Summaries from the LAUC 2010 Southern Regional Meeting

All of this information was gathered at the time of the LAUC 2010 Southern Regional meeting titled, "The Future of Librarianship" on May 6, 2010. The meeting consisted of LAUC members from the southern UC campuses in addition to a few guests, such as the chair of the CPG committee, Matt Conner, and the current LAUC president, Lucia Diamond.

The meeting, which began with a talk by UCSD University Brian E. C. Schottlaender, was followed by a break out session of multiple groups. Each group was further broken up if a given topic had an excess of participants. We preferred to have groups smaller than 10, though some were larger. Groups worked on specific themes over a short period of time (about 45 minutes) during which librarians brainstormed observed trends, actions that might be taken as a result of such trends, and methods of measurement to ensure the success of those actions. Later we returned as a group to walk among all of the ideas written down to vote for what we though had merit. We had an extraordinary number of ideas that could be implemented. We saw that one way to use this information is to work backwards from the metrics discussed for each action and implement those that are doable in some sort of pilot fashion. More could be done with the remaining actions and trends over time as we uncover appropriate metrics.

Kristin Andrews, Ying Zhang, Rachel Shulman and I (Dana Peterman) used the original posters to identify those ideas that garnered the most votes. Those ideas that had two or fewer votes were not included here, though I did keep photos of the original data. We tried to make sure we understood what was meant for each suggestion, but it was difficult to do so. I later tried to make more sense of the original posters myself and placed them in rank order here. Each of the themes has been explained earlier in this blog, so I won't reiterate them here. You can see all of the photos of the posters at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dpetermanus/sets/72157624012236068/ . The statements are followed by a number in parentheses that represents the number of votes that it got.

Twenty-First Century Skills
In this session, participants were asked to identify those skills that would be needed as necessary for the 21st century librarian.

Trends:
Librarians have fewer opportunities to provide input on administrative issues that affect them and their work. (10)
Librarians find that they must be generalists as well as specialists. (6)
Librarians need more and more training on cataloging and other skills less related to previous job functions, and to develop new skill sets. (5)

Actions:
Break down barriers that reinforce the hierarchical structure of libraries. (13)
Train all staff on emerging technologies. (11)
Teach people to be more adaptable and flexible . (11)
Build our project management skills. (9)
Teach technical skills, both electronic and computing skills, as well as cataloging skills. (8)
Teach people how to do marketing and outreach. (7)
Teach subject expertise. (7)
Teach people how to write grants and to fundraise. (4)

Measurements :
Learning and sharing among campuses on training increases. (16)
When there is a question as to the usefulness of a skill, skill set, or program, pilot studies are conducted. (10)
Usage data are acquired, posted and analyzed. (8)

Pedagogy
Trends:
There is more and more online instruction and digital content available. (9)
Libraries provide space for human contact .(4)

Actions:
Create marketing and branding resources – University Librarians need a “marketing czar”. (17)
Create greater communication mechanisms. (15)
Partner with faculty to provide support that is integrated with their teaching. (13)
Create digital services at the point of need. (12)
Provide library space to the university to facilitate partnerships with faculty. (7)
Create a suite of email lists, working groups for collaboration on tutorials, and/or subject guides (LibGuides). (6)

Measurements:
Survey stakeholders to see how of the actions mentioned above. (10)

UC 1-Copy Universe
Trends:
Economics make it tough to be part of shared projects. (13)
One copy doesn’t work for all materials, so there is a need for some redundancy despite our desire to economize. (6)

Actions:
Communication is key and will help libraries and librarians to make better decisions. (26)
Better communication between technical services and collection development. (23)
Develop parameters for single-copy purchase. (12)
Improve distribution for shared collections. (12)
Improve e-document delivery. (12)
Distribute collections budgets across the UC campuses centrally. (12)

Measurements:
Enhance circulation/Interlibrary loan (ILL) to handle situations in which “1 copy” is shared among 10 campuses.(8)
Assess ILL speed. (7)

Evaluation ourselves for promotion
Trends:
We getting so much busier that we have too little time for professional development. (8)
Must be both a generalist and a subject specialist to work effectively. (7)
We have a problem quantifying soft skills like collaboration (4)
Low salaries (4)
There should be a balance between criterion 1-4. (4)
Teaching is undervalued. (3)
Tedious bureaucratic procedures (2)

Actions:
Communication between ULs and LAUCs should be improved. There is a perception that ULs are not present and are out of touch at local LAUCs. (18)
Evaluate and streamline internal administrative processes (15)
Make the librarian review and reward process more reflective of what we really do day-to-day. (14)
Should have continuing education (in order of preference) - Management/supervision (4); Project management (4). (14)
Collect and analyze data for decision making (12)
Expand the definition of scholarly to include web 2.0 contributions. (9)
Create more uniformity in how criteria are applied and which are expected of a librarian. (8)
Succession planning, mentoring and training are needed. (6)
Learn how to emphasize our own impact. (6)
Create reading/study groups to discuss professional literature and develop papers.(6)
Increase the use of social networking tools to increase visibility with faculty and students. (5)
Skills to bridge IT and public services and other functions. (5)
Recognize and support membership and activities in alternative professional development organizations (e.g. technical and subject specialties). (4)
Professional should a voice in what is taught in library schools. (4)
Leadership development skill training. (4)
Create a LAUC review committee to review ALL campus librarians to create greater consistency for all. (4)
Create a grievance outlet, which faculty have. (4)
Have the 10 ULs meet with us at an annual meeting to improve communication. (4)
LAUC should issue state-wide recommendations for things like the number of review letters required. (4)
We should read or re-read position paper #5. (3)

Measurements:
UC library hits or downloads of presentations. (7)
Amount of Librarian research in eScholarship. (4)
Amount of UC-wide sharing of review process. (4)
Evidence of interaction with review initiator for concrete feedback (and criticism). (4)
Existence of peer review groups for de-briefing process. (4)
Add staff-to-staff "reference" questions to statistics we keep. (3)

Discovery and delivery
Trends:
Mobile technology in all areas. They are a part of the job environment. We will provide mobile devices for students to use. (21)
WorldCat local is complicated by how difficult it is to access electronic content and how difficult it is to determine local availability. (8)
Digital delivery of any digital content (e.g. UC pays for any request, like Questia articles). (6)
Problems reconciling local v. more union-like catalogs. (6)
UC wide, our instruction efforts focus on discovery. (5)
Patrons expect that electronic materials have replaced print. (3)
Challenge for us to help patrons in unfamiliar electronic environments via tools such as QP. (4)
Use of archives for undergraduate teaching and research. (4)
Using resource collection funding to support document delivery. (4)
Fee based delivery even though users expect free services. (3)
Federated searching that is less helpful than a user wants or needs. (4)

Actions:
conduct user assessments both ethnographic/surveys to better define specific user groups and user needs. (13)
More formal union catalog. Get back to basics and get WorldCat to listen to librarians. (11)
Work on current shared catalog first to get priorities and use of money right. (9)
Generally support WorldCat with major improvements and simplifications. (6)
Improve ILL with all partners, not just UCs. (6)

Measurements:
Conduct assessments and analyze results - map to gaps/causes in collections, interface, user education, etc. (9)
Continuous user assessment studies as WorldCat local evolves. (4)

LAUC-SD Discussion on “Future of the UC Librarian” – July 13, 2010

LAUC members at UC San Diego met on July 13, 2010 to discuss The Future of the UC Librarian. The meeting was organized and facilitated by the LAUC-SD R&PD Committee. Prior to the meeting, we distributed the five topics discussed at the LAUC Southern Regional Meeting at UC Irvine. Along with the topics, we sent the trends identified at that meeting for each topic. During our meeting, we broke up into topic groups and the objective for each group was to 1) review the UCI trends and decide whether we agreed with them or not, 2) add any trends we thought were missing from the list, and 3) develop a list of actions. The results of the five discussions are attached.

LAUC-SD R&PD Committee
Karen Heskett
Patrick McCarthy
Annelise Sklar
Susan Shepherd (Chair)
Dominique Turnbow (Co-Chair)
Mary Wickline


TOPIC 1 –Preparing the current and future generations to work in 21st century settings


TRENDS
From the regional meeting at UC Irvine:
• Librarians are being given fewer opportunities to provide input on administrative issues that affect them and their work
• Librarians believe they must be generalists who can do all the new and old tasks done by librarians, but they are unable to do so
• Librarians need more and more training on technical (and management) issues to develop new skill sets

UC San Diego:
We agree with all above, and would include management training in the 3rd bullet as well.

UC San Diego Trends:

• Reference requests are dropping. We are having less contact with our users (chat reference excluded), but their reference needs are still there.
• Data curation will be huge. We need expertise.
• Scholarly publishing will increase.

UC SAN DIEGO ACTIONS:

• Training – the need for training will continue to increase.
o Management skills
o Technical skills (9)
o Cross-training within the library (7)
• Communication – we need to know more about:
o Campus trends (1)
o UC-wide initiatives (6)
o Our users needs and trends (1)
o And we need to information it while discussions are happening, not after decisions have been made (2)
• Collaboration
o Within the library (3)
o Across campus (3)
o UC-wide (3)


TOPIC 2 –Preparing the current and future generations to work in 21st century settings


TRENDS
From the regional meeting at UC Irvine:
• There is more and more online instruction and digital content available
• Libraries provide space for human contact

UC San Diego:
We agree with the above.

UC San Diego Trends:

• There is a push for tenured faculty to do instruction (lecturers have been laid off)
• Joint programs with other universities are increasing
• Increase in new undergraduate and graduate programs and degrees (2)
• Record numbers of students are coming into the library (7)
• The role of the university is changing. The undergraduate degree is becoming a commodity, i.e. a ticket to a good job. Libraries can help prepare students for the skills they will need at work, vs. academic skills and training received in their coursework. (15)

UC SAN DIEGO ACTIONS:

None identified – ran out of time.




TOPIC 3 – Acquiring unique materials assuming a UC one-copy universe


TRENDS
From the regional meeting at UC Irvine:
• Economics make it tough to be part of shared projects
• One copy doesn’t work for all materials
UC San Diego:
First, re the economics trend (above), it appears backwards to us. Economics (i.e. the budget) require shared project / one-copy universe.
Second, agree one copy is more difficult for some materials than others and consensus will be difficult.

UC San Diego Trends:

• Culture – changing the culture(s) will be the biggest hurdle. UCLA & UC Berkeley see themselves as the flagship campuses and are not willing to give up immediacy of local copy and are reluctant to carry lesser budgets of smaller campuses.
• Infrastructure – we do not currently have the infrastructure to support a one-copy universe. Processes are duplicative across campuses. We must change how we are organized.
• Technology – related to infrastructure, there must be a universal technology used at all campuses for collections & technical services
• Budget Disparities – in order to have a one-copy universe, there must be a “UC Libraries” budget that funds the universal system-wide (“Tier 1” level) one-copy. Funding must come from the top down in order for it to work.
• Interface – current interface is lacking
• Digital – as more resources become digital, one-copy will be easier to facilitate. Time is a factor in receiving materials from another campus (ex. Berkeley ILL is slow).

UC SAN DIEGO ACTIONS:

• Use UCLA & Berkeley’s desire to be perceived as the flagship campuses – make them central repository for shared physical collection, which would alleviate some campuses space issues.
• Coordinated weeding with validated quality (decision process) will be needed. Especially need a shared decision-making process on how retrospective weeding will occur. Cost & time to do weeding must be shared. SLRF closing makes coordinated weeding an imminent concern.
• Coordinated selection process across campuses is necessary – including across languages and formats.
• UC-wide shared approval plan for core collections that all campuses share (like history, literature). If no e-version of monograph, core print would be at all campuses with additional distributed copies available.
• Binding must also be coordinated system-wide with an eye to which copy is the unique copy that “deserves” top-quality binding
• Identify areas of expertise. Create more discipline-specific Tier 2 working groups (Latin American Studies has a working model).
• Decision rubric or process for determining when duplicate copies are necessary
• Shared print will require validating the quality of a copy and when & how it gets replaced, where cost comes from, how time is shared/used—must be a systemic process with the same criteria across campuses.
• Fund UC-wide resources from the top down. The one-copy available to all campuses must be funded first system-wide and not be part of individual campus’s budgets.
• Need a true system-wide federated search: across formats including the catalog, digital resources, special collections—include everything!
• Authentication & digital rights management across campuses must be managed.
• Knowing our community better is essential; promote awareness of system-wide collection strengths. Identify areas of expertise.
• Technical Services has expertise that should be utilized in facilitating this change.
• Special Collections has cultural barriers to digital repository (rights management, search interface lacking), but can selectively target what can be exposed. Even if it doesn’t circulate, serve up the metadata in federated search because there is value in knowing where it exists.


Topic 4 : Evaluating ourselves for promotion: what should count in the future

TRENDS
From the regional meeting at UC Irvine:

• We getting so much busier that we have too little time for professional development
• We have a problem quantifying soft skills like collaboration
• Tedious bureaucratic procedures (added this one to our list and got 2 dots)
• Low salaries
• Must be both a generalist and a subject specialist to work effectively
• Teaching is undervalued
• There should be a balance between criterion 1-4
UC San Diego Trends:

We mostly agreed with the trends above and would add the following trends:
• “hitting the ceiling” – need to consider decoupling Step 6 and “distinguished librarian” (11 dots)
• Things that should be given more weight in reviews
o Embedded librarians (7 dots)
o Liaison librarians (2 dots)
o Instruction (1 dot)
o Informal teaching experiences (e.g. consultations) (8 dots)
o Collaborating with faculty (5 dots)
We had a lengthy discussion about Criteria A-D (aka 1-4):
• Librarians are very busy and it is difficult to progress in B-D (aka 2-4)
• Appreciate that UC librarians can move up in salary without taking on more administrative responsibilities (12 dots)
• Appreciate that librarians can select activities within B-D (i.e. you don’t have to do everything)
• There is a perception that unspoken cultural and university librarian expectations impact reviews – (e.g. it is not clear what the UL really wants to see highlighted in files; there is an expectation to be involved in national organizations as one progresses through the steps, however it is not explicitly stated anywhere)
UC SAN DIEGO ACTIONS

Going forward, we would like to see:
• Generally, we would like to see more formal goal setting. We discussed the possibility of tying goals to reviews, but realized there would be a lot of issues related to how that would be implemented before we would feel comfortable with it. (7 dots)
• Reward creativity and innovation (11 dots)
• Reward “soft skills,” such as collaboration, communication and project management (we think that a successful project manager has to excel at “soft skills” (13 dots; one comment that “soft skills” does not mean “easy”)
• Reward initiative, process and effort, not only accomplishments (10 dots)


TOPIC 5 – Getting stuff where it needs to go: Discovery and delivery


TRENDS
From the regional meeting at UC Irvine:
• UC wide, our instruction efforts focus on discovery (5)
• WorldCat local is complicated by how difficult it is to access electronic content and how difficult it is to determine local availability. (8)
• Patrons expect that electronic materials have replaced print. (3)
• Mobile technology in all areas. They are a part of the job environment. We will provide mobile devices for students to use. (21)
• Challenge for us to help patrons in unfamiliar electronic environments via tools such as QP. (4)
• Use of archives for undergraduate teaching and research (4)
• Using resource collection funding to support document delivery (4)
• fee based delivery even though users expect free services (3)
• Digital delivery of any digital content (e.g. UC pays for any request, like Questia articles) (6)
• Federated searching that is less helpful than a user wants or needs (4)
• problems reconciling local v. more union-like catalogs. (6)

UC San Diego:
Mostly agree with all above.

UC San Diego Trends:

• Funding: (1)
• Bypassing library to get resources (e.g. Kindle books and other materials available for micropayments) (2)
• What to subsidize? (1)
o Pay to a determined threshold
• Does the user pay?
• Enhanced tools:
o Union vs local catalog – which to enhance? (5)
 Rare books/focus is on unique material—how do we include unique local info in WorldCat Local? (1)
 Connect multiple versions (5)
• otherwise too difficult for users (right now, records for print and e from different vendors are all separate
• Simply unified
• Marketing/purchasing journal articles rather than the entire journal
• User expectation for delivery is high
• Users want to use their own mobile devices (rather than ones the library provides) (15)
o We focus on developing apps to organize materials (4)
o Promote better (2)


UC SAN DIEGO ACTIONS:

• Develop tools and interfaces for user autonomy (13)
• Library get out of the way (e.g., stop putting up barriers that delay access) (5)
• More awareness of faculty and student expectations (5)
• Learn more about use of textbooks: faculty, students, bookstores (5)
• Make the process for making a decision transparent (i.e., is NextGen Melvyl Pilot here to stay? Who decides and how do we know?) (1)
• Call things “beta” not “pilot” (11)
• Develop texting reference (6)
• Provide things to people regardless of their technology level (4)
• Set realistic goals (4)
• More empirical data about our uses (e.g., what technology they own) (15)

Meltdown Librarianship

Here at UCR we are concerned with critical dimensions relating to the future of UC libraries not yet specifically addressed in this conversation. We will discuss two in this post, and others in the future:

* the global economic melt-down and what this will mean to us;

* why management should empower its librarian experts;

Our feeling is that coming to terms with the first and working towards the second will be crucial in moving forward effectively.


I. The Global Context

The global economic meltdown, and its local avatar the meltdown in California, has already had dire effects on the public sector. Its coffers are rapidly being drained. This has resulted in drastic cuts to public education at all levels. We in the UCs are painfully aware of this. The chances of a turnaround in the funding of the public sector any time soon are slim to none.

For the foreseeable future we will all be asked to do a LOT more with a LOT less.

What does this mean going forward? Specifically:

• Fiscal crisis means that centralization and consolidation of services both within and among UC libraries and CDL will be increasingly and quickly catalyzed on all levels. The Shared Print Initiative and Next Generation Technical Services are new projects taking a system-wide, consolidated approach.

• Similarly, competition among the campuses will need to stop. Campuses can no longer operate as separate fiefdoms. We can’t afford not to change the way we think. If we don’t realize much more substantial cooperation, many of our libraries will cease to function. Given the backdrop of the meltdown, it must be understood that vast savings could be realized if more meaningful system-wide cooperation and consolidation occurred in, for example, systems development, content acquisition efforts, bibliographic instruction development, and management roles -- much of which is replicated on each campus, largely redundant, and which would be much more effective if properly consolidated.

• The relationship between CDL and the campuses will need to be fine-tuned so that decision-making can be more clearly collective. Uncoordinated and redundant efforts in expensive systems development (NextGen vs. the III OPACs), for example, is wasteful, hugely expensive and will need to stop.

All of this means that re-training and development of new skill sets, a result of consolidation and centralization as well as keeping up with new technological capabilities and the evolution of our patrons into them, will have to occur at a level we have not seen before if we are to stay afloat, much less retain relevance to the scholarly and educational mission. Many of us will be doing new things. While change is hard, it can be managed, if properly done.

LAUC must play a role in order to ensure the best possible outcome - and the time to start is now.


II. Flattening UC Library Management

In order for our libraries to transmute less into more, becoming nimbler, smarter, and more effective in the process, we believe that management will need to become flatter, more transparent, more capable of taking calculated risks, more cooperative with other libraries and CDL, and generally better able to empower library/librarian expertise at all levels.

Why flatten the management structure so that all librarians are empowered?

Because we have the experience and the expertise. Because two heads are better than one. Because problems arise in an instant, and solutions will have to be devised and implemented in real time.

LAUC should help re-think UC Library management so it can become more effective by taking input from all levels of library management and staff, and consulting outside experts as proves valuable, in order to develop new, more effective and empowering modes and models. We are not the only major library system facing these challenges. That doesn’t mean we should sit back and wait for others to solve our problems.

UCR definitely has more to say. But we know that lengthy blog posts turn people off.

We leave you with this -- More than ever before, it is highly recommended that LAUC cohere, now, as the substantial advisory body it was meant to be; that it begin to take risks on the level of the challenges affecting us; that it address sensitive, core issues systematically; and, that it make substantial contributions towards developing sensible models of the future for UC libraries and librarians. It is important to note that it is within LAUC’s purview to advise not only ULs but Provosts, Chancellors and Regents as well. LAUC has a critical and unique perspective, and it is uniquely positioned to be a major contributor in the dialogue on UC Library futures. Lets rise to the occasion.

Heidi Hutchinson, Steve Mitchell, John Bloomberg-Rissman

Can a New Research Library Be All-Digital?

In an introductory piece to the collection containing this article, Charles Henry, president of the Council on Library and Information Resources, adopts a stratospheric perspective on the historical development of information. Citing the work of Stephen Toulmin, Henry proposes that we are at moment of critical change from an information ideal of Platonic abstractions that arose at the dawn of the Western intellectual tradition, to a new age in which information is dependent on circumstances and contingencies.

With this as its starting point, the article in question takes digitized information as one species of the new trends and explores its viability by speculating on whether an all-digital library would be possible now. The study that unfolds is a collection-centered evaluation of library services in the future. In terms of collection building, there is a critical divide between books and articles. Articles are, to a large extent already, in digital form already, and there is no reason why they should not transfer almost entirely into that format. Indeed, ease of retrieval through multiple interfaces, windows, and steps in the current SFX technology is a problem that has perhaps not been fully addressed by librarians--certainly not in our discussion. Yet, there is no reason to think that technological fixes for these problems will be available in short order. Books are much more intractable. Currently, the e-book technology has proven unattractive for numbers of independent reasons. These include the fact that publishers do not make them available through interlibrary loan, thus making them much less accessible than print now. The technology of readers of e-books is limited with many problems adapting to various kinds of formats. Readers are currently expensive and lack features for annotating text which many patrons want. A much cited study at Princeton University found e-books unpopular for these reasons. Supposing that these immediate technological problems could be solved, readers do not allow the same ease of sustained reading as print books, nor the ability to have multiple books open simultaneously, nor the capacity to scan. There are also cultural barriers from faculty who are attached to printed books and librarians who are unable to adapt their workflows and practices to processing e-books.

A concern that embraces all forms of digital information is their permanence, an issue that is central to the identity of libraries which, from their inception, were regarded as repositories of information. Supposing that books could be transferred into digital form, how can their permanence be guaranteed? Access is as uncertain as the duration of contracts until ultimately lies with the information provider. The material durability of the new form of information is unknown as well as that of the reading technology.

The access and cost of digital information has formed a significant tension between information providers on the one hand who wish to maximize their profits and libraries on the other which wish to maximize use (at minimal cost). The drive to resist the demands of information providers is one force behind the organization of libraries into consortia who can demand prices for journal subscriptions as well as e-books.

Questions of cost and accessibility have also promoted an uneasy and nascent relationship between faculty and librarians. Faculty, under continual pressure to publish have found the opportunity diminishing as peer-reviewed print journals get more selective (as a result of having their market share squeezed out by digitized information). Digital information does not yet have the same authority in the academy. In theory, the opportunity exists for universities and librarians to circumvent information providers by self-publishing in digital or print form. Yet, there are barriers to this too. On the faculty side, there is a resistance to any outside element involving itself in the practice of scholarship and questions of authority. On the library side, the technology, expertise and organization do not yet exist for digital publishing.

In terms of building design, a digital collection implies that library space will be much reduced. There is simply no reason for the extensive space required by a physical collection with the significant cost of upkeep.

The reduction of physical space implies a reduction in personnel. The paper sees the public services staff significantly reduced and fused with technical specialists who will be able to present digitized information in new ways and make it more accessible to users. The outlook for technical services is more grim. The centralized cataloging and metadata services established and a lowered standard of "good enough" adopted, there will be no place for technical services as we know it.

A digitized collection also has implications for patrons. The sciences are seen to be much more advanced in the use of digital information than the humanities which are characterized as being "on the same trajectory" but not as far along. For one reason, the humanities, practically and philosophically, are much more attached to books for which digitization is currently more difficult. This difference between academic areas is readily apparent to any teacher of EndNote, a bibliographic manager, for whom the students are overwhelmingly from the sciences. Could it be that the near future of librarianship will lie with the humanities?

The paper closes with a review of case studies featuring California's own UC Merced and Cal State Channel Islands campuses.

The prospects held out by the paper are not reassuring, at least not from the vantage point of stability. But they are not without a silver lining. Clearly librarianship is located at a nexus of great need by many inter-dependent constituencies. Information providers, for all their exasperating prices need librarians to disseminate information. Librarians need digitization in the face of shrinking budgets. Researchers need information. Nobody is in charge of the landscape that is opening up under these conditions. However, one constraint of the interesting times in which we live is that a passive attitude is not an option. If librarians do not take steps to determine their fate, some other interested party will do it for them. As the saying goes, "Power goes to those who know what they want." And it is only by much greater organization and unity that librarians will gain the self-awareness to find the goals they want and develop a machinery for reaching them.

Spiro, Lisa, and Geneva Henry. "Can a New Research Library Be All-Digital?". Washington D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2010.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/2010/06/do-libraries-face-an-inevitable-digital-future-and-just-what-is-the-cost-per-volume-of-books-versus-.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LawLibrarianBlog+%28Law+Librarian+Blog%29

NGTS Phase One Team Reports

Lo and behold. In thinking about the future of the UC libraries in all their ramifications, one finds that much of this work is already being done. And it is a part of the work of streamlining and coordinating the system we work in to make ourselves aware of these initiatives and avoid duplicating them. Specifically, it is worthwhile on the blog to report on the progress of Next Generation Technical Services (NGTS), a project so large that it is easy for an individual librarian to perceive it as "present everywhere and visible nowhere." So a few words on the purpose of NGTS and its progress to date are in order.

NGTS describes its goal as: "[transforming] the technical services processes that acquire, describe, and preserve the wide variety of information resource types in the UC collections." This charge embraces approximately our discussion areas (2) Information Providers (5) Collections (6) Library Networks. Some more specific goals for NGTS out of a long list include:

-Speed processing throughout all technical services functions

-View technical serves as a single system-wide enterprise

-Define success in terms of user's ability to easily find relevant content

The point about ease of user accessibility is one that has loomed large in the literature and has not received a great deal of attention from our discussion thus far.

The NGTS effort which remains in the early stages is organized in a complicated structure of various areas and task forces. As of February 16, 2010, NGTS issued its "Phase One" reports consisting of summaries of the "environmental scans" conducted by its task forces. This material has issued in four recommendations.

Recommendation 1: Develop a financial infrastructure that facilitates intercampus business transactions in support of collaborative and systemwide processes and purchases.

This is acknowledged as the "major barrier" to moving ahead. Currently another task force to pursue this problem is being formed out of various stakeholders.

Recommendation 2: Develop an operational infrastructure and technical services that can function at an enterprise level in support of efficient, non-redundant, and collaborative collections services.

All-important here is the sense of "enterprise level" which the report itself describes as "the most important aspect of this recommendation." Regrettably, the sense of this term is not entirely clear from the report. It appears to be defined in opposition to both "isolated and overly explicit actions" by individual campuses and "systemwide ILS" which would not furnish the "optimum response." Enterprise level operations appear to refer to a kind of middle ground or idealized situation of thinking globally and acting locally. As the report puts it, "enterprise level technical services systems that share a common database that would enable greater efficiency and effectiveness." The sense of the term "enterprise" further suggests a kind of initiative and creativity at the local level. To pursue this, another task force is being charged to study various scenarios.

Recommendation 3: Redefine baseline information access for materials in non-Roman languages, special collections, archives, and digital formats with the focus on end user needs and effective and efficient processes. Propose new modes for organizing and providing access to these materials. Focus on outcomes that provide access to materials thtat are currently in cataloging backlogs.

The report claims that a standard of "good enough" is adequate for the availability of non-Roman materials which now constitute a large backlog of collections--presumably because of the difficulty in translating them. To this end, the report suggests new, more streamlined bibliographic descriptions that will take less time to process. A task group is being formed to study this matter.

Recommendation 4: Coordinate NGTS activities with the work of SOPAG and the Collections Development Committee in developing strategies for re-visioning collection development for the 21st century. Ensure that all forms of digital materials are included.

NGTS recognizes the need to avoid duplication! Accordingly, NGTS defers collection development policy to the Collections Development Committee (CDC). NGTS's specific role will involve "redefining, acquisitions, descriptions, and preservation policies and workflows." In other words processing the materials that the CDC decides to collect. As its action item, NGTS proposes to monitor the CDC and contribute where appropriate.

Next Generation Technical Services. 21st Century Emerging Resources: University of California, 2010.

http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/about /uls/ngts/docs/Emerging_0310.pdf


NGTS Executive Team. Next Generation Technical Services - Next Steps: University of California, 2010.

http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/about/uls/ngts/docs/NGTSNextSteps100216rev100224.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

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

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.

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?

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.

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-à-vis users and vis-à-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.