Exploring the future of academic libraries. A definitional approach

Journal of Academic Librarianship

Volumn 35, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 252-259

  Sennyey, Pongracz ^a   Ross, Lyman ^b   Mills, Caroline ^a  

^a FURMAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 67349182906     PISSN: 00991333     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.acalib.2009.03.003     Document Type: Article

References (31)

1. "Library, n.1," The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1989), OED Online, Oxford University Press. Available: http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50132733 (May 20, 2008).
2. Ohio State renovated the library to create more space for users and reduced the onsite collection from 2.2 million to 1.5 million a reduction of roughly 30%. "Library Renovation at Ohio State U. Promises More Space, but Fewer Books," Chronicle of Higher Education- Buildings & Grounds Blog, (July 10, 2007). Available: http://chronicle.com/blogs/architecture/219/library-renovation-at-ohio-state-u-promises-more-space-but-fewer-books (December 17, 2008); San Francisco State replaced its stacks with an onsite storage system to free space for reading and study areas. "Library Open During Renovation," Golden Gate [X]press (August 26, 2008) Available: http://xpress.sfsu.edu/archives/news/011491.html (December 17, 2008); In 2007 the Mayo Clinic renovated the Plummer Library to increase "learning and shared common spaces" older lesser used print journals were moved to remote storage. Available: http://www.mayo.edu/library/plummer-library-renovation.html (December 17, 2008).
3. California State Polytechnic University at Pomona discarded print editions of journals available through JSTOR as part of a library renovation project designed to increase user spaces. "Library Renovation Leads to Soul Searching at Cal Poly," Chronicle of Higher Education (September 1, 2006). Available: http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i02/02a05901.htm (December 17, 2008).
4. Andrew Dillon, "Accelerating Learning and Discovery: Refining the Role of the Academic Librarians," No Brief Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century, Available: http://www.clir.org/activities/registration/08FebR21/Dillon.pdf (May 20, 2008) 51-57.
5. Miriam A. Drake, "Academic Libraries are Alive and Thriving: Interviews with Four Academic Library Directors," Searcher 15 (1) (January 2007); Harold B Shill and Shawn Tonner, "Does the Building Still Matter?," College & Research Libraries 65 (2) (March 2004): 123-150.
6. The change will become particularly dramatic as the scholarly monograph shifts to the digital format. See Jerry Campbell, "Changing a Cultural Icon: The Academic Library as a Virtual Destination," Educause 41 (1) (January/February 2006); Mark R. Nelson, "E-Books in Higher Education: Nearing the End of the Era of Hype?," Educause 43 (2) (March/April 2008).
7. Shill H.B., and Tonner Shawn. Does the Building Still Matter? Usage Patterns in New, Expanded, and Renovated Libraries, 1995-2002. College and Research Libraries 65 2 (2004) 123-150
8. Lynch B.P., et al. Attitudes of Presidents and Provosts on the University Library. College & Research Libraries 68 3 (May 2007) 213-227
9. Gayton J.T. Academic Libraries: 'Social' or Communal? The Nature and Future of Academic Libraries. The Journal of Academic Librarianship 34 1 (2008)
10. Drake M.A. Libraries are Alive and Thriving. Searcher 15 1 (January 2007)
11. Cathy De Rosa et al., Perceptions of the Libraries and Information Resources: A Report to the OCLC Membership 2005. Available: http://www.oclc.org/reports/pdfs/Percept_all.pdf (May 20, 2008).
12. Ross Housewright and Roger Schonfeld, Ithaka's 2006 Studies of Key Stakeholders in the Digital Transformation in Higher Education. Available: http://www.ithaka.org/research/Ithakas%202006% 20Studies%20of%20Key%20Stakeholders%20in%20the%20Digital%20Transformation%20in%20Higher%20Education.pdf (August 18, 2008).
13. Meier J.J., and Conkling T.W. Google Scholar's Coverage of the Engineering Literature: An Empirical Study. Journal of Academic Librarianship 34 3 (May 2008) 196-201
14. It will in interesting to see how Google will capitalize on its Google Books project in the aftermath of the copyright settlement reached with the publisher industry in 2008.
15. There are few detailed investigations of the impact of electronic journals on staffing levels. The most detailed examination was by Montgomery and colleagues who found that staffing costs decreased. In her cost based analysis the acquisitions cost of e-journals exceeded that of print but processing costs were much lower. Zhang reports an increase in serials staffing at UNLV but physical processing of materials was greatly diminished and associated staff reassigned. Where increases in staffing are reported, they are attributed to maintaining link resolvers, web based title lists, proxy servers, ERMs, licensing vs. purchasing and cataloging. The authors note that several of these tasks are being outsourced and others may prove to be unnecessary in the future. For instance, Medeiros discusses the Tri-College Consortium's strong commitment to developing an ERM while conceding that a simple spreadsheet is sufficient for many. Even where there have been modest increases in staff, the numbers of new staff don't compare with the several fold increase in titles that many libraries have experienced. Xiaoyin Zhang and Michaelyn Haslam, "Movement Toward a Predominantly Electronic Journal Collection," Library Hi Tech 23 (2005); Carol Hansen Montgomery, "Measuring the Impact of an Electronic Journal Collection on Library Costs," D-Lib Magazine 6 (10) (October 2000); Norm Medeiros, "Managing Electronic Resources in the Tri-College Consortium" Library Workflow Redesign: Six Case Studies (Council on Library and Information Resources, Washington DC, 2007). Available: http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub139/pub139.pdf (December 17, 2008); Carol Hansen Montgomery and Donald W. King, "Comparing Library and User Related Costs of Print and Electronic Journal Collections," D-Lib Magazine 8 (10) (October 2002). Available: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october02/montgomery/10montgomery.html (December 17, 2008); Donald W. King, Peter B. Boyce, Carol Hansen Montgomery and Carol Tenopir, "Library Economic Metrics: Examples of the Comparison of Electronic and Print Journal Collections and Collection Services," Library Trends (Winter 2003): 376-498.
16. Mary Jo Lynch, "Reaching 65: Lots of Librarians will be there Soon," American Libraries 33 (3) (March, 2002): 55-56. Available: http://web2.ala.org/ala/alonline/selectedarticles/reaching65.pdf (August 18, 2008); and Council on Library and Information Resources, "Prologue to a Fundamental Rethinking: Context and Topic Threads," No Brief Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century. Available: http://www.clir.org/activities/registration/08FebR21/Dillon.pdf (August 2008): 3.
17. Lotta Haglund and Per Olsson, "The Impact on University Libraries of Changes in Information Behavior Among Academic Researchers: A Multiple Case Study," Journal of Academic Librarianship 34 (1): 52-59.
18. Peter Mika, "Semantic Search Arrives at the Web," DevX. Available: http://www.devx.com/semantic/Article/38595/1954 for an excellent discussion on the need to develop ontologies for the semantic web. Given the libraries' proven track record of collaborating on a massive scale, they may be well positioned to take up this sort of challenge on a web scale. See also editorial "Community Cleverness Required;" Cory Doctorow, "Big Data: Welcome to the Petacentre;" and Clifford Lynch, "How Do Your Data Grow?," in the same issue, Nature 455 (7209) (September 4, 2008), for a host of opportunities that libraries could pursue in the digital era.
19. Karla L. Hahn, "Research Library Publishing Services: New Options for University Publishing," American Research Library Report (2008); Colin Steele, "Scholarly Monograph Publishing in the 21st Century: The Future More Than Ever Should Be an Open Book," The Journal of Electronic Publishing 11 (2) (Spring 2008). For an opposing view about the wisdom of libraries taking up publishing responsibilities see Joseph J. Esposito, "Open Access 2.0: Access to Scholarly Publications Moves to a New Phase" The Journal of Electronic Publishing 11 (2) (Spring 2008).
20. John Willibanks, "Cyberinfrastructure for Knowledge Sharing," CT Watch Quarterly (August 2007); Michael Wright, Tamara Summer, Readan Moore and Traugott Koch, "Connecting Digital Libraries to eScience: the Future of Scientific Scholarship," International Journal of Digital Librarianship 7 (1-4); Gregory Cane, Alison Babeu and David Bamman, "eScience and the Humanities" International Journal of Digital Librarianship 7 (1-4).
21. The decrease in reference desk traffic is amply documented in the literature, and so is the increase in web site traffic.
22. David W. Lewis in "Library Budgets, Open Access, and the Future of Scholarly Communications: Transformations in Academic Publishing," College and Research Library News 69 (5) (May 2008) sees the future of academic libraries directly tied with the curation of electronic content; Margaret Henry, "Developing Capability and Skills to Support eResearch," Ariadne 55 (April 2008).
23. Margaret Henry develops the theme of the need for sophisticated informatics skills in "Developing the Capability and Skill to Support eResearch," Ariadne 55 (April 2008); Karen Coyle, "The Library Catalog: Some Possible Futures," The Journal of Academic Librarianship 33 (3).
24. Lorcan Dempsey, "Reconfiguring the Library Systems Environment," Portal: Libraries and the Academy 8 (2); See also Dempsey's weblog on libraries, services and networks, Available: http://orweblog.oclc.org/ (December 18, 2008).
25. Waggener S., and Harley D. The University as Publisher: Summary of a Meeting Held at UC Berkely on November 1, 2007. The Journal of Electronic Publishing 11 2 (Spring 2008)
26. The digital network is changing both the means by which we deliver services, as well as the community of users we serve. Now publishers and information jobbers can market directly to scholars and administrators bypassing the library, and so a competitive spirit is required. There are many opportunities for libraries and information providers to directly engage patrons, but the trend points towards specialization and integration. There will not be twenty nanotechnology repositories but rather one or two. Services delivered over the web are subject to the same forces that have encouraged the growth of monolithic sites such as Google, Amazon and Netflicks. Because per title circulation rates are so low at academic libraries, it is impossible to create a similar system solely with local circulation data. It is only by aggregating circulation transaction data from hundreds, or thousands, of libraries that a useful recommendation service can be created. There are emerging opportunities for library entrepreneurs to create and market services to other libraries or institutions. RapidILL is an example of a service that has leveraged the internet and decreasing computing costs to compete successfully with entrenched incumbents such as OCLC. It is easy to imagine others tackling electronic resource management, OPAC enrichment, or catalog and web hosting. At the same time there are numerous internet services, LibGuides and LibraryThing being two examples, which could easily have originated within libraries, if they had a broader and more entrepreneurial perspective. See http://www.vufind.org and http://oleproject.org among other entrepreneurial initiatives.
27. Library organizations were engineered to operate in an analog environment, and now must be re-engineered for a digital environment. The traditional view of Technical Services and Public Services fulfilling distinctive roles no longer applies. Library organizations will morph into a structure reflective of complexity organizational theory, a loosely coupled organizational structure which facilitates adaptability, organizational creativity, and cross-unit cooperation, and which places value on knowledge and innovation. See Mary Uhl-Biena, Russ Marionb, and Bill McKelvey, "Complexity Leadership Theory: Shifting Leadership from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Era," Leadership Quarterly 18 (4) (2007).
28. For a dark view of the possible consequences of the digital revolution, see Nicholas Carr, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008).
29. Borgman C.L. Scholarship in the Digital Age: Information, Infrastructure, and the Internet (2007), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
30. The fact that a large contingent of librarians is at the cusp of retirement maybe a fortuitous turn of events.
31. Borgman C.L. Scholarship in the Digital Age: Information, Infrastructure, and the Internet (2007), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 3