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Libraries and the Business of Information

By admin ⋅ October 16, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

What a relief it was to read the Lyman Ross et. al. article, The Library is Dead, Long Live the Library! Though their outlook is less optimistic than my own, I’ve been expressing many of their concerns myself over the past few years to friends and colleagues.  The authors seem frustrated as they run up against a brick wall of assumptions and confusion among colleagues and patrons about what is both the central mission of a library and what is the future of the library.  Ross et. al. (hereby referred to as “Ross”) are concerned that libraries are not moving quickly enough to fulfill their mission, and that they are too reluctant to hold onto time-proven, yet obsolete models, rather than recognize that the marketplace has switched to an altogether different model (Ross, 2008).  

It’s interesting to compare their opinions with those expressed in Christine Borgman’s Whither, or wither, libraries? According to Borgman, the general  mission of a library is to serve the information needs of their communities, and though unstated, it seems that Ross’ assumptions about the mission of libraries are congruous (Borgman, 2000).  However, Ross believes the future of libraries is entirely digital, while Borgman envisions a hybrid analog and digital environment coexisting and intermingled far into the future. 

I would venture to say that Ross would be critical of Borgman’s narrow view of information professionals being relegated only to the library, museum, and archive fields.  Perhaps due to how much has happened in the field since the work was authored, Borgman does not share the urgency expressed by Ross.  Ross sees many more professions converging around the collection, search, and distribution of information in the competitive marketplace.  Such professions include, but are not limited to graphic design, marketing, programming, and business.

Ross’ answer is to employ other professionals, who may not possess library degrees, to help set a direction which ensures Libraries maintain value and visibility in the future.  I believe Ross is correct to assert that librarians need the help of other professionals in the short term, while expanding the library school curriculum to focus on these additional professional skills.   He is also correct to assert that for users who are more comfortable with (or urgently need) 24-7 self-service tools, quality service can no longer be delivered effectively without the application of technology. 

The third article I read this week, A Library or Just Another Information Resource?, suggested that software interfaces and feedback should be improved to help users develop constructive and realistic mental models of digital library systems (Makri et al, 2007).   This, I presume, would increase the popularity of digital libraries by reducing user frustration.  I agree that anyone who has a deep understanding of how a system works will be able to use that  system most effectively.  However, I would also argue that at least the converse is true:  The system should also have a realistic “mental model” of the community of users it serves.  If Borgman states that libraries’ main function is to serve the information needs of specific communities, then it is incumbent upon the developers of a digital library to know their users well enough to be able to anticipate some of the confusion that a user might feel when interacting with the system.  Not everything can be anticipated, and some users may need further education in the system, but the developers could develop a system which matched the expectations of the community they serve in a majority of cases without extensive learning on the part of the user. 

And who better knows the communities they serve than librarians?  Unfortunately, librarians have been far too dependent on software written by non-librarians. I’ve heard in conversation the use of “open source” software heralded by some as the end to such slavery, but I believe will merely present the same old third-party dependencies libraries currently have. The only solution to being captive to technology is to roll up our sleeves and play an active role in the research and development of our own tools.

Ross unfortunately does not share Borgman’s belief that public libraries provide a valuable and physical “community center” service to their patrons, though the concept certainly extends to other types of libraries.  Information is not only available in books, journals, and media.  Information flows throughout communities and is born and evolved through everyday interactions and conversations among members of a community.  While social software is making great strides in providing online community spaces, I believe libraries should still strive to cultivate physical spaces which encourage open-minded thought, interaction, curiosity, debate, and life-long learning among members of the local communities they serve.

My opinion is that digital libraries are no different than traditional libraries in their overall goal of serving the information needs of a community of users, though their resources are bits rather than physical objects.  In that sense, digital libraries will differ from each other as much as traditional libraries differ from each other (if not more), and there’s no real sense in trying to generalize the structure, form, or functional details.  Each one must be uniquely tailored to who is using it.

Some people bemoan the fact that libraries are not as well funded as private enterprise and thus lack the resources for such an active role in developing new information tools. Hogwash. There’s only one Google, with just over 10K employees (Google, 2008), but the world is stocked with many more libraries and librarians. Library schools only need to provide the right training in the form of a more rigorous programming curriculum, as well as other professional skills, and grant a license to imagine new possibilities.  Furthermore, library leadership at the highest levels needs to allow for more focused and formalized federation, resource pooling, and coordination among Library campaigns and initiatives. I suppose it’s inherently a structural and political problem, but if a handful of developers from around the world can build Linux, a world-class operating system which continually eats away at Microsoft’s monopoly every year, then libraries can certainly begin to work more closely for each others’ benefit and viability.

My view is that librarianship is not merely a set of skills to be learned, but a commitment to map and explore a still evolving world of information, and to invent tools in the process which will help us and our patrons better understand and use it. While often publicly funded, librarians are still in the “business” of information. We need to attract new “customers” to validate the fact that we are providing a valuable service. The only way to do that is by developing high-end information services that BETTER serve our constituents than the alternatives. To think otherwise is to have little faith in our own abilities and shrink from the challenge.


SOURCES

Ross, L., et. al. (2008), The Library is Dead, Long Live the Library! The Practice of Academic Librarianship and the Digital Revolution. The Journal of Academic Librarianship v. 34 no. 2 (March 2008) p. 145-52

Borgman, C. L. (2000). , Whither, or wither, libraries? In: Borgman, C.L. From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure: Access to information in the networked world. (Ch. 7. pp.169-208). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Makri, S., Blandford, A., Gow, J., Rimmer, J., Warwick, C. and Buchanan, G. (2007) A library or just an information resource? Users’ mental models of traditional and digital libraries. Journal of the American Society of Information Science and Technology, 58(3): 433–45.

Google (2008). Google Investor Relations F.A.Q. Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://investor.google.com/faq.html#employees

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Tags: digital_library, google, libraries