Harvard’s libraries deal with disruptive change.

by Jonathan Shaw

Photograph by Jim Harrison

Nearly half of Harvard’s collection is housed at the Harvard Depository, a marvel of efficient off-campus storage. Library assistant Carl Wood reshelves books in the 30-foot-high, 200-foot-long stacks.

“Throw it in the charles,” one scientist recently suggested as a fitting end for Widener Library’s collection. The remark was outrageous—especially at an institution whose very name honors a gift of books—but it was pointed. Increasingly, in the scientific disciplines, information ranging from online journals to databases must be recent to be relevant, so Widener’s collection of books, its miles of stacks, can appear museum-like. Likewise, Google’s massive project to digitize all the books in the world will, by some accounts, cause research libraries to fade to irrelevance as mere warehouses for printed material. The skills that librarians have traditionally possessed seem devalued by the power of online search, and less sexy than a Google query launched from a mobile platform. “People want information ‘anytime, anyplace, anywhere,’” says Helen Shenton, the former head of collection care for the British Library who is now deputy director of the Harvard University Library. Users are changing—but so, too, are libraries. The future is clearly digital.

Isaac Kohane, director of the Countway Medical Library, sees librarians returning to a central role in medicine as curators of databases and as teachers of complex bioinformatics search techniques.

Yet if the format of the future is digital, the content remains data. And at its simplest, scholarship in any discipline is about gaining access to information and knowledge, says Peter Bol, Carswell professor of East Asian languages and civilizations. In fields such as botany or comparative zoology, researchers need historical examples of plant and animal life, so they build collections and cooperate with others who also have collections. “We can call that a museum of comparative zoology,” he says, “but it is a form of data collection.” If you study Chinese history, as Bol does, you need access to primary sources and to the record of scholarship on human history over time. You need books. But in physics or chemistry, where the research horizon is constantly advancing, much of the knowledge created in the past has very little relevance to current understanding. In that case, he says, “you want to be riding the crest of the tidal wave of information that is coming in right now. We all want access to information, and in some cases that will involve building collections; in others, it will mean renting access to information resources that will keep us current. In some cases, these services may be provided by a library, in others by a museum or even a website.”

Meanwhile, “Who has the most scientific knowledge of large-scale organization, collection, and access to information? Librarians,” says Bol. A librarian can take a book, put it somewhere, and then guarantee to find it again. “If you’ve got 16 million items,” he points out, “that’s a very big guarantee. We ought to be leveraging that expertise to deal with this new digital environment. That’s a vision of librarians as specialists in organizing and accessing and preserving information in multiple media forms, rather than as curators of collections of books, maps, or posters.”

Librarians as Information Brokers

Bol is particularly interested in the media form known as Google Book Search (GBS). The search-engine giant is systematically scanning books from libraries throughout the world in order to assemble an enormous, Internet-accessible digital library: at 12 million books, its collection is already three-quarters the size of Harvard’s. Soon it will be the largest library the world has ever known. Harvard has provided nearly a million public domain (pre-1923) books for the project; by participating, the University helped with the creation of a new tool (GBS) for locating books that is useful to people both at Harvard and around the world. And participation made the full text content of these books searchable and available to everyone in the United States for free.

GBS appeals to Bol and other scholars because it gives them quick and easy access to books that Harvard does not own (litigation over the non-public-domain works in GBS notwithstanding). For Bol, such a tool might be especially useful: Harvard acquires only 15,000 books from China each year, but he estimates that it ought to be collecting closer to 50,000. So GBS could be a boon to scholarship.

But GBS also raises all kinds of questions. If everything eventually is available at your fingertips, what will be the role of libraries and librarians?

Jonathan Shaw ’89 is managing editor of this magazine.

Campus Overload – Got a research paper to write? Friend a librarian.

Spring break is over. April is here. Those end-of-the-semester deadlines are not quite as distant as you think. And chances are your to-do list includes at least one research paper.

Ah, college research papers — it takes most students all four years to figure out how to complete them quickly and accurately (especially through hang-overs or Red Bull jitters).

Your secret weapon? The college reference librarian.

No, seriously. And here are some reasons why:

They can help get you started, even if you don’t understand your topic.

As soon as you get a research paper assignment, stop by your library’s reference desk and ask for help, says Barbara Fister, academic librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minn. “The reference desk is an underutilized site for one-on-one individualized help,” she said. “And if you’re not on campus, chances are there’s a chat reference.”

Understanding the assignment is half the battle, says Beth Mark, instruction coordinator at the Murray Library at Messiah College in Grantham, Penn. “We often work with students to either narrow the research topic or broaden it,” she says. “A topic that is too narrow won’t produce the results needed for the student and a topic that is too broad oftentimes overwhelms the student with thousands of results.”

They are Google experts.

Let’s get this straight: Most reference librarians do not hate Google. They just get frustrated when students think a #1 hit means a reliable source.

And if used correctly, search engines like Google can be beneficial, said Priscilla Atkins, library head of reference and instruction at Hope College in Holland, Mich. Plus, Google offers more advanced search options, like Google Scholar and Google Books. Reference librarians can show students how to do that.

“Googling is not a cause for dismay,” she says. “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t use Google; but in 2010, it’s still the case that reference books and scholarly articles provide the most authoritative information on most topics.”

But when Googling, students need to take a hard look at the source of their information.

“Think about your sources being your expert witnesses: if you were in court and your expert witness showed up in jeans and flip-flops… do you think the jury would be impressed?” Fister said. “Pick your expert witnesses with an eye on not just what they say, but what impression they’ll make on your audience.”

But don’t think that being tech savvy alone makes you a good researcher, cautions Donna Miller, a librarian at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Penn.
“A cook can be wonderfully adept with the gadgets found in today’s kitchens, but nevertheless whip up dreadfully tasting meals,” says Miller. “It’s very easy to conduct awful information searches, yet be quite proficient with technology.”

They have access to information you didn’t even know existed.

Most college libraries give students access to online tutorials, online research guides, electronic databases and electronic journal subscriptions. Susan McClintock, head of reference at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C., said a librarian can help you figure out which ones to use.

“We want them to understand that research is like being a detective. Just looking is not enough,” she says. “To solve the case you need to look in the best places for the clues. Then you need to analyze the results to make sure you have solved the case.”

Both the private and public sectors have been steadily downsizing and closing their physical libraries, which some consider to be nothing more than warehouses that take up space and lose money. Thinkers like us saw them as nice, quiet spaces where we could hide from the boss and escape the annoying distractions of the office. We could surround ourselves with piles of paper on those huge tables. Aisles of books, stacked from floor to ceiling, formed an insulating barrier from the stress of the outside world. But something happened on the way to the knowledge economy …

Delivering knowledge vs. information

Corporate librarians used to devote years acquiring and cataloging physical document collections. All those serials and monographs, outdated by the time they arrived from the printers, are simply not that competitive anymore. Knowledge is not static. It must be continually refreshed through venues such as open discussion and brainstorming. That calls for a new kind of library.

A quick look at the Pacific Northwest gives us a glimpse into what the library of the future might look like. On almost every city block are cafes where people go to seek out and learn from like-minded individuals. Wireless Internet is usually available. Students gather to study and compare notes. Some of the larger cafes host scheduled social events. Even perfect strangers can be found collaborating and exchanging stories about real-life struggles and triumphs.

Here you can see a strong trend toward organic products, perhaps another indicator of a move back to a simpler time when communities played an important role in everyday life … when the milkman actually came to your house and talked with you. You knew the farmers, and the farmers knew you.

The upshot is that teams and communities are once again becoming the preferred problem-solving mode, as opposed to individuals working in isolation. The quiet cubbyholes with “no talking” signs must give way to open spaces, super-sized electronic wall displays, lounge chairs and WiFi hotspots.

Unfortunately, there have been casualties. Librarians are being jettisoned along with the bookcases. We need to reverse that trend and start bringing them back … but only the ones who are willing to change. A traditional corporate librarian must make three major shifts in roles begin the transition to a knowledge librarian.

Role shift #1: A knowledge librarian should be the “content czar” of the enterprise. That role, often ascribed to the CIO or CKO, must be returned to the librarian, where it belongs. Search engines have made it easy for people to find content, thereby pretty much eliminating that function. But librarians bring other essential skills to the table. Librarians gave us an orderly way—those neatly organized stacks—to wander around and find things, even when we didn’t know what we were looking for. In every enterprise, someone still needs to figure out where to put stuff so people can find it. Taxonomy boot campers, take heart.

Even more important is the librarian’s skill as a knowledge broker. Knowledge librarians must constantly make new connections that will enhance the flow of knowledge across the enterprise. While knowledge pull can come from search engines, knowledge push still works best when human intermediaries are involved.

Role shift #2: A knowledge librarian understands the strategic information needs of the enterprise. Information is the primary raw material of the global knowledge-based economy. That places the knowledge librarian at the very heart of the input side of the value chain. Librarians must have a seat at the table when planning and monitoring the organization’s strategic goals and objectives.

The knowledge librarian can help identify and close gaps in organizational knowledge. But that can only be done if the information resources and strategy of the enterprise are in alignment. While electronic space is a lot cheaper than floor space, the cost of acquiring and maintaining quality information remains high. Paying for unnecessary information resources is just as wasteful as cutting off sources of crucial information to meet budget constraints. Having someone keep an eye on the critical knowledge points in the value chain will reap huge dividends over the long run.

Role shift #3: A knowledge librarian is a lead agent of change. The librarian of the future must get out from behind the reference desk and become involved with everybody and everything. The ability to see problems and opportunities from many different perspectives makes that person uniquely positioned to help break down barriers and connect the dots in ways that might not happen otherwise.

The real challenge is to be proactive in overturning the status quo. There are always better ways to do things. Although resistance may be fierce initially, success will come by focusing on what’s best for the organization. By always seeking common ground, the knowledge librarian can be a valuable resource in minimizing the individual and political conflicts that impede the flow of knowledge.

The librarian of the future is uniquely positioned to be at the center of the creation and alignment of intellectual assets across the enterprise. That leads to improved innovation and business performance on a sustained basis. Maybe the time will soon come when we will see librarians as CKOs.

Any organization that wants to make the transition to an enterprise of the future needs a few strong-willed individuals who have the desire and know-how to make knowledge flow quickly and easily. Who better to do that than those quiet heroes who have always come to our rescue whenever we needed answers?

I think he’s right. A few excerpts:

Q: Can there be too many of these codified pieces–too much information?

Yes, there can be too much information in the sense that there’s too much to absorb, but you can never have too much knowledge. That’s one of the differences between information and knowledge. Who would ever say they have too much knowledge of something? Would you want to go to a doctor who says, “I know too much about your illness?” You want people who help us in our lives–doctors, politicians, economists–to have a lot of knowledge.

Q: So, where does that leave information professionals? The common perception is that they bring information into the organization and it gets passed up the chain to the top, and along the way it gets filtered and distilled into knowledge.

I would disagree with the chain scenario–I don’t think that’s an accurate description of what happens. I think people at the top of organizations make their decisions based on all sorts of things, but information wouldn’t be at the head of the list. I think they make decisions based on peer knowledge–asking their bankers, their lawyers, their peer executives within the firm. They may read some things, perhaps an article or report, but generally, by the time something’s in print, they already know it. It’s old news. There isn’t that much in print that’s new for business executives.

That’s why librarians don’t have the–what’s the right word here?–the position, the respect, the authority that maybe they think they might, because what they’re dealing with is stuff that’s not absolutely essential to the running of the firm. If it was, it would make a big difference.

Q: It sounds like you’re saying that information professionals need to move away from procuring and maintaining content.

I coined a phrase years ago that I think is useful here: If you have a dollar to spend on either information or knowledge, spend it on connection rather than capture. That’s really an important slogan. You’re much better off connecting people, helping them find one another, than on capturing material. I’m not talking here about university libraries or public libraries–if you run the library at Harvard, you want to capture everything in different forms. I’m talking about organizations.

Q: So, 10 years from now, will we still be talking about information workers and information societies?

It already sounds old hat. Yes, there was a time when information was a hot topic, and it was very exciting, but the costs kept dropping. No one foresaw everybody having personal computers; no one foresaw Google. Information transactions have become ubiquitous, transparent, and almost cost-free. No one predicted this.

And, to be honest, a lot of the information hype was generated by vendors with a commercial aim. I remember when everyone was saying that if you get the right information to the right person at the right time, it will give an organization a tremendous advantage. That’s just not true. I had an economist model that for me, and it would give them some advantage, but there’s just not enough information out there to make a big difference. The real advantage lies in using knowledge better and in innovating. That’s where information professionals should focus their efforts.

The entire interview is available online at “You Can Never Have Too Much Knowledge“, SLA Information Outlook, December 2009.

The author of a new book talks about the secret lives of America’s favorite — and endangered — disciplinarians.

Behold the stereotypical librarian, with her cat’s-eye glasses, bun and pantyhose — a creature whose desexualized persona and desire for us to be quiet has fueled generations of wild sexual fantasies. But there’s bad news for those of you with a shushing fetish; as Marilyn Johnson explains in “This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All,” the uptight librarian is a species that’s rapidly approaching extinction.

A new generation of young, hip and occasionally tattooed librarians is driving them out. They call themselves guybrarians, cybrarians and “information specialists,” and they blog at sites like The Free Range Librarian and The Lipstick Librarian. They can be found in droves on Second Life, but also outside the Republican National Convention, dodging tear gas canisters and tweeting the location of the police.

Johnson, a former staff writer for Life magazine, and author of “The Dead Beat,” a book about the fascinating world of obituary writing, delights in refuting our assumptions about librarians, while making a rock-solid case for their indispensability at a time when library systems are losing an average of 50 librarians per year. Who else is going to help us formulate the questions Google doesn’t understand, or show non-English speakers how to apply for jobs online, or sympathize with your need to research the ancient origins of cockfighting? Librarians, Johnson argues, are one of our most underappreciated natural resources.

Read the entire review at Salon.com.

“Domain Specific Applications of Knowledge Media Design”

• Do you work in a field that is related to Knowledge/Media/Design?
• Do you consider your work ‘domain specific’?
• Do you enjoy speaking to students and sharing your experiences?

If you answered yes to those question, we need you!

Who are we?

The professional development committee consists of KMD collaborative program students <http://kmdi.utoronto.ca/graduate/> who are dedicated to bridging the gap between research and education in the university setting, and the real-world experiences of the professional world.

We are looking for featured panelists who have domain-specific work experience they would like to share with KMD students in a workshop-format. The workshop-format is designed to be an alternative to the more traditional short presentation followed by Q&A format.

Where is the space?

The brand new Brian Cantwell Smith idea Exchange is a collaborative space  at the Faculty of Information (140 St. George Street) with a brand new SmartBoard set up, completed with a fancy coffee machine.

The space has great potential for the kind of dynamic event we envision, all we need are interesting people and interesting experiences to tickle our student’s enquiring minds.

Participation Details:

Two professional panels in a workshop format are being organized for Wednesday March 4 and April 1st, from 4-6pm at the Faculty of Information (140 St. George Street), featuring guests and projects that reflect our theme: “Domain Specific Applications of Knowledge Media Design”.  These panel discussions will showcase projects from various disciplines and provide an informal and dynamic forum for students to learn more about the emerging and dynamic field of Knowledge Media Design from a professional perspective.

We are seeking interested speakers (faculty, alumni, advance graduate students) to come in and showcase any projects that they have worked on, and to share their insight and experience to graduate students.

If interested, please forward us a brief bio, your professional background, your research interests, and some of the projects that you think you would like to share at this event to margaret.lam@gmail.com (“KMD PD Event” in heading). We are looking for 3 speakers for our March 4th event, and others who are interested in speaking at such an event some time in the future.

This is a pilot initiative, and the success of these first two events will steer the direction of any future events held by the PD Student Committee. Your feedback and comments will be greatly appreciated! We look forward to your participation.

Sincerely,

Ryan Kealey (PhD Candidate – Mechanical & Industrial Engineering)

Margaret Lam (Masters Candidate – Faculty of Information)

Tonya Noel (M.Ed Candidate – Curriculum, Teaching and Learning)

Dor Reich (Masters Candidate – Faculty of Information)

Open Access Week is an opportunity to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access to research, including access policies from all types of research funders, within the international higher education community and the general public. The now-annual event has been expanded from a single day to accommodate widespread global interest in the movement toward open, public access to scholarly research results.

Participate locally! Here is a list of Open Access Events courtesy of the University of Toronto Libraries Portal. See you there!

Lisa participated in Ingnite Toronto in August. Here is the video of her presentation on Social Innovation.

Ignite T.O. Lisa Torjman – Social Innovation from Ignite Toronto on Vimeo.

The Google Book Search Settlement has been much in the news recently, with the Internet Archive, Philip K. Dick’s heirs, consumer groups and Microsoft registering their objections to the search giant’s agreement with authors and publishers. And now Justice Department anti-trust lawyers are meeting with Google about the settlement, raising the possibility of a full-blown anti-trust court showdown between the government and the world’s biggest search and advertising company. It’s a complicated story combining copyright law, anti-trust issues and the odd problem of orphan books. It’s also the story of one company’s attempt to create the largest and most comprehensive library in the history of the world. Here’s Wired.com’s guide through the thicket of the Google Book Search Settlement.

The Fight over the Google of All Libraries: A Wired.com FAQ.

Google Brings New Options to Search

Perhaps not to be outdone by Microsoft’s recent quickened pace of innovation in search, Google is adding new ways to slice and dice search results.

On Thursday, Google introduced more categories to its “search options,” a feature brought out in May that allows users to filter results by time (recent results, past year, past month, past week), type of result (videos, forums, reviews) and other criteria.