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DLF/CLIR Changing Libraries

Draft How and Why Are Libraries Changing? by Denise A. Troll, January 9, 2001.

Libraries are discipline neutral and librarians avoid the agendas of departmental scholars. Because of such characteristics and because of its collections of other peoples revolutions the library is a perfect place to study changes. But do libraries themselves change?

No. Libraries continue to be discipline neutral and librarians will continue to avoid the agendas of departmental scholars and the library will continue to collect records of the revolutions around it. What is possible is the building of new libraries These would be libraries of different reading modes providing various thresholding services between modes.

In this circumstance it seems like change when a strange library is built on the roof of a familiar library. But is this really happening? Stealth libraries moving in and setting up in the hallways and relocated stacks without interruption of the hours of service? How can we document a development so momentous and yet subtle? The DLF/CLIR draft of a discussion paper by Denise A. Troll investigates this interesting circumstance of the changing, unchanging library. This is a wonderful exposition of the relevant trends observed within the libraries as well as descriptions of the outside environments of changing reading and instructional modes. Let’s start at the beginning and look for things to discuss.

2 of 20- “Traditional measures do not cover the full scope of how libraries are changing or explain why these changes are occurring.”

As I mentioned, it may be possible to see libraries as expanding their services to additional reading modes, rather than undergoing fundamental change in their role. Anyway, statistics are interesting in relation to each other or in columns over time. This is not itself a useful observation, but it would be useful if “traditional measures”, by their nature long accumulated, can never explain how libraries change simply because libraries don’t change. “Understanding and evaluating library usage patterns and developmental paths are prerequisites to formulating a critical and appropriate response to widespread, rapid changes in higher education.” Why should the two be locked together?...perhaps libraries are different than the disciplinary agendas and the transitions of instructional methods.

3 of 20- the discussion of an inadequacy of “traditional measures” is continued to enable their dismissal so that we can instead get on with gathering of non-traditional measures. It might be better just to make an admission that 90% of any infrastructure is invisible and unmeasured. Probably 90% of our ability and interest in reading encoded information was imposed by an immense course of hominid evolution...but we don’t go around talking about that. We prefer to discuss the momentous differences in navigation features of two different bibliographical utilities.

5 of 20- If this small point is accepted; that there is no change in libraries, only the development of different libraries for different reading modes for the the future speciations of readers, then where does the "speed of change" come from. One explanation is that this is an arithmatic of increase as libraries of different reading modes distinguish themselves and each begins mediations to each of the others.

This an interesting possibility that suggests that the apparent disturbances are in the interactions of the otherwise predictable operations of libraries in the specific modes of orality, writing, print and the technology supported, on-line composite mode.

Trends in Measures

6 of 20- Budgets, with the apparent slight increases, should enable existing print libraries to deliver their collections to the other modes including delivery to themselves(i.e. from print storage to desktop reading). It is also apparent that it is practical to "digitize" the exisiting departments in place (i.e. special collections, circulation, preservation).

Libraries of other modes, given their own budgets, can do likewise. Of particular relevance, libraries of on-lne resources can build their departments in place and deliver, across media thresholds, just like the print library.

What can't be done is to build a library of one mode from the budget of another. This untenable premise is, however, considered (11 of 20) if only to indicate its "unsustainabile" projection. OK. Then afford the "print and electronic collections" separately. Each ship on its own bottom. Don't destroy the library of one reading mode to germinate the library of another. Let them grow or whither on their own functionalities.

The internet was begun and continues as a library of exchange in the writing mode of reading. No one initially asked a library to fund written exchange between scholars and scientists....but this is asked of print libraries now.

6 of 20- Collections: With reference to the idea that the qualiities of unmanaged change are actually located in the interactions, not in the identities of the libraries of the reading modes, why would the contrast of "just in time" vs. "just in case" be more important than the interaction of these two collection concepts? Why even entertain such polarized measures?

Every Google search and its search engine strategies of "just in time" in fact satisfies the "just in case" nature of individual queries. Static archival collections also pop into relevance "just in time" as their research value coincides perfectly with a current phase of research interest.

7 of 20- Staff: Why is it so easy to multiply positions in the IT sector of library operations and why do each of these positions have descriptions that encompass a range of activities that would themselves subdivide into multiple positions anywhere else in the library? This is because we are building another library of a different reading mode.

7 of 20- Equipment: "The era of microform equipment, photocopiers and the card catalog has been replaced with a growing array of hardware, software and systems."

This is not a convincing expression of change. For one thing, change occurs in the interaction between "eras". For another the tally can be inverted. Remember that microform equipment offers...ah.. searchable delivery to a screen based reading mode (most of the time spent reading microfilm can be considered searching!). Photocopiers are scanners and the card catalog is a "system". The paper catalog is even digital...if you acknowledge the space between cards! (just kidding)

7 of 20 Space: Space and time interact. This is apparent in Ross Atkinson's paradox of time/access continum where, unrelated to space, what is least needed is avaliable instantaneously while what is most desired is tangled in negotiations. Virtual reference, whether to a print or an on-line library, needs a place with coffee cups and cues much like the environment of a radio studio. It needs to be somewhere so that the planetary handoffs can be prompted. The libraries of Jorge Luis Borges require huge spaces. So do the offices and work stations of the Web of Knowledge; <www.isnet.com>. What requires less space, as Nicholson Baker has pointed out, are stacks of print libraries. Print books are so small because of their legacy of hand holding and eyefocus. Compare the size of a book with the size of the accelerator at Batavia, Illinois used for diagnotics of collisions between single atoms. A book on the accelerator actually minaturizes the facility.

Trends in Output Measures

7 of 20- "Use of print materials is decreasing. Use of video and other media appears to be increasing" The immediate question is if the diminution is at the expense of the increase. More likely there is overall increase due to proliferating reading modes. Libraries once neglected to count participations in scholarly conferences as circulations (The ISI Web of Knowledge, a library subscription service, indexes over 10,000 conferences and proceedings every year).Perhaps the circulatory metaboloism of libraries is increasing.

8 of 20- "The circulation of print reserves is declining rapidly, even in institutions that do not offer electronic reserves." I bet just the opposite; that the most crucial and exciting references in a given course are distributed and delivered with great vigor and efficiency. Infact any previous, higher circulation of print reserves may have indicated a restraint on their access.

8 of 20- Reference Questions Answered: "...appears to have dropped significantly." There is not that much difference between a reference query posed face to face or on-line. But there is a difference of reading mode. Connected reference librarians note that some queries arrive form students located just a few feet away. The explanation is that the student "does not want to give up the work station". More likely, the student, working in another reading mode, never considered getting up from the screen to screen interface.

8 of 20- Interlibrary loan: ILL is increasing

ILL is an authentic mediating service from paper source to digital delivery. This service is responsive, both dubbing from within a single reading mode or thresholding from one to another. ILL is the heart of an interactive reader service. The only missing component is delivery by the library to itself.

9 of 20- Library instruction: (is decreasing) possibly because it focused on locating, seaching and navigational skills that are being progressively automated.

9 of 20- Gate counts: the majority of the hours spent in a library are staff hours. Students use congregational settings, such as the library or class room, to provide socialization. Research and study and class participation is done independently in on-line sessions.

9 of 20 Electronic resource use: other enterprise is intruding to outsource and then privatize lbrary service.

9 of 20- Printing and photocopying: Photocopiers are now printers and printers are now photocopiers and all of them are scanners. Ultimately "hard copy" will diminsh overall and the emerging service sector will be thresholding between reading modes. (ie, preservation imaging, digital scholar services of thresholding from archives and specal collections, other interactive reading services)

12 of 20- Library inputs, outputs and assessment efforts should be guided by what the institution says it wants.

Don't hold your breath. Libraries should not ask this of others, but should define the university themselves. Inturn the university will define itself in the context of the library.

Environmental Factors

12 of 20- Research indicates that a rapidly growing percentage of the use of electronic library resources occurs outside the library.

Its a different reading mode and the library just doesn't own all of it. Orality of spoken conversation and debate (particluarly loud) traditionally occurs outside the library.

13 of 20- The growing concern is that students may be searching only 0.03% of the Web to complete their assignments, ignoring entirely the books, journals, databases, full-text digital resources and other scholarly materials provided by the library.

These must be assignments posed in the on-line reading mode.

15 of 20- Librarians must lobby university and college administrators and faculty to articulate clearly what they expect the library to contribute to the institutional mission.

(delete the phrase,"lobby university and college administrators and faculty to")

15 of 20- Meanwhile, librarians must continue to develop strategic plans for the future....

Such precepts are needed internally, in the library itself.

Library administrators should not forget to administer the context for administration. In terms of management strategies two choices for growth need to be pursued simultaneously, but independently. There is the choice of growth organically; extending the delivery and thresholding mediations of the print reading mode. At the same time the libraries of the composite, on-line reading mode must be built. The interfaces between the two are important, but only one component in a much larger arithmatic of interactivities between reading modes and the libraries that support them. (see also)