Envisioning Future Academic Library Services: Initiatives, Ideas and Challenges

273 Pages·2010·0.76 MB·English

by  Sue McKnight

Envisioning future
academic library
services
Initiatives, ideas and challenges

Envisioning future
academic library
services
Initiatives, ideas and challenges
edited by
Sue McKnight
© This compilation: Sue McKnight 2010
The chapters: the contributors 2010
Published by Facet Publishing,
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-85604-691-6
First published 2010
Reprinted digitally thereafter
Text printed on FSC accredited material.
Typeset from editor’s files by Facet Publishing in 12/14 pt American Garamond
and Nimbus Sans.
Printed and made in Great Britain by MPG Books Group, UK.
Contents
Foreword Dame Lynne Brindley.........................................................vii
Contributors..........................................................................................xi
Introduction: We create the future! ..................................................xvii
Sue McKnight
1 Waiting for the barbarians: seeking solutions or awaiting
answers? .........................................................................................1
Derek Law
2 The delete generation: how citizen-created content is
transforming libraries ..................................................................15
Penny Carnaby
3 Libraries as places: challenges for the future ..........................31
Andrew McDonald
4 Web 2.0: redefining and extending the service commitment of
the academic library ....................................................................55
James G. Neal and Damon E. Jaggars
5 Second Life and libraries: boom or bust? .................................69
P. Charles Livermore
viENVISIONING FUTURE ACADEMIC LIBRARY SERVICES
6 Some new business ideas in the HSS publishing space: what
may librarians expect? ................................................................87
Frances Pinter
7 Loosely joined: the discovery and consumption of scholarly
content in the digital era ............................................................101
Paul Coyne
8 Knowledge management, universities and libraries ...............119
Helen Hayes and Philip G. Kent
9 Libraries and the management of research data ....................145
Martin Lewis
10 The leadership of the future ......................................................169
Liz Wright
11 Adding value to learning and teaching ....................................197
Sue McKnight
12 In search of the road ahead: the future of academic
libraries in China ........................................................................217
Michael Robinson
Index....................................................................................................235
Foreword
Dame Lynne Brindley
I am delighted to have been asked to write a foreword to this important
book. I will comment on some of the challenges discussed by the
distinguished authors and reflect on the scope and international nature
of the debate swirling around the question of ‘Whither the academic
library?’
It is entirely appropriate that not only are the authors who address
this question hugely respected figures in their domains, but also they
reflect between them a truly international perspective, or more accurately,
a developed world perspective, reminding us all rather painfully of the
new kinds of information schisms that divide countries in the digital age.
The future academic library envisioned by our authors recognizes a
rapidly changing context – in technology, publishing, user behaviour
and expectations, all of which challenge the very nature of academic
libraries, their leadership, organizational sustainability and integrity.
I am particularly struck in the debates on the overall theme of the
library of the future that we are at a stage in our digital journey which
is full of paradoxes, and our library organizations need bold innovation
in management now more than ever. Models centred on traditional styles
of control and efficiency will not suffice in the world of make-or-break
challenges that libraries are facing. Pioneering leadership and radical
innovation in management are not generally associated with academic
or other libraries: but they really need to be. In this I have been
influenced by Gary Hamel1 and his arguments for a revolution in
leadership attributes.
Looking through the contributions, I see commonly agreed challenges,
but no common solutions. Everyone refers to the importance, even
centrality, of the web and particularly Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. The
viiiENVISIONING FUTURE ACADEMIC LIBRARY SERVICES
opportunities of the Web 2.0 and social networking world are clear to
all and there is much activity across libraries to embed these technologies
in appropriate ways within their services, and more widely within a digital
framework of learning and teaching and research processes. This should
contribute to the continuing relevance and visibility of librarians and
information specialists in supporting enhanced student and academic
experiences. It remains, however, a non-trivial challenge to embed this
changed approach within libraries, to upskill colleagues, and to try to
keep pace with digital-native users.
At the same time, again paradoxically, the contributors are focused
on the library as place – for face-to-face and group interactions – no more
excitingly so than in academic libraries. We must conclude that, at least
for now, both physical and digital experiences are what are needed.
Academic libraries have created some stunning examples of successful
spaces for student learning, but I believe we all have more to do on what
is needed to support 21st-century research activity and its rapidly
changing methods and processes, not least because of the centrality of
data management and data- and text-mining techniques spreading
fast across all disciplines.
Some universities are moving their dominant culture away from an
educational model of full-time, on-campus undergraduate education
towards a more flexible pattern of learning, with informal and formal
pathways to degrees, topped up with work-based and more lifelong (and
often open) learning. Embedding a distinctive contribution from the
library into virtual and blended learning activity remains a real challenge.
The opportunities are enormous: to aggregate born-digital and digitized
sources from trusted and varied sources; to embed the learning of
information fluency skills into a multimedia setting; to mediate and
support group dialogue; to harness citizen and community creativity
within this space; these are but a few examples of the valuable roles
available to innovative librarians.
But speaking of digital content takes me to the wider potential of
libraries to contribute to the wider knowledge management and
information-governance challenges that universities face. Issues of
information security, data and information repositories, archiving,
copyright and intellectual property exploitation, compliance with legal
data retention and disclosure responsibilities are complex matters in which
our profession should be seeking to play a leading role.
FOREWORD ix
Much of this implies the need for a more critical and challenging
approach to business models which we know are already shattered for
many traditional players who have not anticipated and adapted fast
enough to digital technology transformation. There are lessons here for
libraries, and indeed for publishers, as indicated in the book. Whether
the looked-for collaboration between authors, publishers and libraries
is entirely realistic, I am not sure – I suspect that for some time key
players will be vying for as large a space as they can inhabit in the new
world order.
What, if anything, do I conclude from these observations? There are
no easy, black and white answers. We each have to work with uncertainty
and complexity and chart a course into our digital future which is
appropriate for our own institution and for the mission it seeks to
achieve. It is fundamentally important that the envisioning process is
opened up well beyond the library itself and our own professional
views, for the real debate is the deeper question about the nature of the
academy, the university in the 21st century. From this will flow a
clearer and more distinctive purpose for each library, but we can agree,
I hope, that our methods need to change rapidly to address the profound
impact of information technology on the nature of human connection
and the transmission and consumption of knowledge.
I commend this book to library managers, leaders and future leaders.
Opportunities exist at all levels for real and vocal leadership in shaping
this emerging space, shaping the political economy of higher education,
and shaping its interactions with knowledge discovery and creation,
knowledge ordering and dissemination, and knowledge interaction.
From my personal perspective there has never been a more exciting time
to be in libraries: it is both daunting and empowering. I hope that this
volume will contribute to an appreciation of the issues and their
interconnections, and spur us all to creative and productive action.
Lynne J. Brindley
Note
1. Hamel, Gary with Bill Breen, The Future of Management, Harvard Business
School Press, 2007.