User:Academic library

Visions: The Academic Library in 2012

James W. Marcum University Librarian Fairleigh Dickinson University 

Introduction

The future of the academic library is a topic of continuing concern for the profession, but usually the boundaries of projected visions are set firmly in the issues and debates of the day. What means might be found to break open those constraints and encourage visions projected further into the future?

In the fall of 2002, a unique partnership between the New Jersey ACRL (Association of Colleges and Research Libraries) and Fairleigh Dickinson University Libraries initiated a quest for fresh thinking about the future by organizing an essay contest with the topic "The Academic Library in 2012". The horizon was set at 2012 because it was felt to be far enough out that current issues would not automatically limit the thinking of those taking part in the contest. Prize money was offered as an incentive to motivate participation despite an abbreviated time frame, and the call went out through various lists popular with the profession. In a blind reviewing process, two separate and anonymous panels evaluated the essays and selected a range of choices as the most worthy entries.

The number of entries was not large, but the variety of approaches proved fascinating. Open to non-librarians, a quarter of the entries came from outside the profession.

Post-contest analysis of the entries revealed that most essays addressed one of three major themes: technological developments, library function, and librarians' roles. The prevailing conviction revealed in the essays was that technology serves as the driving force determining change in academic libraries. Reconsiderations of library function, however, ranked a close second in popularity, while essays dealing with librarians' roles and behavior came in third.

Visions of Technological Changes

Two of the most striking entries predict that academic libraries in 2012 will utilize multiple media extensively. Stuart Silverstone, a Los Angeles media guru (and non-librarian) envisions a visual infrastructure of video-displaying walls, situation room theaters, learning "cafeterias," and dispersed, theme-centered constructions utilizing multi-media "books" and other knowledge-based packages, exhibits, arcades and laboratories. His "Big Picture Overview" [1] anticipates virtual conferencing with access to extensive media storage, providing opportunities for students to explore issues and locales much like journalists learn their way in a new foreign assignment. Bill Kennedy, a university Webmaster, envisions similar uses of technology, but he describes the situation in terms of metaphors. No longer a room with a host, the library of 2012 will be experienced as a virtual reality with a "zoom atlas" to whisk the learner to other places, with time travel to jump back into history or forward into the future, and with enacted dialogue to allow "conversations" with people from other times and places. Not one metaphor, or a few, but a virtual "Metaphor Factory" [2] is the vision Kennedy offers. These two essays share visions of continuous media providing the means to escape existing constraints.

"Cybrarians in InfoSpace" [3] is the theme of the winning essay, submitted by a team of library school professors (Tom Surprenant and Claudia Perry of Queens College). In their view, learning is the theme of the day, with "cybrarians" heavily engaged with students both individually and in learning clusters. Surprenant and Perry envision librarians as technologists, working with tools that utilize artificial intelligence and multitasking to assist learners in creating individualized information portfolios. Communicating through Virtual Reality helmets and V-mail, and utilizing diagnostic tools to customize resources to individual profiles, cybrarians will provide effective support for problem solving and discovery groups.

"Wild Card Libraries" [4] is the vivid image offered by Harold Billings of the University of Texas, Austin. Digital harvesting of information, and knowledge, for purposes of extensive "content building" projects initiated by research libraries and facilitated by Internet 3 technologies will result in malleable, globally linked archives of knowledge and information. Steven Gromatzky, a systems librarian, anticipates that the profession must develop greater technical expertise, to a level comparable — at a minimum — to today's technical support personnel. Furthermore, he expects future librarians to exhibit research skills at an advanced, even Ph.D., level of expertise, and to have collaborative, team building competencies as well. His vision, "Researchers, Technologists, and Proactive Partners" [5] does not explain how such virtuosos would be trained and then recruited to libraries — but then that wasn't the assignment. Increased technical skills serve also as the theme of Brad Eden's essay [6]. Eden, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, bemoans the gap between investment in infrastructure and investment in the human expertise to make such infrastructure work. Reversing problems caused by the erosion of professional staff possessing high tech skills will demand either a reliance on outsourcing or a serious revitalization the library profession involving the development of new roles and improved status for librarian-technologists.

If technology did not characterize some of the other views, it played an influential role in several of the essays, particularly those anticipating changes in the basic functions of libraries.

Definition of academic library

An academic library is defined in the Instructions section of the survey form as an entity in a post secondary institution that provides all of the following: An organized collection of printed or other materials, or a combination thereof.

From 1988 to 1998, the Academic Libraries Survey was a part of the IPEDS (Integrated Post secondary Education Data System) system. IPEDS is the U.S. Department of Education’s vehicle for collecting data from all post secondary institutions in the United States. Topics included within IPEDS are institutional characteristics, fall enrollment,completions, finance, faculty salaries, and fall staff. Beginning in the year 2000, the Academic Libraries Survey began collecting data independent from the IPEDS data collection; however, data from the Academic Libraries Survey can still be linked to IPEDS data using the institution’s UNITID number. IPEDS also provides the frame used in the Academic Libraries Survey.

November is Library and Information Services Month

MANILA, Philippines – There are many ways for a country to preserve its history, culture, and tradition, and one of them is to store them in its library. In the Philippines, the library plays a significant part in the life of every Filipino, as there is one in every institution of learning, city and municipality, and government and private office.

The public, especially students, are encouraged to visit a library as here can be found a treasure trove of knowledge and information in books or microfilm, in manuscripts, periodicals, and other materials such as maps and musical recordings.

To focus on the vital role of the library in the life of every Filipino, the month of November was declared “Library and Information Services (LIS) Month” by Presidential Proclamation 837 in 1991. The Philippine Librarians Association Inc. (PLAI) is at the forefront of the celebrations of the 19th LIS Month this November, and the 76th year of National Book Week on November 24-30, in collaboration with the National Library of the Philippines (NLP) and the National Committee on Library and Information Services of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). This year’s sub-themes, adopted from the NCCA 2010 theme of “Global Partnership through Arts and Culture,” are “International Librarianship: A Path Ahead” for the PLAI National Conference, and “Global Linkages Through Books and Information Technology,” for National Book Week. Historically, the twin celebrations began with Proclamation 696 and Proclamation 109 issued in 1937 by President Manuel Luis Quezon and the American High Commissioner Frank Murphy.

Through the years, the PLAI holds continuing training and education programs to keep librarians and the public abreast on recent acquisitions and publications of new books and manuscripts, both local and foreign. Established in 1923, the association, following two decades of considerable contributions to research and development, has earned for the profession recognition from the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) pursuant to Republic Act 6966 issued in 1990 and Republic Act 9246 issued in 2003.

We congratulate the National Library of the Philippines, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and the Philippine Librarians Association, Inc., on the occasion of the 19th Library and Information Services Month and the 76th year of National Book Week. We wish them all the best and success in all their endeavors.