The following observations were compiled by Janet Webster (Oregon State University) with input from Deb Carver (University of Oregon), Michael Gaston (Deschutes Public Library District), Jeanne Goodrich (Multnomah County Library), and Liisa Sjoblom (Deschutes Public Library District).
These observations, while not comprehensive, provide an overview of the most pressing and pervasive issues the library profession faces in the coming decade. They are grouped into four familiar areas: collections, copyright, staffing, and services. The challenges of technological changes are a common thread through the four. A bibliography of resource material is included as Appendix A.
Building and Maintaining
Collections
Collections have been the heart of the library with services
developing around them. Now, technology is changing how
we collect, store, and access materials. For the
immediate future, technological changes will require libraries to
grapple with organizational and retrieval systems such as web
design and metadata, legal issues such as license agreements and
intellectual property rights, and preservation issues such as
electronic archiving. Budgets will be compromised as we
try to fund both print and electronic information. We
face unforeseen challenges that will require us to rethink what
we do and how we can contribute to the future of an informed
population.
Copyright and Privacy
The issues of the next decade may very well be coping
with the legalities of copyright and the challenge of protecting
privacy. Neither are new, but technology has changed the
laws and the possibilities. One of our greatest assets is
the ability of libraries to provide a vast range of information
in a unbiased manner. It will be a challenge to
strengthen that asset when faced with the call for Internet
filtering, the ability to easily gather data on our users without
their knowledge, and the pressure to expedite providing services
electronically without evaluating the consequences.
Recruitment, Retention, Training, and
Retirement of Library Staff
The skills required of those who work in libraries have
changed while the competition for qualified workers has
intensified. Core competencies of current staff are expanding to
include technology and teaching skills. Library salaries
have not kept pace with the job market, so pressure increases on
current and future librarians to explore alternative careers.
Aging of the profession is a growing concern; how do we
continuously train our existing staff, and who will replace them
as they retire? The increased diversity of our users
requires similar diversity in our staff. These trends
have been discussed in the library literature and in public
forums such as ALA's Congress on Professional Education in
the spring of 1999.
Services and Users
Expectations
All libraries will face more variety in their users, their
expectations of services, and their demand on resources.
Changing technology will shape our users' expectations.
Consequently, libraries will need to respond to the demand for
customization, interactivity, and excellent customer support with
new products and attitudes. Identifying and implementing new
technology will be the job of everybody in the library.Ý
We need to develop means to be quicker to recognize needs and
find solutions. Collaborating among all types of libraries could
lead to new solutions and services that best address the changing
needs of library users.
"There will be a digital revolution, but the printed book will be an important participant in it." Nunberg in The Future of the Book, 1996
Archiving print and electronic information
Archiving and storage of information continues to be
problematic. Academic and public libraries face space
concerns as their print collections grow. Consortial
agreements can alleviate some storage issues; libraries holding
the "last copy" are identified and assigned
responsibility. The archiving of digital information
poses its unique challenges. How will information be
stored? Where will it be stored? Who will be
responsible?
To use information in all formats, libraries will have to address preserving the content and the format. This will be especially challenging given the acceleration of new formats -- CD today, DVD tomorrow. The challenge extends from new formats to old ones as well. Small public libraries with rare local material do not have the expertise or time to adequately preserve those items. Larger collections may contain material that are slowly crumbling due to acidic paper and poor environmental conditions. Digitizing collections is expensive, yet holds promise for high use, high interest, and culturally significant materials.
Libraries as content providers and collaborators
Bibliographic information is a mainstay of libraries.
That information is now even more valuable as the core data set
for web-based catalogues. The development of library web
pages will continue to increase as libraries create gateways to
their holdings and services. As content providers, we
will expand our traditional bibliographic information into the
realm of customized resources, online tutorials, and digital
collections of unique material.
Increased collaboration among libraries, publishers, software producers, and business opens possibilities for more useful products and systems. An on-going example of this is the development of specialized modules for integrated library systems. The development of open source software program offers the possibility of shared, free systems that are easily modified to suit the needs of users. Collaboration may still lead to a solution for the spirally costs of scientific information. Working with businesses may commercialize library web sites through use of vendor advertising. Libraries will collaborate with corporations and foundations to libraries' technology infrastructure and resource delivery.
Changing formats and new choices
A great deal of public information and scholarly communication
is moving from print to electronic format. The technology offers
too many advantages: lower cost of reproduction and distribution,
ease and speed of access, functionality and flexibility of
non-linear, hypertext content, the richness of multimedia
products. Today's electronic journal and e-book look very
much like the printed versions. As a consequence, libraries are
making slight adjustments in their processes and services, but
have not dramatically transformed either their internal structure
or their role in society. However, we are now seeing
efforts that could radically alter the traditional paradigm. For
example, there are experiments, such as the PEAK Project, that
redefine the established norms of delivering information to
students and scholars. Just-in-time publishing can
connect the producer directly to the consumer, eliminating the
costs of storage, e.g. libraries. The transfer of traditional
print material to electronic format will alter the nature of our
collections.
Economics of collections
The cost of library resources continues to rise dramatically
every year. This unsettling trend affects the
future of academic libraries in particular where the collections
are the dominant service, and a greater portion of the budget is
spent on acquisitions rather than personnel, services, outreach,
and special programs for the community. There are several
explanations for these increases, including escalating production
costs, fluctuating exchange rates, publisher mergers, and
unusually high inflation on many foreign titles. Although there
is debate over the extent and impact of each one of these
elements, few academic libraries have escaped the serious
consequences of rising costs, particularly in the areas of
electronic resources and scholarly journals. Academic
libraries have had no choice but to cancel significant numbers of
journal subscriptions and to reduce monographic purchasing,
decimating their collections. On the positive side, there is a
growing awareness among faculty and leaders in higher education
about the dysfunctional nature of this marketplace. On the
negative side, this awareness has produced a sense that the
entire system of scholarly publication is in danger of collapsing
unless there is concerted effort by the academic community to
promote less expensive channels for publication, dissemination,
and archiving of scholarly research.
"...the connection between users of the library and knowledge and information is of great benefit to those users and to society as a whole." Gorman in Technical Services Today and Tomorrow, 1998
Gorman's observation hints as the challenge of keeping the connection between user and information open. Copyright, privacy, and authentication and rights management are current as well as future concerns. Increased awareness and concern with copyright and legal problems may be the issue of the next decade rather than coping with technology. Copyright laws work well with print media, but are slow to transfer to the electronic environment. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, enacted in October 1998, is the latest in a long history of copyright legislation in the United States. Libraries are currently facing copyright issues including limitations within database licensing and unreasonable interlibrary loan requirements. Library users will need to have a new awareness of copyright implications with regards to traditional print and electronic media including the Internet; libraries cannot ignore the issue. However, they also need to aggressively advocate for fair use of all formats if that connection between users and information will remain open and beneficial.
Libraries have not addressed the practical aspects of extending protection of patron confidentiality to their use of the Web and electronic databases. The Web allows more access by more people to more information than ever before in history, but documents and identities are also more malleable than ever before. Libraries are going to have an increasing interest in verifying that you are who you say you are, you do have the right to access this resource, and the resources you are receiving are authentic. This is an area where libraries can differentiate themselves from the commercial sector; we traditionally provide disinterested information with the right of privacy. There is a growing interest in the electronic acquisition of consumer information without the knowledge or consent of the user. Library users should expect the freedom to find information without scrutiny by others.
A different type of privacy issue that will be more difficult is security. Protecting individual privacy can mask potential harm to others in both the physical and the computer environments. Physical security is a familiar challenge to large libraries. Now, libraries of all sizes have a growing awareness of the issue. Computer security including user protection and system protection will be a growing concern. Related to security and the fear of what is "out there" is the call for Internet filtering. Each library will need to address this.
Library managers will struggle to recruit new staff as library jobs increase, alternative careers in information services expand, and the profession ages. Elizabeth Rothery, Multnomah County Library staff member, found that there will be 25,000 new librarian job openings each year between 1996 and 2006. The pressure will be most intense in the public library sector as employment grows. The academic library sector could be flat or trending down (Frank D'Andraia). Compared to other professions, librarianship contains one-third the number of individuals aged 35 and under, and almost 75% more individuals aged 45 and over. Many libraries project that 75% of professional library staff will be lost over the next fifteen years due to retirements. Based on the current number of library schools and their current enrollments, there won't be enough graduates to fill these positions. And when filled, new hires are often as close to retirement as current staff as 40% of library science graduate students are over 35.
Given this pressure, retaining current staff is desirable. Yet, the core competencies of the librarians and library staff are changing. Library managers will need to work with existing staff to develop their skills while recruiting new staff. This list of desirable, and often mandatory, skills inspires some and overwhelms others.
Personal skills
Technical skills
Leadership skills
Service skills
Libraries will need to promote the differences between the commercial sector and libraries in order to recruit and keep staff. We will also be reevaluating which job duties really require an MLS, and will allocate this increasingly scarce resource judiciously. Gorman's drift down theory will encourage us to identify the jobs more sophisticated machines can do in our libraries. Review of all types of library workers may lead to greater staff diversity, new position descriptions, and different levels of credentials.
Finally, library education must be redesigned to meet the new needs of the library workplace, and promote libraries as workplaces for the future. Library schools need to address practical training as well as developing our intellectual leaders. Library staff will remain the key element in the acquisition of information, by providing expertise in the acquisition, organization and evaluation of information.
Identifying and addressing the expectations of users
External technology developments such as e-commerce
(electronic commerce) and customized marketing concepts will
shape our users' expectations of our design and delivery of
library services. Those who are Web users expect
customization, interactivity, and customer support.
Self-sufficiency is expected on the Web, so library users may
have a diminished expectation of real time help. On the
other hand, they will want approaches that are user-focused (e.g.
University of Washington's MyGateway and North Carolina State
University's MyLibrary@NCState) rather than library-focused.
Technology in the form of the Web is making library resources available to more people than ever before, and blurring the lines between local users and remote ones. All libraries will face more variety in their users, their expectations of services, and their demand on resources. Some will be experts while other will expect extensive help to make them experts. As libraries develop resources (e.g. digitized collections, Web tutorials), those who use them may come from anywhere on the globe. Expectations will be incredibly varied.
Interactive and interconnected library services will be the most valued. Interactive web services enable users to do something different, to find and manipulate information. Services that do not connect the citation to catalog holdings to full text/ILL document delivery will be unsatisfactory to many. More research is needed to improve the reliability and usefulness of these services and resources. Artificial intelligence offers interesting possibilities for interactive searching, but may also lead to bad advice to users.
The under-served and unserved probably have few if any expectations of libraries, yet are potential library supporters. Consequently, libraries need to continually describe their communityís populations, identify unmet needs, and craft services to address them. Changing demographics (e.g. increase in the Hispanic population, aging population) may provide overlooked opportunities for critical services.
Maintaining a physical infrastructure that supports
disinterested and immediate access
We will also be faced with the changing face of products to
deliver services and resources. Display technology will
approach the resolution and contrast of readable print, making it
more reasonable to ask patrons to view lower-demand documents
electronically. E-books, on the other hand, are
still probably 10 to 20 years away given the copyright issues and
the current state of reading devices; users will want them as
soon resolution and access improves. Internet
workstations in libraries will change as Internet access becomes
highly portable and wireless; smaller and more portable devices
will be available, and libraries may struggle to provide them to
those without. As workstations evolve and flat panel
displays become inexpensive, space will be saved.
Building systems that provide access to accurate information
in an un-biased way
Libraries cannot afford inefficiency or duplication of effort.
They need to develop means to be quicker to recognize needs and
find solutions. This also suggests that rather than the
traditional large, system-wide implementation of services,
libraries will experiment more, develop prototypes, and implement
new services on a smaller scale and more steadily.
Cooperative projects, such cataloging the Web through OCLC's
Project CORC or the ISAAC Network, will become
predominant. Also, libraries will need to identify
submerging technologies and let them go to make way for emerging
ones; maintaining both will be too expensive.
Consortia and collaboration
Libraries have twenty-five years experience with technology
and have at various times been leaders (use of bar codes and
minicomputers) and laggards (adoption of IP networks and
extensive use of PCs). They will continue to lead and
lag. Awareness of new products and potentially useful
services should permeate the entire staff, not just those in
automation. Identifying and implementing new technology
will be the job of everybody in the library. This implies
looking beyond the traditional world of library vendors.
We need to find products and figure out how to tweak them to work
for us, in our environments. We will have to develop the
skills to do this, or identify others that are available to
us. Collaborating among all types of libraries could lead
to new solutions and services.
Librarians as teachers not just gatekeepers
The human factor is still important to libraries and those who
use them. Library staff can help the overloaded
information user by helping them select and evaluate
material. Electronic tools can assist us in doing that;
the tools will become just tools, not the focus. As teachers, we
will need to participate throughout the educational continuum;
university libraries will cooperate with K-12 media specialists
to develop the information fluency of students.
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