference experience is diminished to a mechanical transaction, our own interviewing, listening and questioning skills tend to atrophy. Without use ours skills can be forgotten, and as I mentioned in a previous post, our disconnection can make us lose track of our public. With so many databases marketed as automatic, simple and direct we can be tempted to forgo the hard work education demands. We can forget that even our most powerful tools for indexing information are inadequate surrogates for teaching the social life of information. In exchange for expediency and mass capacity they can treat Works as the inert products of remote labor, as objects detached from authors and readers alike, as removed from cause or argument. We ought not to replicate this disregard.
Undoubtedly, the disintermediation of the information world has positively transformed the way knowledge is distributed and produced. Information seekers have more direct access to information providers and the mundane middling tasks of the librarian have largely evaporated. The trend towards disintermediation, however, does not dissipate the mediation of the intellect, which takes form in the course of learning. Technological immediacy does not substitute for the work of critical thinking. In the best instances it may support it, but in the worst instances it can disguise its necessity.
One of the foremost roles of the reference librarian has always been to persuade the patron to think out-loud, to state and restate, to read and question, and to read, write and return with a deeper understanding. Unnecessary difficulties and formalities can not be tolerated, but where information is complex, it can not be represented as falsely simple. Instead, we ought to help our students acquire the skills appropriate to the challenges their projects face. At each stage, helping them see a little bit more by encouraging a deeper engagement with their topics.
Even when patrons come in demanding immediate results, my colleagues and I have discovered creative ways to widen their bibliographic imagination. I’ve met thousands of students over the years and no one approach can be applied uniformly. Not one reference conversation is the same as the next. Each takes on its own shape. Sometimes I am unsuccessful in my application of, what I like to call, ubiquitous non-invasive reference instruction. Some students cannot be bothered, sometime I become impatient, but with each encounter I try to improve. I try to learn more about the public I serve, and find better ways of providing the unique service reference librarians at a research university can provide. These include new ways of fostering critical thinking, information literacy, and new ways of expanding the potential of our collections.
By practicing and honing our unique form of pedagogy, in formal library classes, in the design of our online tools, and in our everyday interactions with our public we can renew our sense of purpose and positively support the educational mission of our university.
The Qualitative Place of the Reference Desk Today
From General Reference to Subject Specialty
.
Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian
University of California, Davis
michalski@ucdavis.edu
Unlike our counterparts in the bookstores, corporate libraries and even some public libraries, education is central to our mission in the research university. The social promise of the university is to improve the society that supports it by making its members more knowledgeable, more inventive, more skilled, and wiser. As librarians we have a unique role in this mission. Our instruction differs from that of the lecturer or professor. Our teaching is at its core dialogical. Our pedagogy is based on a certain art of conversation.
There is no shortage of studies in the library literature on the “reference interview” or “reference transaction” as it is often called. The reference process has been meticulously analyzed by information scientists and planners who seek to break it into bits in the effort to locate the kernel, or coin of value passed from the librarian to the patron. The interview, however, is not like a vending machine. The student cannot simply pay for information and walk away. Our practice is better understood as a diagnostic one, one that assesses both the interpersonal and social context of each project, and leads to decisions, which attempt to enable not only access, but the incrementally improved ability of the patron to take possession of library as a tool and field in their quest to reorganize information as knowledge.
Librarians, who imagine their role reduced to the mechanics of information delivery, are often left with a sense of purposelessness. A symptom of this lack arises in the current anxiety about the future. It surfaces in a discourse that depicts a contemporary competition between the librarian and the machine. Such questions about the future, dismiss the historic impact librarians and scholars have had on information technology since the profession began. Librarians have had prominent roles working to marshal the efficiencies of technology in the service of our core values. Today, we must reaffirm these efforts by translating our values and pedagogic mission into the info-space of the digital environment, not positioning our values against the digital realm. In part, this means imbuing our machines with the conversational and dialogic skills nurtured by our human practice. We ought to ask: How can people leaving library interaction (whether online or in person) be better prepared to discover and understand the information environment? How can our tools, websites and our people, not only provide easy access to known documents, but teach discovery techniques and the diverse ways in which information is organized? As heuristic devices, how can our tools train better researchers? It is no more appropriate for a search engine or catalog to simply churn out singular responses to a question than it is for a reference librarian to act simply as a medium for the exchange of information. Our exchanges must be value-added. Our catalogs and search tools must facilitate the construction of better formed questions and more sophisticated thinking. It is not an easy task to develop such tools and sites, and it is made even more difficult by a growing gap between search tool designers and librarians, but it is our professional charge and it is worth the effort.
One alarming consequence of treating our tools as simply location devices is the impact this outlook has on our own service roles. When the digital reference experience is diminished to a mechanical transaction, our own interviewing, listening and questioning skills tend to atrophy. Without use ours skills can be forgotten, and as I mentioned in a previous post, our disconnection can make us lose track of our public. With so many databases marketed as automatic, simple and direct we can be tempted to forgo the hard work education demands. We can forget that even our most powerful tools for indexing information are inadequate surrogates for teaching the social life of information. In exchange for expediency and mass capacity they can treat Works as the inert products of remote labor, as objects detached from authors and readers alike, as removed from cause or argument. We ought not to replicate this disregard.
Undoubtedly, the disintermediation of the information world has positively transformed the way knowledge is distributed and produced. Information seekers have more direct access to information providers and the mundane middling tasks of the librarian have largely evaporated. The trend towards disintermediation, however, does not dissipate the mediation of the intellect, which takes form in the course of learning. Technological immediacy does not substitute for the work of critical thinking. In the best instances it may support it, but in the worst instances it can disguise its necessity.
One of the foremost roles of the reference librarian has always been to persuade the patron to think out-loud, to state and restate, to read and question, and to read, write and return with a deeper understanding. Unnecessary difficulties and formalities can not be tolerated, but where information is complex, it can not be represented as falsely simple. Instead, we ought to help our students acquire the skills appropriate to the challenges their projects face. At each stage, helping them see a little bit more by encouraging a deeper engagement with their topics.
Even when patrons come in demanding immediate results, my colleagues and I have discovered creative ways to widen their bibliographic imagination. I’ve met thousands of students over the years and no one approach can be applied uniformly. Not one reference conversation is the same as the next. Each takes on its own shape. Sometimes I am unsuccessful in my application of, what I like to call, ubiquitous non-invasive reference instruction. Some students cannot be bothered, sometime I become impatient, but with each encounter I try to improve. I try to learn more about the public I serve, and find better ways of providing the unique service reference librarians at a research university can provide. These include new ways of fostering critical thinking, information literacy, and new ways of expanding the potential of our collections.
By practicing and honing our unique form of pedagogy, in formal library classes, in the design of our online tools, and in our everyday interactions with our public we can renew our sense of purpose and positively support the educational mission of our university.
The Qualitative Place of the Reference Desk Today
From General Reference to Subject Specialty
.
UCB Spring Assembly Discussion Topics
#1 – Reference
Various types of online reference are popular, reference by appointment is popular. Reference desk usage is declining but not dead. Ideas for staffing the latter include having students serve as front line staff who will refer to reference staff as needed, and combining circulation and reference desks.
There was a discussion of current reference models, including:
Ask a Librarian: 24/7 chat reference service via OCLC Questionpoint software
o UCB librarians currently staff 8 hours/week
o UCB students have access 24/7
o Questions run the gamut from directional to substantive
o Many questions can be answered using online resources (not all; and referral to subject specialists do take place)
o Discussion of differences – lack visual cues, but librarians feel they can/must ask user more questions; more followup than for in-person reference; challenge of answering questions from non-UC patrons; takes longer; does it reduce ageism and reverse-ageism?
o Will it lead to offshoring of reference? (or not: local information still very important)
Email reference
o Doe/Moffitt has a general e-mail reference service
o Many units and many individual librarians answer reference via e-mail
IM chat reference
o Done at some libraries on campus (including Gov Info, Sciences, Transportation, et al)
o Necessary at units like Transportation Studies with very dispersed clientele
Texting
o Engineering does texting, meebo chat and Lisa participates in Questionpoint
o Questionpoint will start implementing texting
Reference by appointment (in-person)
o Many libraries do this
o Doe/Moffitt: Research Advisory Service (by appointment for undergraduates) recently started online signups; use of the service has increased with relatively few no-shows; Law also has online signups for appointments
Reference desks
o Statistics down for most units; many units have cut staffing (1 person not 2) and/or hours
o Is the reference desk less about reference and more about marketing – our availability?
o Valuable for reference staff to be “out” in the library seeing how users use it
o Location of reference desk vis-Ã -vis users and vis-Ã -vis circulation desk makes a difference
o @ some units, students have first contact and refer when necessary; in the new Moffitt building, a similar tiered reference service is being considered, with trained students as first contact point
o combined desks also being considered at some units
o @ UC Merced, all reference is on call (student employees refer); NYU moving to something similar
o but: in surveys, library users say they like being able to talk face to face to someone
? Question: Anyone using Skype for reference? No one knew of any instances at UCB.
#2 – Scholarly Communication / Information Providers
Random discussion points on the topic of Relationship to Information
Providers at LAUC-B Assembly, April 13, 2010 (we decided to rename this
topic “Scholarly Communication.”)
** As librarians, our role is to support our faculty and to share with them information about alternative publishing options that are available. Sometimes that information is hard to find and not all librarians feel equipped to answer the question that we might get from a faculty member who asks, “If Elsevier journals are so expensive, can you
suggest another journal title that might be less expensive (but that is still has a high impact factor, etc.)?”
** Where do faculty publish? One member of our breakout session cited the recent Ithaka Faculty Survey 2009 (http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/faculty-surveys-2000-2009/Faculty%20Study%202009.pdf).
In this survey, respondents stated that being read by peers in their discipline is the most important consideration when deciding where to publish. The least important factor is whether the article is freely available on the web; this suggests that open access is not important to faculty.
** Reference to John Lewis, UL at Indiana University, who writes, “More precisely, libraries are the mechanism for providing the subsidy that is required if information is to be used efficiently in communities and organizations.” Within an online environment, perhaps it is time to transform this economic model. Lewis makes a number of interesting
(provocative) statements in this article “A Strategy for Academic Libraries in the First Quarter of the 21^st Century” C&RL News, September 2007
(http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/crljournal/2007/sep/Lewis07.pdf).
** Changing the scholarly communication landscape is difficult because we are fighting against a longstanding culture. Does this mean we should be targeting younger faculty and graduate students? (But they can’t take those kinds of risks until they have tenure.) Or, maybe it means we should be targeting the older faculty who already have tenure and,
therefore, are in a better position to take risks.
** Everyone agreed that Tenure and Promotion is the elephant in the room. We didn’t want to go there.
** How do we change things? Librarians don’t have much influence. Faculty have some, but they are caught up in a deeply embedded culture that doesn’t give them much room to change their behavior. Maybe we should be targeting administrators who control the purse strings and would support libraries when we walk away from expensive journal packets.
** We have mixed feelings about eScholarship. Not much uptake from faculty. On the other hand, it is a great place for publishing so-called grey literature and eScholarship is very good at surfacing its contents in Google.
** We all have to understand that while some of us may be excited about Open Access, it is not free. Many question whether it is even a sustainable model. On the other hand, just because there are questions about its sustainability we should not discount it (as many faculty and publishers do). Most importantly, we need scholars to understand that
open access IS peer reviewed; it is not vanity publishing!
** The good news: some in-roads have been made in the health and medical sciences. The NIH Mandate requires all recipients of NIH funding to submit an electronic version of their final, peer reviewed manuscript to PubMed Central. Now anyone with NIH funding knows about open access and the fact that research in traditional journals creates a barrier to accessing their findings.
** More good news: there is starting to be a buzz about textbook affordability. Maybe this is a good way to get attention from the academy about the sustainability (or lack thereof) of the current publishing industry.
#3 – Library Personnel
Hiring of library personnel depends not only on the amount of staff
needed, but also the training required. What is missing is succession planning. Right now, there is nothing formal in place for succession
planning (moving into a new job, leadership training, management
training, etc). Potential reasons for the lack of succession planning
could be that supervisors are not used to thinking about it.
When replacing library personnel, things to consider are what skills to
advertise for, the person’s strengths, and also what is required and
desired. It all depends on the individual. Even if you find someone who
has all of the necessary skills, is that person someone you want to work with? On the other hand, how much time/energy can we put into getting people trained and up to speed? What we need for job descriptions is the core elements/values of what makes a library employee.
With reduced staffing and large workloads, people need to be realistic.
How can you provide the same amount of services with fewer people? It
feels bad to cut public services, but if funding for collections is
protected, then only thing to cut is public service.
Student employees are so important to the Library. They work late shifts and some even do higher-level technical processing work. There are some interns, who can work on special projects, but these interns do not typically help with daily workloads.
The MLS or MLIS is a degree that is important to the field of librarianship. Obtaining the degree is key, because there is something
you learn when you’re in the program that makes librarians different
from library staff.
#4 – Technology
Bolded, top-level bullet items are the “conversation starters” we started with, and there are very loosely thrown summaries of the comments into each category, even though we did not address the topics strictly or in any particular order.
Are we leveraging technology as best we can?
o We need to be more cutting edge - leaders, not followers … Berkeley was more so in the 90s - what happened? So much happens off campus now (e.g., CDL). Fracturing of technical support offices makes for a confusing system to navigate and slows innovation.
o Flexibility - many library changes require many layers of committees etc. - need to be able to make decisions faster
o Some changes libraries have made have been by going rogue, against advice of IST - too often the response is simply "oh we don't support that"… (e.g., metasearching/federated searching - resistance to trying).
o Affiliates and institutes as drivers of and experimenters with new technology
o Get rid of bureaucracy - need to move quickly, need to trust staff to try out new techs and capture their innovations
o Importance of staff re: training and time to play with new technologies. Librarians testing new products – raising awareness of resources, but also able to evaluate quality
o We need a dedicated position to proactively seek out new technologies. Current model is systemically more passive and reactive, relying on individuals with other responsibilities to innovate
o How about a Library Office of Technology [or Innovation] (maybe a library committee?) - Library Systems Office is focused on (overworked) keeping existing systems working. A lot of universities have an emerging techs office - Duke Digital Initiatives (developed to foster use of digital repository) -
o changed structure to make Digital Initiatives report directly to university president - freed from university layers of bureaucracy
o can direct IT, Libraries, teaching/learning, Academic Senate, etc.
o situated in the library (powerful symbolic meaning).
o Responsible to interpret and facilitate; three groups (IT, Library, Teaching/learning) sitting together, working together as functional group.
o Need a librarian in the systems office; lack of structured liaison with IST and Library Systems Office Is also a barrier to innovation
o Difficult/expensive to do video conferencing from this campus. It saves money but there seems to be resistance/barriers
o Working remotely … using Skype for videoconferencing, pushing webpages … A lot of ways to do things cheaply, on the fly (even if deemed "not supported"?)
o using iChat to run remote discussion for distance learning interesting experience. (But is there a resistance about distance education?)
o Looking towards the future - the students who will be here 5 years from now - comfort level in using technology. We need to be there, and just as flexible, adaptive and curious as they are with technologies and change.
Technology for technology's sake?
o Talk about tech is often outside the context of library values …
o Tech should be a tool for where we want to go, not the driver. It is important for librarians to determine for themselves where to go based on our goals & mission (quality, authority, etc.) rather than tech for its own sake.
o Tech changes so quickly - We can't let tech guide us blindly, but at the same time we have to be flexible to be able to explore the ways it can support librarians’ core values
o Library values - Focus on end-user support: don't conceptualize based on traditional functional groups like buying, maintenance, etc., but supporting teaching/learning, research
o why try to reinvent Google when Google already exists? Instead, focus on what librarians can contribute that is a value-add –
o e.g., Open Gov Initiatives is coming (datasets, etc., from all federally funded research must be uploaded) … Libraries can contribute by creating standards for data structure for access across different possible future platforms
o Ebook readers - should libraries lend these? We don't even have laptop checkout. But what about the Amazon experiment with Kindles for textbooks at Princeton – wildly unpopular because readers wanted to be able to highlight, take notes, use easily ….
Letting patrons (undergrads) lead the way
o Being reactive versus leading and planning – UCB tends [too much] toward the former mode
o Stuff that works on mobile devices are what users want …. - SFSU model, a couple of people developed their library enhancements to make “mobile friendly”
o We often move in reaction to what we think students want
o making video tutorials …Has anyone had any reactions or done assessment of user reaction to this? –
o there are barriers: Not thinking outside the box (e.g. instance where selector was told Schoolhouse Rock "I'm Just a Bill" was not academic enough) means not being able to take advantage (quickly) of things that our students find useful
What about Google?
o We can't reinvent Google, but we can improve on it
o No one wants Local Worldcat – always want to search everywhere
o Google as model - experimentation with new technologies, trying to change
o Don't tell an engineer to design a bridge, tell her to design a way to get from here to there
Open Source, Digital Rights Management
o Can we reclaim from CDL control over tech initiative? (e.g. CDL’s digital archiving – several Affiliated Libraries pay for outside service for DRM). CDL is great for managing shared collections, negotiating contracts, and similar functions – but by ceding to CDL control over so much tech innovation, de facto it becomes a work of centralizing. Centralization of so much from all 10 campuses slows things down too much to be able to keep up with technology.
Staff Training/keeping up-to-date
o coexistence of people who somewhat resist change and those who are early adopters
o A good combination?
o control issues - feels better to have rigid controls, but may not be able to keep up, given pace of change
o Duke model – sometimes a top-down model is needed to force and encourage change
o innovations at low level need to bubble up quickly and then be propagated back down
#5 – Collections
Are librarians wizards for their ability to find information, as Marilyn Johnson suggests in This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All, or lizards, changing colors and losing their tails while adapting to danger and varying environments?
The recent CDC report "University of California Library Collection: Content for the 21st Century and Beyond" maps out changes in library roles without ever mentioning the word librarian but rather using "library staff" and "curatorial role." Librarians provide vital services to our users not only in collecting research materials but also at reference desks, in classroom and in myriad other ways.
Next Generation Tech Services groups are changing the way we manage
collections. The "CDL Shared Print Steering Task Force Findings and
Recommendations Report to CDC" is an attempt to find ways to make similar changes to how UC collects materials and take current collaborative projects to new levels. UCB refuses to shed its insular attitudes toward ownership.
Another viewpoint is that UC librarians have worked out many ooperative
agreements in the UC system, with Stanford and other research libraries, and this report might make honoring the terms of those agreements difficult or impossible. UCB has successful arrangements covering Latin America, Africa and other areas. These agreements define collection areas for sharing ofacquisition and processing. For years UC has had informal arrangements such as buying two copies of some research materials, one in the north and one in the south. Many research materials are at RLFs and meant to be shared in the UC system.
Collections are fluid since faculty retire and faculty with new research interests join the institution. Librarians must decide whether to maintain historical strengths or concentrate on current needs, especially difficult as budgets shrink.
All libraries are concerned with ownership, historically important in
determining ARL rankings and in attracting top faculty and graduate
students. Shared ownership might not be as problematic for the sciences and health fields since so much is online, although copyright and lending are issues. Eastern Europe is increasingly turning to digital only; digitization is supported by grants, leading to crucial questions of sustainability and preservation.
CDL cancellations lead to other issues since campuses cancel the paper and rely on the CDL licenses for digital only to have the CDL cancel the title. For example, one paper journal was held by 5 campuses, all of which canceled when the CDL subscribed to the online version. Now that CDL has canceled, no UC library has the journal. The paper journal was cheap but necessary to a small number of scholars; the e-journal was expensive and had low usage so didn't meet the metric to retain. This pattern is not unusual in the humanities. UC needs more coordination between CDL cancellations and campus cancellations and also between bibliographer group request priorities and what CDL licenses.
Preservation is a key issue. Many research libraries, including those in UC, are canceling foreign newspapers and relying on digital versions. What will happen in 100 years when scholars will have to travel to other countries to see these newspapers? What if the local country has not preserved them or a disaster has destroyed them? Digitized newspapers often do not contain all the content, such as ads and editorials. We are increasingly relying on the digital without a (secure) backup.
Key to collections is coping with current problems in collections-funding, preservation, etc.-while still striving to keep in mind the needs of future scholars. We must consider what they will need in the centuries to come and how to deliver it.
UCLA and UCB have long been the campus of last resort for expensive research material. We must address the questions of how much duplication is too much and how catalogs serve as discovery tools. For decades UC has encouraged the acquisition of duplicate materials. Each campus has an engineering program, necessitating an engineering collection. Should the system cut programs to save money? Campus planning needs to consider library funding when adding new programs; the library should be at the table when decisions to add are made. Departments/schools should involve the library when interviewing candidates for new positions; their research needs may not be
met by the collection, and they should be encouraged to make
collection funding part of their start up funding. Archival units are
making fundraising arrangements with donors before accepting their papers. Librarians must be aware of shifts in departmental programs and faculty research.
Library funding brings quality collections; quality collections attract the best faculty and students. As State support for UCB decreases, so will the number of Nobel prizes and the ability to retain the best faculty will wither. At what point will the public notice?
Archivists live with the reality that not every item can be cataloged and that rapid digitization, such as done by Google, is not possible with their fragile and unique materials. Creating metadata is costly. Standards change rapidly, and turnover of personnel is a factor in deterring priorities. Large digital collections, which draw from many places, can be frustrating because the collection managers massage interfaces/metadata to funnel material from different libraries into one collection. Individual collections may not operate in the way the owning library intended.
Library silos are problematic; users must have a way to discover material and a vigorous interlibrary loan to obtain.
We must take care not to embrace mediocrity but continue the tradition of excellence.
#6 – Library Buildings “Back to the Future: space planning”
Library Space NEEDS: We thought these were desirable for all patrons particularly students and faculty -
group study, quiet study, presentation rooms, instruction rooms, wireless internet, wireless printing, copying, printing, scanning, computer software on library pc’s, include a café, allow food, longer hours.
Space GRABS: when the departments or campus want to acquire library space for teaching or academic purposes, be clear about the impact on students, in order to engender a positive outcome for all concerned. Work with the university and the departments to create tradeoffs that will benefit the library. When this comes up, present it to library committees, and donors; supporters who have an interest.
UC wide: collections increasingly electronic move more to storage.
Look FORWARD and be prepared – as print collections change to electronic, down size, and go to storage, have a plan, be ready to repurpose exiting space in older buildings – upgrade physical environment, wiring.
Look for OPPORTUNITIES to upgrade facilities, improve furniture and work areas,
change presentations in the library, keep the environment fresh. The library can look more current by adding displays, new technology, promoting online – blog, wikis, facebook, rss feeds from your own blog.
Topics for discussion.
• Staying relevant in an online
• Campus space grabs
• Space for computers and computer labs
• Quiet study and group study
• Social gathering: cafes, programs, meeting friends
# 7 - Technical Services
1. NextGen Melvyl
Many people, in both technical and public services, are unhappy with Next Gen Melvyl. We at the Law Library don’t like it because it continues to regard us as unaffiliated with UC Berkeley. Anyone wanting to find books in Melvyl has to know to click the button for libraries in the rest of the world. This will apparently be fixed, but for the moment it’s not good.
Other complaints include the screen display – unnecessarily cluttered; the fact that you cannot limit by campus – something essential for cooperative book selection, or indeed any book selection; the inclusion of some articles in some search results – it seems to patrons that they are getting back all available articles on a topic, which is not true. The advanced search possibilities should be a lot better.
We all agreed that LAUC could play a role in providing feedback on NextGen Melyvl. Having a good catalog is too important to continue with the current status.
We considered how we would go about providing feedback.
Another problem is that it’s really not “NextGen” enough (see below).
2. Local vs. universal needs
We then discussed the problem of local needs vs. a centralized technical services department. There are times when a branch librarian has the subject knowledge to know when a book will be looked for under a certain subject. Debbie offered the example of books about local places. The local place may not be included as a subject heading, but that heading would be very useful to the patrons at Environmental Design. Presently, the branches do not have the ability to add subject headings, even in a very restricted way, and Technical Services does not have the manpower to handle requests in a timely way. Another issue is dissertations, which are hugely backed up. We wondered if there was not some way of using the abstract which is presumably available electronically in California Hall to automatically create a catalog record. This seems like a great idea, but of course, does technical Services have the staffing to be able to figure out how to do something like this. There is also the question of social tagging, which apparently is being done at Penn State. Again, this would require a capacity that Oskicat may or may not have, plus the staffing to develop and then maintain it.
3. Cooperative technical services
We also considered the idea of cooperative technical services – for example, what if one campus hired an Armenian cataloger. All Armenian books ordered at UC would be delivered to her/him for cataloging and then shipped off to wherever they belonged. Could we centralize all cataloging? All selection? All ordering? There may be a savings, but it might also make it harder for Debbie to get her local subject headings added – or maybe it wouldn’t. Something to consider.
Various types of online reference are popular, reference by appointment is popular. Reference desk usage is declining but not dead. Ideas for staffing the latter include having students serve as front line staff who will refer to reference staff as needed, and combining circulation and reference desks.
There was a discussion of current reference models, including:
Ask a Librarian: 24/7 chat reference service via OCLC Questionpoint software
o UCB librarians currently staff 8 hours/week
o UCB students have access 24/7
o Questions run the gamut from directional to substantive
o Many questions can be answered using online resources (not all; and referral to subject specialists do take place)
o Discussion of differences – lack visual cues, but librarians feel they can/must ask user more questions; more followup than for in-person reference; challenge of answering questions from non-UC patrons; takes longer; does it reduce ageism and reverse-ageism?
o Will it lead to offshoring of reference? (or not: local information still very important)
Email reference
o Doe/Moffitt has a general e-mail reference service
o Many units and many individual librarians answer reference via e-mail
IM chat reference
o Done at some libraries on campus (including Gov Info, Sciences, Transportation, et al)
o Necessary at units like Transportation Studies with very dispersed clientele
Texting
o Engineering does texting, meebo chat and Lisa participates in Questionpoint
o Questionpoint will start implementing texting
Reference by appointment (in-person)
o Many libraries do this
o Doe/Moffitt: Research Advisory Service (by appointment for undergraduates) recently started online signups; use of the service has increased with relatively few no-shows; Law also has online signups for appointments
Reference desks
o Statistics down for most units; many units have cut staffing (1 person not 2) and/or hours
o Is the reference desk less about reference and more about marketing – our availability?
o Valuable for reference staff to be “out” in the library seeing how users use it
o Location of reference desk vis-Ã -vis users and vis-Ã -vis circulation desk makes a difference
o @ some units, students have first contact and refer when necessary; in the new Moffitt building, a similar tiered reference service is being considered, with trained students as first contact point
o combined desks also being considered at some units
o @ UC Merced, all reference is on call (student employees refer); NYU moving to something similar
o but: in surveys, library users say they like being able to talk face to face to someone
? Question: Anyone using Skype for reference? No one knew of any instances at UCB.
#2 – Scholarly Communication / Information Providers
Random discussion points on the topic of Relationship to Information
Providers at LAUC-B Assembly, April 13, 2010 (we decided to rename this
topic “Scholarly Communication.”)
** As librarians, our role is to support our faculty and to share with them information about alternative publishing options that are available. Sometimes that information is hard to find and not all librarians feel equipped to answer the question that we might get from a faculty member who asks, “If Elsevier journals are so expensive, can you
suggest another journal title that might be less expensive (but that is still has a high impact factor, etc.)?”
** Where do faculty publish? One member of our breakout session cited the recent Ithaka Faculty Survey 2009 (http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/faculty-surveys-2000-2009/Faculty%20Study%202009.pdf).
In this survey, respondents stated that being read by peers in their discipline is the most important consideration when deciding where to publish. The least important factor is whether the article is freely available on the web; this suggests that open access is not important to faculty.
** Reference to John Lewis, UL at Indiana University, who writes, “More precisely, libraries are the mechanism for providing the subsidy that is required if information is to be used efficiently in communities and organizations.” Within an online environment, perhaps it is time to transform this economic model. Lewis makes a number of interesting
(provocative) statements in this article “A Strategy for Academic Libraries in the First Quarter of the 21^st Century” C&RL News, September 2007
(http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/crljournal/2007/sep/Lewis07.pdf).
** Changing the scholarly communication landscape is difficult because we are fighting against a longstanding culture. Does this mean we should be targeting younger faculty and graduate students? (But they can’t take those kinds of risks until they have tenure.) Or, maybe it means we should be targeting the older faculty who already have tenure and,
therefore, are in a better position to take risks.
** Everyone agreed that Tenure and Promotion is the elephant in the room. We didn’t want to go there.
** How do we change things? Librarians don’t have much influence. Faculty have some, but they are caught up in a deeply embedded culture that doesn’t give them much room to change their behavior. Maybe we should be targeting administrators who control the purse strings and would support libraries when we walk away from expensive journal packets.
** We have mixed feelings about eScholarship. Not much uptake from faculty. On the other hand, it is a great place for publishing so-called grey literature and eScholarship is very good at surfacing its contents in Google.
** We all have to understand that while some of us may be excited about Open Access, it is not free. Many question whether it is even a sustainable model. On the other hand, just because there are questions about its sustainability we should not discount it (as many faculty and publishers do). Most importantly, we need scholars to understand that
open access IS peer reviewed; it is not vanity publishing!
** The good news: some in-roads have been made in the health and medical sciences. The NIH Mandate requires all recipients of NIH funding to submit an electronic version of their final, peer reviewed manuscript to PubMed Central. Now anyone with NIH funding knows about open access and the fact that research in traditional journals creates a barrier to accessing their findings.
** More good news: there is starting to be a buzz about textbook affordability. Maybe this is a good way to get attention from the academy about the sustainability (or lack thereof) of the current publishing industry.
#3 – Library Personnel
Hiring of library personnel depends not only on the amount of staff
needed, but also the training required. What is missing is succession planning. Right now, there is nothing formal in place for succession
planning (moving into a new job, leadership training, management
training, etc). Potential reasons for the lack of succession planning
could be that supervisors are not used to thinking about it.
When replacing library personnel, things to consider are what skills to
advertise for, the person’s strengths, and also what is required and
desired. It all depends on the individual. Even if you find someone who
has all of the necessary skills, is that person someone you want to work with? On the other hand, how much time/energy can we put into getting people trained and up to speed? What we need for job descriptions is the core elements/values of what makes a library employee.
With reduced staffing and large workloads, people need to be realistic.
How can you provide the same amount of services with fewer people? It
feels bad to cut public services, but if funding for collections is
protected, then only thing to cut is public service.
Student employees are so important to the Library. They work late shifts and some even do higher-level technical processing work. There are some interns, who can work on special projects, but these interns do not typically help with daily workloads.
The MLS or MLIS is a degree that is important to the field of librarianship. Obtaining the degree is key, because there is something
you learn when you’re in the program that makes librarians different
from library staff.
#4 – Technology
Bolded, top-level bullet items are the “conversation starters” we started with, and there are very loosely thrown summaries of the comments into each category, even though we did not address the topics strictly or in any particular order.
Are we leveraging technology as best we can?
o We need to be more cutting edge - leaders, not followers … Berkeley was more so in the 90s - what happened? So much happens off campus now (e.g., CDL). Fracturing of technical support offices makes for a confusing system to navigate and slows innovation.
o Flexibility - many library changes require many layers of committees etc. - need to be able to make decisions faster
o Some changes libraries have made have been by going rogue, against advice of IST - too often the response is simply "oh we don't support that"… (e.g., metasearching/federated searching - resistance to trying).
o Affiliates and institutes as drivers of and experimenters with new technology
o Get rid of bureaucracy - need to move quickly, need to trust staff to try out new techs and capture their innovations
o Importance of staff re: training and time to play with new technologies. Librarians testing new products – raising awareness of resources, but also able to evaluate quality
o We need a dedicated position to proactively seek out new technologies. Current model is systemically more passive and reactive, relying on individuals with other responsibilities to innovate
o How about a Library Office of Technology [or Innovation] (maybe a library committee?) - Library Systems Office is focused on (overworked) keeping existing systems working. A lot of universities have an emerging techs office - Duke Digital Initiatives (developed to foster use of digital repository) -
o changed structure to make Digital Initiatives report directly to university president - freed from university layers of bureaucracy
o can direct IT, Libraries, teaching/learning, Academic Senate, etc.
o situated in the library (powerful symbolic meaning).
o Responsible to interpret and facilitate; three groups (IT, Library, Teaching/learning) sitting together, working together as functional group.
o Need a librarian in the systems office; lack of structured liaison with IST and Library Systems Office Is also a barrier to innovation
o Difficult/expensive to do video conferencing from this campus. It saves money but there seems to be resistance/barriers
o Working remotely … using Skype for videoconferencing, pushing webpages … A lot of ways to do things cheaply, on the fly (even if deemed "not supported"?)
o using iChat to run remote discussion for distance learning interesting experience. (But is there a resistance about distance education?)
o Looking towards the future - the students who will be here 5 years from now - comfort level in using technology. We need to be there, and just as flexible, adaptive and curious as they are with technologies and change.
Technology for technology's sake?
o Talk about tech is often outside the context of library values …
o Tech should be a tool for where we want to go, not the driver. It is important for librarians to determine for themselves where to go based on our goals & mission (quality, authority, etc.) rather than tech for its own sake.
o Tech changes so quickly - We can't let tech guide us blindly, but at the same time we have to be flexible to be able to explore the ways it can support librarians’ core values
o Library values - Focus on end-user support: don't conceptualize based on traditional functional groups like buying, maintenance, etc., but supporting teaching/learning, research
o why try to reinvent Google when Google already exists? Instead, focus on what librarians can contribute that is a value-add –
o e.g., Open Gov Initiatives is coming (datasets, etc., from all federally funded research must be uploaded) … Libraries can contribute by creating standards for data structure for access across different possible future platforms
o Ebook readers - should libraries lend these? We don't even have laptop checkout. But what about the Amazon experiment with Kindles for textbooks at Princeton – wildly unpopular because readers wanted to be able to highlight, take notes, use easily ….
Letting patrons (undergrads) lead the way
o Being reactive versus leading and planning – UCB tends [too much] toward the former mode
o Stuff that works on mobile devices are what users want …. - SFSU model, a couple of people developed their library enhancements to make “mobile friendly”
o We often move in reaction to what we think students want
o making video tutorials …Has anyone had any reactions or done assessment of user reaction to this? –
o there are barriers: Not thinking outside the box (e.g. instance where selector was told Schoolhouse Rock "I'm Just a Bill" was not academic enough) means not being able to take advantage (quickly) of things that our students find useful
What about Google?
o We can't reinvent Google, but we can improve on it
o No one wants Local Worldcat – always want to search everywhere
o Google as model - experimentation with new technologies, trying to change
o Don't tell an engineer to design a bridge, tell her to design a way to get from here to there
Open Source, Digital Rights Management
o Can we reclaim from CDL control over tech initiative? (e.g. CDL’s digital archiving – several Affiliated Libraries pay for outside service for DRM). CDL is great for managing shared collections, negotiating contracts, and similar functions – but by ceding to CDL control over so much tech innovation, de facto it becomes a work of centralizing. Centralization of so much from all 10 campuses slows things down too much to be able to keep up with technology.
Staff Training/keeping up-to-date
o coexistence of people who somewhat resist change and those who are early adopters
o A good combination?
o control issues - feels better to have rigid controls, but may not be able to keep up, given pace of change
o Duke model – sometimes a top-down model is needed to force and encourage change
o innovations at low level need to bubble up quickly and then be propagated back down
#5 – Collections
Are librarians wizards for their ability to find information, as Marilyn Johnson suggests in This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All, or lizards, changing colors and losing their tails while adapting to danger and varying environments?
The recent CDC report "University of California Library Collection: Content for the 21st Century and Beyond" maps out changes in library roles without ever mentioning the word librarian but rather using "library staff" and "curatorial role." Librarians provide vital services to our users not only in collecting research materials but also at reference desks, in classroom and in myriad other ways.
Next Generation Tech Services groups are changing the way we manage
collections. The "CDL Shared Print Steering Task Force Findings and
Recommendations Report to CDC" is an attempt to find ways to make similar changes to how UC collects materials and take current collaborative projects to new levels. UCB refuses to shed its insular attitudes toward ownership.
Another viewpoint is that UC librarians have worked out many ooperative
agreements in the UC system, with Stanford and other research libraries, and this report might make honoring the terms of those agreements difficult or impossible. UCB has successful arrangements covering Latin America, Africa and other areas. These agreements define collection areas for sharing ofacquisition and processing. For years UC has had informal arrangements such as buying two copies of some research materials, one in the north and one in the south. Many research materials are at RLFs and meant to be shared in the UC system.
Collections are fluid since faculty retire and faculty with new research interests join the institution. Librarians must decide whether to maintain historical strengths or concentrate on current needs, especially difficult as budgets shrink.
All libraries are concerned with ownership, historically important in
determining ARL rankings and in attracting top faculty and graduate
students. Shared ownership might not be as problematic for the sciences and health fields since so much is online, although copyright and lending are issues. Eastern Europe is increasingly turning to digital only; digitization is supported by grants, leading to crucial questions of sustainability and preservation.
CDL cancellations lead to other issues since campuses cancel the paper and rely on the CDL licenses for digital only to have the CDL cancel the title. For example, one paper journal was held by 5 campuses, all of which canceled when the CDL subscribed to the online version. Now that CDL has canceled, no UC library has the journal. The paper journal was cheap but necessary to a small number of scholars; the e-journal was expensive and had low usage so didn't meet the metric to retain. This pattern is not unusual in the humanities. UC needs more coordination between CDL cancellations and campus cancellations and also between bibliographer group request priorities and what CDL licenses.
Preservation is a key issue. Many research libraries, including those in UC, are canceling foreign newspapers and relying on digital versions. What will happen in 100 years when scholars will have to travel to other countries to see these newspapers? What if the local country has not preserved them or a disaster has destroyed them? Digitized newspapers often do not contain all the content, such as ads and editorials. We are increasingly relying on the digital without a (secure) backup.
Key to collections is coping with current problems in collections-funding, preservation, etc.-while still striving to keep in mind the needs of future scholars. We must consider what they will need in the centuries to come and how to deliver it.
UCLA and UCB have long been the campus of last resort for expensive research material. We must address the questions of how much duplication is too much and how catalogs serve as discovery tools. For decades UC has encouraged the acquisition of duplicate materials. Each campus has an engineering program, necessitating an engineering collection. Should the system cut programs to save money? Campus planning needs to consider library funding when adding new programs; the library should be at the table when decisions to add are made. Departments/schools should involve the library when interviewing candidates for new positions; their research needs may not be
met by the collection, and they should be encouraged to make
collection funding part of their start up funding. Archival units are
making fundraising arrangements with donors before accepting their papers. Librarians must be aware of shifts in departmental programs and faculty research.
Library funding brings quality collections; quality collections attract the best faculty and students. As State support for UCB decreases, so will the number of Nobel prizes and the ability to retain the best faculty will wither. At what point will the public notice?
Archivists live with the reality that not every item can be cataloged and that rapid digitization, such as done by Google, is not possible with their fragile and unique materials. Creating metadata is costly. Standards change rapidly, and turnover of personnel is a factor in deterring priorities. Large digital collections, which draw from many places, can be frustrating because the collection managers massage interfaces/metadata to funnel material from different libraries into one collection. Individual collections may not operate in the way the owning library intended.
Library silos are problematic; users must have a way to discover material and a vigorous interlibrary loan to obtain.
We must take care not to embrace mediocrity but continue the tradition of excellence.
#6 – Library Buildings “Back to the Future: space planning”
Library Space NEEDS: We thought these were desirable for all patrons particularly students and faculty -
group study, quiet study, presentation rooms, instruction rooms, wireless internet, wireless printing, copying, printing, scanning, computer software on library pc’s, include a café, allow food, longer hours.
Space GRABS: when the departments or campus want to acquire library space for teaching or academic purposes, be clear about the impact on students, in order to engender a positive outcome for all concerned. Work with the university and the departments to create tradeoffs that will benefit the library. When this comes up, present it to library committees, and donors; supporters who have an interest.
UC wide: collections increasingly electronic move more to storage.
Look FORWARD and be prepared – as print collections change to electronic, down size, and go to storage, have a plan, be ready to repurpose exiting space in older buildings – upgrade physical environment, wiring.
Look for OPPORTUNITIES to upgrade facilities, improve furniture and work areas,
change presentations in the library, keep the environment fresh. The library can look more current by adding displays, new technology, promoting online – blog, wikis, facebook, rss feeds from your own blog.
Topics for discussion.
• Staying relevant in an online
• Campus space grabs
• Space for computers and computer labs
• Quiet study and group study
• Social gathering: cafes, programs, meeting friends
# 7 - Technical Services
1. NextGen Melvyl
Many people, in both technical and public services, are unhappy with Next Gen Melvyl. We at the Law Library don’t like it because it continues to regard us as unaffiliated with UC Berkeley. Anyone wanting to find books in Melvyl has to know to click the button for libraries in the rest of the world. This will apparently be fixed, but for the moment it’s not good.
Other complaints include the screen display – unnecessarily cluttered; the fact that you cannot limit by campus – something essential for cooperative book selection, or indeed any book selection; the inclusion of some articles in some search results – it seems to patrons that they are getting back all available articles on a topic, which is not true. The advanced search possibilities should be a lot better.
We all agreed that LAUC could play a role in providing feedback on NextGen Melyvl. Having a good catalog is too important to continue with the current status.
We considered how we would go about providing feedback.
Another problem is that it’s really not “NextGen” enough (see below).
2. Local vs. universal needs
We then discussed the problem of local needs vs. a centralized technical services department. There are times when a branch librarian has the subject knowledge to know when a book will be looked for under a certain subject. Debbie offered the example of books about local places. The local place may not be included as a subject heading, but that heading would be very useful to the patrons at Environmental Design. Presently, the branches do not have the ability to add subject headings, even in a very restricted way, and Technical Services does not have the manpower to handle requests in a timely way. Another issue is dissertations, which are hugely backed up. We wondered if there was not some way of using the abstract which is presumably available electronically in California Hall to automatically create a catalog record. This seems like a great idea, but of course, does technical Services have the staffing to be able to figure out how to do something like this. There is also the question of social tagging, which apparently is being done at Penn State. Again, this would require a capacity that Oskicat may or may not have, plus the staffing to develop and then maintain it.
3. Cooperative technical services
We also considered the idea of cooperative technical services – for example, what if one campus hired an Armenian cataloger. All Armenian books ordered at UC would be delivered to her/him for cataloging and then shipped off to wherever they belonged. Could we centralize all cataloging? All selection? All ordering? There may be a savings, but it might also make it harder for Debbie to get her local subject headings added – or maybe it wouldn’t. Something to consider.
Friday, April 16, 2010
UCI South Regional Assembly- Why You Should Attend
Register today for the
LAUC Southern California Regional Meeting
We all know that LAUC is a self-determining and planning body, and that we are all interested in future of our profession and in our own professional development at the University of California. That’s a given. But you should attend this region’s meeting because the responsibility and value of participation isn’t all that different from that of a vote in an election. You are a part of a solution and can contribute to a plan to improve as a group. You provide the impetus for change, and understand how decisions are made and why. You get to choose based on your priorities and values and the priorities and values of your UC.
But some people ask, why should I, as a (insert your departmental or divisional affiliation here) librarian come to the LAUC Southern Regional Meeting? All of these agenda items look like they’re related to someone else’s job. But, all of these agenda items are also intertwined with what we do. They affect one another. They are not truly separate. Take a look at SOPAG , HOTS , HOPS and the UC Commission on the Future. It’s pretty clear by looking at the reports, initiatives, proposed policies and actions, that communication and collaboration are required across many areas. They do affect you and they do require your consideration.
Don’t reference services change if students of all stripes don’t have to come to a desk to get reference assistance or resources because professors have changed their delivery of education, their assignments, or their research (Topic 1)? They do. Library instruction changes. Acquisitions changes. Collections change. Processing changes. Licensing changes. Access services changes. Personnel changes. Where people work changes (home, department, you name it). Skills change. The technology changes. Space needs change. The amount of money needed and how it’s controlled changes. Unique collections change. Archival curation changes. This is only one example of the ripples that radiate from a single set of actions.
This still, however, doesn’t get to the heart of what we can do in a regional meeting. We already have answers to what we might do in the form of reports and initiatives in play, but we need to decide where to place our energies as a group because our work is increasingly distributed across all UC libraries. So, decide. What solutions of those offered here on this blog and in our own campus assemblies work best for all of us? How will we know if we have succeeded? How can we minimize risk and maximize benefits to everyone through testing and evaluation? What are you able to commit to? What can we achieve and when?
The heart of your participation in a regional meeting is a focus on solutions-based concepts associated with concrete actions. Not the specific issues or technologies that you dislike or champion, but a careful consideration and articulation of the factors that will facilitate positive actions and ways to overcome impediments. So, how can you do this? It seems overwhelming, but preparation will make it less so.
*Look at the questions that Esther Grassian posted for the meeting and take a specific note how you rank and articulate your responses. Post your thoughts in the comments or apply to post to the blog via Phoebe Ayers. Your ranking of these questions forms the basis of your values and will help you decide what’s really important.
*Take a look at the discussion group notes and decide how to address the notes that were taken. Change the questions you see into propositions and try some on for size. Choose a couple. What are the elements that will allow a proposal to work? How will we test and/or evaluate the substantial success of a proposal to determine what is of highest value to our clients? If you can’t evaluate it, it’s not a proposal that can be addressed. What do we need to change to implement those ideas? How much money? What kinds of technologies? How much time would it take? How much disruption or training would it involve? What are the easy wins (things everyone can do)?
*Take a look at this (admittedly incomplete) mapping of the nine topics onto the five prepared for the LAUC Southern Regional meeting agenda:
Topic 1: The consequences of changing university pedagogy.
See Campus roles ; Relationship to Information Providers ; Reference ; Technology ; Library Buildings
Topic 2: Preparing the current and future generations to work in 21st century settings.
See Personnel ; Reference ; Relationship to Information Providers ; Technology ; Organizational Culture
Topic 3: Acquiring unique materials assuming a UC one copy universe – challenges and justifications.
See Collections ; Technology ; Library Buildings ; Campus roles ; Relationship to Information Providers
Topic 4: Evaluating ourselves for promotion. What should count in the future?
Relationship to Information Providers ; Reference ; Technology ; Campus roles
Topic 5: Getting stuff where it needs to go: Discovery and delivery.
Technology ; Reference ; Campus roles; Relationship to Information Providers
Here’s what will we do at this meeting after you have done your homework:
We will gather your proposals, write them down and synthesize them and vote on them. Once we have compiled your votes, we will communicate them to everyone.
What are your comments?
Register today for the
LAUC Southern California Regional Meeting
LAUC Southern California Regional Meeting
We all know that LAUC is a self-determining and planning body, and that we are all interested in future of our profession and in our own professional development at the University of California. That’s a given. But you should attend this region’s meeting because the responsibility and value of participation isn’t all that different from that of a vote in an election. You are a part of a solution and can contribute to a plan to improve as a group. You provide the impetus for change, and understand how decisions are made and why. You get to choose based on your priorities and values and the priorities and values of your UC.
But some people ask, why should I, as a (insert your departmental or divisional affiliation here) librarian come to the LAUC Southern Regional Meeting? All of these agenda items look like they’re related to someone else’s job. But, all of these agenda items are also intertwined with what we do. They affect one another. They are not truly separate. Take a look at SOPAG , HOTS , HOPS and the UC Commission on the Future. It’s pretty clear by looking at the reports, initiatives, proposed policies and actions, that communication and collaboration are required across many areas. They do affect you and they do require your consideration.
Don’t reference services change if students of all stripes don’t have to come to a desk to get reference assistance or resources because professors have changed their delivery of education, their assignments, or their research (Topic 1)? They do. Library instruction changes. Acquisitions changes. Collections change. Processing changes. Licensing changes. Access services changes. Personnel changes. Where people work changes (home, department, you name it). Skills change. The technology changes. Space needs change. The amount of money needed and how it’s controlled changes. Unique collections change. Archival curation changes. This is only one example of the ripples that radiate from a single set of actions.
This still, however, doesn’t get to the heart of what we can do in a regional meeting. We already have answers to what we might do in the form of reports and initiatives in play, but we need to decide where to place our energies as a group because our work is increasingly distributed across all UC libraries. So, decide. What solutions of those offered here on this blog and in our own campus assemblies work best for all of us? How will we know if we have succeeded? How can we minimize risk and maximize benefits to everyone through testing and evaluation? What are you able to commit to? What can we achieve and when?
The heart of your participation in a regional meeting is a focus on solutions-based concepts associated with concrete actions. Not the specific issues or technologies that you dislike or champion, but a careful consideration and articulation of the factors that will facilitate positive actions and ways to overcome impediments. So, how can you do this? It seems overwhelming, but preparation will make it less so.
*Look at the questions that Esther Grassian posted for the meeting and take a specific note how you rank and articulate your responses. Post your thoughts in the comments or apply to post to the blog via Phoebe Ayers. Your ranking of these questions forms the basis of your values and will help you decide what’s really important.
*Take a look at the discussion group notes and decide how to address the notes that were taken. Change the questions you see into propositions and try some on for size. Choose a couple. What are the elements that will allow a proposal to work? How will we test and/or evaluate the substantial success of a proposal to determine what is of highest value to our clients? If you can’t evaluate it, it’s not a proposal that can be addressed. What do we need to change to implement those ideas? How much money? What kinds of technologies? How much time would it take? How much disruption or training would it involve? What are the easy wins (things everyone can do)?
*Take a look at this (admittedly incomplete) mapping of the nine topics onto the five prepared for the LAUC Southern Regional meeting agenda:
Topic 1: The consequences of changing university pedagogy.
See Campus roles ; Relationship to Information Providers ; Reference ; Technology ; Library Buildings
Topic 2: Preparing the current and future generations to work in 21st century settings.
See Personnel ; Reference ; Relationship to Information Providers ; Technology ; Organizational Culture
Topic 3: Acquiring unique materials assuming a UC one copy universe – challenges and justifications.
See Collections ; Technology ; Library Buildings ; Campus roles ; Relationship to Information Providers
Topic 4: Evaluating ourselves for promotion. What should count in the future?
Relationship to Information Providers ; Reference ; Technology ; Campus roles
Topic 5: Getting stuff where it needs to go: Discovery and delivery.
Technology ; Reference ; Campus roles; Relationship to Information Providers
Here’s what will we do at this meeting after you have done your homework:
We will gather your proposals, write them down and synthesize them and vote on them. Once we have compiled your votes, we will communicate them to everyone.
What are your comments?
Register today for the
LAUC Southern California Regional Meeting
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