The Library-Catalog Wars: ‘Chronicle of Higher Education’ Readers Weigh In

By Marc Parry

Catalogs are the problem!

Librarians are the problem!

Students are the problem!

A new Chronicle article on trends in library catalog software has touched off an online reader debate about who’s to blame for patrons’ search frustrations and how to fix the situation. The article discussed how libraries are trying to out-Google Google with easy-to-use, online catalog-search software, while “pockets of resistance” in library circles feel the new products dumb down the research process.

That resistance was on display in reader gripes like this:

“Unfortunately, instead of teaching students how to conduct a precise search with few relevant results, faculty and librarians have found an easy way out — googlize everything.”

Argued another:

“Today it seems that just because our students come in knowing how to perform a Google search that that is all they need. Library databases are ‘tools.’ Knowing how to use a tool properly must be taught.”

But other readers rose in defense of users. Sort of:

“Much as I am also irritated by users who don’t know a keyword from a hole in the ground, the tendency to blame the user for not knowing how to use a catalog is exactly the kind of thinking that got us into this mess to start with. Yes, users are idiots. But good systems are designed for idiots and help idiots be successful despite their idiocy. That’s why Google is so popular, and why catalogs are not. Any tool that requires ‘instruction’ to use is doomed.”

Others pointed to the logistical problems of teaching better catalog use:

“Commenters who claim that students need to be taught the correct way to use existing catalogs need to come up with a comprehensive way to teach every student at a university this information. Librarians don’t often have access to a wide swath of students for instructional purposes; at many institutions, they are dependent on teaching faculty and instructors to want to integrate library instruction. More user-friendly catalogs seem much more realistic at this point.”

And here’s a blame-the-librarians take:

“Fact of the matter is students don’t know how to use the catalog, library instruction is limited and frankly usually offered by people who are terrified of Google and Web 2.0. You don’t need to revamp the library catalog and interface, you need to revamp the librarians and how they are taught.”

Susan L. Gibbons, vice provost and dean of the River Campus Libraries at the University of Rochester, summed up the discussion in an e-mail to The Chronicle:

“The commentary shows the all-too-common divide within libraries about information literacy. Some pine for the good old days when students had no choice but to come to the physical library and be forced to learn the idiosyncrasies of mastering a research tool, such as journal indices and the power of Library of Congress subject headings.  Personally, I think libraries have gone from being in a monopolistic to a competitive marketplace for information; and that marketplace shift requires different thinking about services. I am of the opinion that libraries should do everything they can to lower the barrier of entry. Nothing should stand in the way of a student entering some search terms and discovering good resources. Once the student has entered into the (virtually or physically) library, then the rich complexities can be revealed.”…Read the entire post and comments here:  http://chronicle.com.ezproxy1.library.arizona.edu/blogPost/The-Library-Catalog-Wars-/8300/

Harvard’s President Says Libraries Must Get More Efficient-From the “KUAL”*

*Kept-Up Academic Librarian (blog) at http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/

Harvard’s library system, which has more than 16 million volumes, is the oldest in the U.S. and the largest academic library system in the world, according to the school’s Web site. While the system is one of the school’s “proudest treasures,” it’s in need of better coordination, Faust said.  “Curious practices have grown up as the system has grown – - obstacles to sharing and coordination,” she said. Economic arrangements at the libraries discourage them from working together, she said. Harvard’s 70 libraries, for example, must work together to increase savings, she said in a speech today on campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Read more at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aQvELZBe3VZc

Journals Going Digital Only–Lessons for Librarians AND Faculty!

from the Krafty Librarian at http://kraftylibrarian.com/

July 14th, 2009

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published an article about the American Chemical Society ending the print editions and begin producing only online journals for all but three of their journals.  It was a financial decision.  “Printing and distribution costs now exceed revenues from print journals,” according to a story in Ars Technica which The Chronicle sites.

On the biomedical side of things BMJ was one of the first journals to use the online version as their official version instead of the printed version.  BMJ’s “continuous publication” means that all articles appear on bmj.com before being included in an issue of the print journal. While this has caused some among readers and librarians, it is clearly a just the beginning of what is soon to come.

Advertising dollars, subscriptions, and even article submissions are all affected in some way as the switch from the printed issue to the online issue happens within the publishing industry.  In some areas there are great opportunities and promise with an online article such as the multitude of ways that data, images, sound, etc. can now be better represented.  But for every growth opportunity there will be some growing pains….

As we move away from the printed issue librarians and readers will need to wean themselves off of page numbers and rely upon the doi for citation and reference purposes.  It is a little awkward but doable.  One big hurdle we librarians must start to deal with is archives.  If a journal goes all online such as the American Chemical Society journals, there is no printed issue subscription to hold in archives on our shelves.  The debate about keeping the print copy for just in case circumstances becomes pointless if there is no print edition to keep.  ILL issues need to be ironed out a little better.  It is common fair use policy to ILL a copy or scanned image of the printed article to another library via email or Illiad.  Things get murky when dealing with the online copy.  Some journal publishers have adopted the same fair use policies for their online editions as they have for the printed editions.  Other publishers have far more restrictive policies on fair use and ILL of the online article.  A great many publishers do not have any policies regarding ILL and their online articles.

Finally we as librarians need to start looking at ourselves and our libraries to see how we are set up to handle the transition.  We are already beginning to see some of this in the shifting perception of the library as a repository of information to an information services provider. As librarians we need to evaluate how we personally are ready for this kind of shift.  Do we know our IP ranges?  Are we aware of the journals that have wonky ILL policies for online editions?  Do we have access methods established (A-Z, LinkOut, etc.)?  Do we have education and elevator speeches ready to help some of our patrons?  How are we doing in ”training” our administration to not be fooled into thinking that just because it is online it is cheaper or free?  There are other issues and challenges to consider, these are just a few that I can easily think of and describe….see entire posting here:  http://kraftylibrarian.com/?p=107

From Wired Campus: Free Our Libraries, Cry University Presidents

Presidents of major universities want more library materials distributed online, without prohibitive charges.

At the Universal Access Digital Library Summit, held on September 24 and 25 at the Boston Public Library, Mark Huddleston, president of the University of New Hampshire, Peter Nicholls, provost of the University of Connecticut, and Jack Wilson, president of the University of Massachusetts, called for new approaches to the digitization of library collections that will allow access for all. The presidents urged libraries to halt what they described as an assault on the public’s right to knowledge, done in the name of copyright.

The meeting, which was convened by the Boston Library Consortium, also included the presentations of “Free Our Libraries! Why We Need a New Approach to Putting Library Collections Online,” a white paper by Richard K. Johnson, senior advisor to the Association of Research Libraries. In the paper, Mr. Johnson argues that libraries need to come up with new financing strategies, coordinate their actions, and adopt “forward-looking” principles to guide book and journal digitization projects. —Josh Fischman

ARL Offers Learning Opportunity — Scholarly Communication Outreach: Crafting Messages that Grab Faculty Attention

To be held March 11-12, 2009 in Seattle

• Librarians supporting scholarly-communication programs want to know how to identify issues that will resonate with faculty at their institutions and how to present those issues in ways that generate positive engagement with faculty. If this describes your situation, you won’t want to miss the new ARL/ACRL Institute on Scholarly Communication workshop “Scholarly Communication Outreach: Crafting Messages that Grab Faculty Attention,” March 11–12, 2009, in Seattle, Washington.
• In the tradition of other Institute events, this workshop will emphasize active learning and hands-on work by participants, both individually and in groups. Throughout the workshop, participants will have structured opportunities to reflect on how to apply what they are learning to their own institution’s outreach activities, to share information and test ideas, and to begin planning for future outreach.

More info about the workshop here:  http://www.arl.org/sc/institute/inst-events/0309workshop.shtml

More on the Ithaka Report – from Scott Plutchak’s blog

Some comments about the report out of Ithaka on the ground libraries are losing in academia. This is one my my favorite blogs to read; hope you enjoy it, too!

Libraries or Librarians (Redux)

Awhile back, I was sitting with a group of library directors discussing strategies for dealing with the difficult budget situations that we all find ourselves in this year.  I was struck with how focused the rest of the folks in the room were on protecting the collections budget at all costs.   It is emotional for them in a way that it isn’t for me.

I certainly don’t mean to suggest that I’m not worried about the impact of the cuts that we’re going to make this year — it’s going to be substantial and it is going to have a serious impact on the community that I serve.    But I am much more focused on the variety of services that we provide and making sure that we meet our commitment to getting people to the information that they need while helping them make appropriate and efficient use of it.  This’ll mean making greater use of ILL and being cleverer about taking advantage of the rapidly increasing amount of information that is freely available.  I see no reason to shed tears over that.

But then, for me, the focus has always been on what librarians do, not what the library is.

In a way, the Ithaka report that is getting some attention in the blogosphere the last week or so makes the same point.    The report points to a dramatic drop in the perception of faculty of the library’s role as portal or gatekeeper between  2003 and 2006…      

More of this posting, and to see Scott’s blog, visit:  http://tscott.typepad.com/tsp/2008/08/libraries-or-li.html

Scholars’ View of Libraries as Portals Shows Marked Decline

From the Chronicle of Higher Education

By JENNIFER HOWARD

Know your library user—and worry about who’s not using the library. That’s the main advice to librarians in a new white paper that notes “a growing ambivalence about the campus library” among faculty members as more and more knowledge goes digital.

The report was released last week by Ithaka, a nonprofit organization that promotes the use of technology in higher education. The paper probes the relationship between libraries and the faculty at institutions of all sizes, and how the digital shift is altering that relationship.

The authors, Roger Schonfeld and Ross Housewright, pulled together the highlights from two surveys conducted in 2006: one of American faculty members and another of librarians in charge of collection development. Mr. Schonfeld is Ithaka’s manager of research; Mr. Housewright is a research analyst. Ithaka conducted similar faculty surveys in 2000 and 2003, so the new report is able to examine trends over a six-year period…. MORE

Survey of Academic Libraries, 2008-2009 Edition

The Survey of Academic Libraries, 2008-09 Edition is based on data from 75 college libraries in the United States and Canada. Data is broken out by size and type of college, as well as for public and private institutions, to allow for easier benchmarking. The report’s more than 300 tables of data present findings about trends in staffing and salaries, budgets, grants and endowments, special collections, content and materials spending, use of e-books and online services, capital budgets library building renovation and facilities management, information literacy, and many other issues of interest to academic librarians.

Some of the report’s findings are:

- Only 22.5% of the colleges sampled believed that librarians’ salaries had been going up faster than the rate of inflation, while more than 34% believed that their salaries in the past year had gone down in real terms.  Librarians in private colleges were more likely than their counterparts in public colleges to believe that their salaries had gone down in real terms in the past year.  MORE

You might be an academic or research librarian if you…

• Enjoy helping others learn
• Love to learn
• Seek community
• Want to build for the future
• Value advancing human knowledge
• Seek variety in your daily work
• Relish innovating with technology
• Have an inquiring mind
• Want the best of all possible worlds
• Embrace challenge and change

For more info about academic librarianship visit the ACRL Website.