Staffing the Transition to the Virtual Academic Library

Change brought about by innovations in computing technologies has fundamentally altered the nature of work in academic libraries. In his description of the term informatica electronica, Gilbert (1998) suggests that despite the way technology is changing how library staff do their work, it should not change the emphases on traditional services to patrons, such as accessing and retrieving information. This chapter also focuses on human changes that accompany the migration from print to electronic collections, from traditional to online services, and from the academic research library of a decade ago to the virtual library of today and tomorrow.

Website Development Issues

Since 1995, university academic libraries have seen increased computer demand and use by faculty, staff, and students; widespread use of bibliographic databases to identify the existence and content of local and remote information; the emergence of full-text electronic resources; and a plethora of network databases, protocols, and applications growing piecemeal throughout the academic setting. To provide on-line access to these resources, libraries created web ‘gateways’ using new browser-based technology. When any new technology develops, there is a tendency to discard the traditional way of doing things and start again. However, rather than arguing which approach is better, it is more constructive to examine and combine the strengths of each approach to provide a better service for the end-user. This is particularly applicable in the case of web sites, since the creation of a web site has become a relatively easy task. This chapter reviews the best practices gleaned from various disciplines, sprinkled with real-life examples, and tempered by experience. The goal of the chapter is to provide the framework for a viable library web project.

Marketing the Virtual Library

During the last decade, there have been significant changes in higher education, particularly in the emergence of distance education and the 24/7-access mantra (24 hours a day, seven days a week). This, in turn, has had a continuing impact upon efforts to reconceptualize what an academic library is and what it does. Not surprisingly, academic libraries face a number of critical issues, including increased costs of resources, expansion of traditional services, increased competition from other information vendors, and the impact of new technologies. Although these issues appear as threats, they are opportunities for libraries to design their own future (Denham, 1995). In the near future, academic libraries will remain a vital resource for faculty, students, and staff. While it is easy for academic libraries to become complacent about their status within a university since there is no competition on campus, successful marketing programs can enhance visibility, create understanding about the value of the library, and shape public perception of the scope of its resources and services (Gómez, 2001). This chapter will briefly look at marketing issues in academic libraries, how those issues were dealt with in marketing the Virtual Library, and where marketing for academic libraries may be going in the future as the physical and virtual worlds shift, meld, and merge.

Cataloging and Metadata Issues for Electronic Resources

The environment in which cataloging principles and standards operate has changed dramatically. The development of automated systems for the creation and processing of bibliographic data, the growth of large-scale shared cataloging programs, and emerging technologies have created new opportunities to provide access to national and international academic library collections. However, economic pressures have also prompted libraries to try to simplify the cataloging process, using “minimal level” cataloging records in order to keep pace with the continued growth of publishing. Cataloging librarians have identified two significant needs: 1) to adapt existing [cataloging] codes and practices to accommodate change resulting from new forms of electronic publishing and the advent of networked access to information resources, and 2) to respond more effectively to an increasingly broad range of user expectations and needs. München (1998) wonders how catalogers will guarantee the quality and relevance of bibliographic access within the exploding world of online materials. If so, what kind of bibliographic records will be required to meet the different uses and user needs? Finally, how should these bibliographic data be organized and structured for intellectual and physical access to the documents? This chapter will provide an overview of current cataloging principles, issues in handling evolving formats, and challenges for academic catalogs. It will include a brief examination of a model created by a large multi-campus urban university in determining best practice in the creation of records for shared, online academic environments. Finally, the chapter will look at the development of alternative frameworks for describing online resources.

Libraries as Publishers of Digital Video

Dubbed as the next “Killer Application” (Hanss, 2001), digital video’s anticipated impact on computer networks is enormous. Few other applications are so severely impacted by networks incapable of delivering quality of service guarantees for the latency and delay with which video stations receive information packets. The goal of this chapter is to briefly discuss the teaching and research uses of video materials in academic environments, inform librarians of the various forms into which video materials may be encoded, the strengths and weaknesses of the media formats, and to argue for a comprehensive implementation plan when considering the distribution of video resources. We will conclude the chapter with an illustration of how one academic library employed database technology to create a video card catalog accessible from the Internet.

Collection Development for Virtual Libraries

The evolution from paper to electronic resources transforms the way that information is owned, shared, and accessed. For libraries, the commodification of digital information has long-term implications for the acquisition and development of library collections. As licensing replaces purchasing, and the business practices of software companies replace those of publishers, access to information on demand supersedes collection building, and cooperative acquisitions supplement local collection development. Growing demand for full-text online content that can be easily searched and remotely accessed has led libraries to depend on a host of intermediary agents and cooperatives. Within this landscape of proliferating information and diminishing buying power, it is not surprising that when the Digital Library Federation launched an informal survey of the major challenges confronting research libraries, respondents identified digital collection development as their greatest challenge (Greenstein, 2001). In this chapter, we will look first at how libraries have responded to this paradigmatic shift by pioneering new collection development strategies, and then examine the changing responsibilities of collection development librarians in an electronic environment.

Library Statistics and Outcomes Assessment

The objective of collecting library statistics is “to assess the quality and effectiveness of services [and resources] provided by the library” (Poll, 2001, p.307). A review of the literature shows that measurement of electronic resources is a concern, that standards are necessary, and collaboration with publishers is required. As libraries spend more of their valuable resources to provide access to the electronic environment, they need to turn their attention to the effective measurement of electronic resources. In order to do this, libraries must determine relevant statistics (including those that can be collected internally by the library), request vendors to provide standardized statistics, and finally, evaluate the data in the context of their unique setting to enable sound decision-making. Libraries also need to utilize user surveys in addition to local and content-provider statistics, to get a clearer picture of their user’s needs and satisfaction with library services and resources. Although the task is daunting, obtaining reliable statistics in the electronic environment is needed and continues to be another challenging area in academic libraries. This chapter will examine the various issues involved in gathering usage statistics for library electronic resources, including questions relating to why libraries collect statistics, what needs to be collected, and how data are collected. The chapter will also address the challenges encountered in collecting data, the perspective of content-providers, and the issues involved in data presentation. Finally, there will be a short review of several key initiatives on statistics for electronic collections.

Introduction

Change has become a way of life for most organizations in the 21st century. In order to withstand profound change, an organisation must be flexible and incorporate the ability to adapt and respond to its external environment and its many stakeholders (Kanter, Stein, & Tick, 1992). At the same time, in an era of increasing fiscal constraints, new technologies, and an explosion of information, informatics plays an increasingly important and prominent role in society, in knowledge exchange, in communication, and in commerce between organizations. Accordingly, the most remarkable opportunities and challenges have emerged within academic libraries with regard to the incorporation of technology into daily functioning. Academic libraries only achieve real change when every person, from staff to administrator, is willing to examine functions, strategies, goals, and processes and to participate in free discussions of the critical issues. This chapter examines such a landmark shift in an organization’s operation and culture with the creation of a “virtual library” at an urban university. It will review the planning, development, and implementation process of the virtual library. It will also examine the barriers and successes within the organizational role of a multi-campus, autonomous university library system. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of future issues and opportunities for the role of technology in organizations and organizational change.

Issues for Library Management When Implementing Large-Scale Programmatic Change

Change, by its very nature, is unpredictable, and often unmanageable, yet an organization’s success depends on an ability to predict and control change in some way. To derive maximum benefit from new opportunities and to avoid reactive situations, it is essential to manage organizational change. Further, as change accelerates, the more difficult and stressful it is to manage. The proliferation of change management literature in the library and information field indicates that these issues are becoming increasingly important as more academic libraries develop a virtual presence (Higuchi, 1990; Lee, 1993; Riggs, 1997; Meyer, 1997; Nozero & Vaughn, 2000). Nearly a decade ago, Dougherty and Dougherty (1993) observed that the current rate of change in the information field was higher than ever before, while libraries’ ability to respond quickly and decisively had never been more constrained. Academic libraries, like other organizations, must respond proactively to their changing environment in order to take advantage of the opportunities for increasing their visibility, restructuring to meet the needs of their users, and achieving their objective of remaining the preeminent source of information within the academy. This chapter begins with an overview of the theoretical perspectives of change. Using Burke, Church and Waclawski’s (1993) Managing Change model, the authors will discuss the structure of change, the culture of change, and the individual response to change within a case study framework.

Access Services in the 21st Century

Information technologies have transformed libraries in ways that most academic librarians could not have imagined twenty years ago. Traditional services, such as interlibrary loan and document delivery, have changed dramatically with the advent of technology and new telecommunications protocols. Electronic access to a myriad of databases, the proliferation of Internet sites, and patron expectations of speedy service have forced academic libraries to re-examine how they function. Higher education is no longer campus bound. Where librarians once served as the gatekeepers to information, that role is less important, as patrons now find information without the use of an intermediary. Thus, the questions for those librarians working in access services areas become those of service and resource provision. This chapter will examine interlibrary loan, electronic reserves, licenses and contracts, and the impact of distance learning on access to electronic resources and services.