WebJunction

Riding the Libraryland Shift

Cindi Trainor is the Coordinator for Research and Instructional Services at Eastern Kentucky University Libraries, a public services position that is new to her in a couple of ways--it's her first position in more than 12 years that comes with public services responsibilities, and she and her family moved to Kentucky from Claremont, California in April 2007. Before returning to her home state of Kentucky, she was the Director of Library & Information Technology for the Libraries of The Claremont Colleges, a position she held for six years. Her first love is librarianship, and she has worked in many different areas in many types of academic libraries, from circulation and computer lab management in a large public research university to everything-but-circulation in a community college library to information technology for private liberal arts colleges to her current position in the administration of a medium-sized public university. In a future life, she aspires to be a photographer but admits she doesn't have the business skills to pull that off just yet. For now, she's a content denizen of LibraryLand.

Over the past 10 years, Cindi--as well as anyone with her eyes open--has seen a great shift in libraries. Computing technology has moved from the back room to every room; while Cindi once found it difficult to connect with others at conferences who held the same interest in and responsibility for technology, she now has a circle of like-minded friends who keep in touch daily with social networking tools. More change is coming, too, Cindi feels: "Technology tools have made it possible for libraries to effect massive shifts in focus--collections that were once housed solely on institutional property now exist in large part on the web; users that in past days had to walk to the library to get research help can now do so from their offices, dorm rooms or while traveling. Both of these have necessitated huge changes in library practice, which have been largely reactionary. It's time to stop reacting and start planning for the future we know is coming. It's time to dream it all up again."

But where to start?

Building on her experiences in library information technology management and her experiences as a blogger and participant in the online communities flickr and Facebook, Cindi stresses that it's time for technology to move from being the responsibility of a few to become a focus of every single person working in the library. Instead of the libraries' vital information systems being maintained and customized by a select few information technology staff, she asserts that it's imperative for each system to have a team of library staff dedicated to it. "It's critical to connect staff to the systems that their customers use," she says, "so that those who listen to user suggestions and experience user frustrations are empowered to improve these technological tools either directly or through collaboration with our vendors." Many library vendors have begun implementing technologies that enable user feedback and content portability; libraries must apply these same principles to their services in order to evolve.

As the role of the library has changed from that of a repository of purchased, published knowledge to that of gateway to practically any information, whether published via traditional means or not, so, too, must librarians continue to evolve our role from gatekeeper to facilitator. The next step in library service evolution involves creating tools that place appropriate information in front of the user at the point of need, regardless of the user's awareness that the information came from a library. Cindi points to the Facebook applications platform as an example of this: third parties write applications that bring data into this popular social networking site; users then add applications to their profiles, and when a profile is viewed, the parts come together seamlessly, presenting only the information users want to present, in the format and arrangement chosen by them. A few libraries and library vendors have begun to offer Facebook applications: it is possible to search several library catalogs, search JSTOR, or display web subject guides created by libraries who use LibGuides.

Some may fear that pushing library content into non-library spaces relinquishes the library brand that was so hard-fought-for but, Cindi argues, not hard-won: "How many of us created logos to place inside Ingenta, CSA, or Firstsearch, with little impact on our recognition from our users?" Cindi asserts that it's time librarians let go of this need for the library to be recognized and concentrate on improving products and getting the right information in front of the right person at the right moment by working to integrate library services and resources into the web sites and portals used by our customers every day: not only social networking sites like Facebook but course management systems, MyYahoo & iGoogle portals and content-sharing sites like flickr, youtube and iTunes.

The new capabilities of the web have enabled libraries to become content creators alongside their users. Library podcasters, bloggers and video bloggers create content about and for their communities that puts a more human face on the library as it exists on the web and tells users that the library is not simply about collections but about people. "The more libraries venture into territory inhabited by our users," Cindi argues, the better connected to them libraries will become. The trail has already been blazed by libraries who publish blogs on their websites that welcoming and responding to user comments. Libraries that choose to participate in web sites that deliver new media will be better-connected and engaged with the users there."

Creating services that enable user participation and content portability is also easily envisioned for purchased library resources such as databases and journals. RSS feeds for searches and tables of contents are already common and libraries are also working to improve the functionality and usability of their biggest asset--the catalog. Libraries worldwide have acknowledged that their "OPACs suck" and are not only working to make them better but working to engage their patrons by giving them a voice within the catalog; many are implementing user ratings, reviews, comments and tags.

Cindi doesn't think that creating content and moving purchased content to where users are will mean a diminished role for librarians, however. She asserts that librarians have several roles to play that will connect them more closely to their user communities: teacher, content creator, vendor liaison and research partner. "Anyone who has worked with college students understands that there is still a huge need for assignment-driven, information literacy-focused library instruction and that graduate students and faculty will always need in-depth research help." There is also much work to be done in integrating librarians into the faculty culture, reaching out to those who teach and conduct research will help ensure that the right information is at their fingertips at the point of need.

Thinking about the impact of new web technology on libraries has implications across a library organization, not just for user services, and brings myriad questions to Cindi's mind. "We collect scholarship published by our and other faculty; how do we begin to collect works generated by other members of our community? How do we enable the creation, description, storage and preservation of that content for posterity? What does the collection development policy for blogs look like? How do we capture comments left by our faculty on sites created by faculty at other institutions? Should we even be worrying about that? How do we capture the scholarship process and collect the data and papers that are being generated but not published via traditional means? What does the support structure look like for this? The technical infrastructure? The administration? Its future?"

Where to go from here?

Having only been with EKU Libraries for 5 months, Cindi sees a long road ahead. "An institution like an academic library is not changed overnight; we must take small steps and ask ourselves hard questions to make sure we aren't throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There is quite a lot that is working well in my library," she says, "which means that there is quite a lot to build upon, and I look forward to continuing that journey."

Cindi can be found online at her blog, Chronicles of Bean, on flickr, twitter and Facebook, or you can catch up with her in real life in the coming months at Internet Librarian 2007, the Charleston Conference, or ALA Midwinter.