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.

Subject: Update on the 2011 Census

This is an update on the 2011 Census. On June 26, 2010, the census questions were published in the Canada Gazette as required by the Statistics Act. The 2011 Census will consist of the same eight questions that appeared on the 2006 Census short-form questionnaire. All households will receive a short-form census questionnaire.

The information previously collected by the census mandatory long-form questionnaire will now be collected as part of the new voluntary National Household Survey (NHS). The NHS questionnaire will include questions on language, immigration, Aboriginal peoples, mobility, ethnicity, education, labour, income and housing.

The NHS will be conducted within four weeks of the May 2011 Census. Approximately, 4.5 million households will receive the NHS questionnaire, up from the 2.9 million households that would have received the census mandatory long-form questionnaire.

I know that I can count on your ongoing support to ensure the success of these two important Statistics Canada priorities.

This change means that the mandatory long form census questionnaire, sent to 20% of the Canadian population and consisting of detailed questions (see http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/ref/gazette-eng.cfm) will be replaced with a separate voluntary survey.  It is unlikely that many Canadians will voluntarily provide all the rich and detailed information formerly gathered using the mandatory long form census. This means that the research community and all levels of government and community groups will no longer have access to this information which has been used to create public policy and conduct research that leads to an immeasurable number of programs and initiatives.

What Can You Do?

Learn more about the issue by reading the articles below. And, write your MP and Minister Tony Clement to express your concern. You can also sign the Keep the Canadian Census Long Form Petition and join the Keep the Canadian Census Long Form Facebook Page.

• Tories scrap mandatory long-form census – The Globe and Mail.
• Why you should care about the long census form’s demise – The Globe and Mail.
• Canadians must be able to count on Statistics Canada.
• A census we can count on – Winnipeg Free Press.
• Wrong move on census – thestar.com
• Former StatsCan head slams census decision by Tories – Winnipeg Free Press.

In recent weeks Knowledge Ontario (KO) was told it will receive no provincial funding this year for its digital services and products – their request for ongoing funding from the Ministry of Culture was not supported.

This decision deals a serious blow to cross-sector library collaboration in this province and creates challenges for libraries, librarians, library users and all taxpayers. Implications are:

•  no  KO licensed e-resources to K-12 schools, college, university and government libraries (current licenses expire Dec. 2010)
•  no funds  for the other four KO programs (Ask (askON), Connect, Learn and Our Ontario)
•  an additional 22 public libraries, 2 university and 2 college libraries are unable to participate in and offer the askON/ONdemande service in September as planned
•  an end to the askON internship program that provides virtual reference training and experience to dozens to iSchool students
•  KO will need to secure “bridging” assistance to ensure that it has sufficient operating funds to continue from January to June 2011

There are some actions you can take if this news concerns you:

Write to the Minister of Education (responsible for school libraries), the Minister of Culture (responsible for public libraries), and/or the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities (reponsible for college/university libraries), or the Premier himself.

A link to a draft letter is available on Kim Stymest’s blog at http://kimstymest.com/2010/06/18/lets-get-agitated-part-2/

•  Blog, twitter (#KOmatters) and work your networks. Let people know and encourage them to act.

•  Join the Knowledge Ontario Matters Facebook group and watch for more calls to action

•  Find out what your local library is doing about it. Have they passed a Board resolution supporting KO?  Have they written their minister yet?

•  Subscribe to KO News to make sure that you have all the current information. See www.knowledgeontario.ca/jointheflow.aspx

Library collaboration, of the kind introduced by Knowledge Ontario, makes not only good financial sense but offers all of Ontario’s libraries and librarians an opportunity to share, develop and use leading edge tools and services to better serve our profession, our clients and ourselves.

Seattle, Washington, USA

February 8 – 11, 2011

http://www.ischools.org/iConference11/2011index/

***PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE: August 30, 2010***

Greetings to everyone interested in HCI and Information! Please forward to your colleagues!

We invite you to participate in the sixth annual conference sponsored by the iCaucus, a growing association of over 25 Schools, Faculties, and Colleges in North America, Europe and Asia that focus on Information. The iConference gathers researchers and professionals who share the goal of making a difference through the study of people, information, and technology. Under the banner “Inspiration – Integrity – Intrepidity” we seek to showcase diversity in research interests and approaches, and demonstrate how the field creates leadership and impact on a global scale.

The four days will include peer-reviewed papers, posters, and alternative events. Also being organized is a Doctoral Student Colloquium and a Junior Faculty & Postdoc Colloquium, popular venues at past iConferences. Papers and poster abstracts will be published in the ACM Digital Library. The aim is to build community and promote and share excellence in research on information challenges and opportunities. We have identified cross-cutting themes: social inclusion, context, materiality, personalization, memory. The 2011 iConference should be an exceptional venue for sharing insights and collaborating with others who share your passion and research interests. For more information on the range of topics visit the iConference web site, which includes more detail and paths to past iConferences. But do not feel constrained, this is a dynamic field that you will help shape!

The conference will be held at Seattle’s Renaissance Hotel. The local host is the University of Washington Information School.

Timeline:

August 30, 2010:  Papers, Poster Abstracts, Alternative Event proposals, Preconference Workshops

November 1:       Authors notified

December 1:       Final versions submitted

Links and Contact Information:

• CFP:        http://www.ischools.org/iConference11/participation/
• Conference: http://www.ischools.org/iConference11/2011index/
• iCaucus:    http://www.ischools.org/site/

Conference Co-Chairs

• Harry Bruce, University of Washington
• Jonathan Grudin, Microsoft Research

Program and Papers Co-Chairs

• Karen E. Fisher, University of Washington
• Jens-Erik Mai, University of Toronto

Poster Co-Chairs

• Paul Dourish, University of California, Irvine
• Ping Zhang, Syracuse University

Alternative Events Co-Chairs

• Allison Druin, University of Maryland
• Andrea Forte, Drexel University

Doctoral Colloquium Co-Chairs

• Eliza Dresang, University of Washington
• Bonnie Nardi, University of California, Irvine
• Howard Rosenbaum, Indiana University, SLIS

Junior Faculty and Postdoc Colloquium Co-Chairs

• Eileen Abels, Drexel University
• Jack Carroll, The Pennsylvania State University

Program Committee

• Eileen Abels, Drexel University
• Alessandro Acquisti, Carnegie Mellon University
• Bill Aspray, University of Texas, Austin
• John Bertot, University of Maryland
• Harry Bruce, University of Washington
• Jenna Burrell, University of California, Berkeley
• Nadia Caidi, University of Toronto
• Jack Carroll, The Pennsylvania State University
• Coye Cheshire, University of California, Berkeley
• Andrew Clement, University of Toronto
• Chris Coward, University of Washington
• Ed Cutrell, Microsoft Corporation
• Paul Dourish, University of California, Irvine
• Eliza Dresang, University of Washington
• Allison Druin, University of Maryland
• Barbara Endicott-Popovsky, University of Washington
• Melanie Feinberg, University of Texas, Austin
• Andrew Fiore, University of California, Berkeley
• Andrea Forte, Drexel University
• Jonathan Furner, University of California, Los Angeles
• Maria Garrido, University of Washington
• Sean Goggins, Drexel University
• Elke Greifeneder, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
• Jacek Gwizdka, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
• Margaret Hedstrom, University of Michigan
• Julia Hersberger, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
• Jette Hyldegaard, Danish Royal School
• Steven J Jackson, University of Michigan
• Julie Kientz, University of Washington
• Paul Marty, Florida State University
• Eric Meyers, University of British Columbia
• Bonnie Nardi, University of California, Irvine
• Geoffrey Nunberg, University of California, Berkeley
• Megan Oakleaf, Syracuse University
• Tapan Parikh, University of California, Berkeley
• Matt Ratto, University of Toronto
• David Ribes, Georgetown
• Howard Rosenbaum, Indiana University, SLIS
• Araba Sey, University of Washington
• Ramesh Srinivasan, University of California, Los Angeles
• Andrea Tapia, The Pennsylvania State University
• Joe Tennis, University of Washington
• Andrea Wiggins, Syracuse University
• Kate Williams, University of Illinois
• Jacob Wobbrock, University of Washington
• Ping Zhang, Syracuse University

In order to provide another great conference experience we need your help. Please consider submitting a proposal for a session at next year’s conference.

Call for Proposals
Submission Deadline – May 25th, 2010

2011 SUPER CONFERENCE
February 2nd – 5th, 2011
Metro Toronto Convention Centre

What topics is OCULA looking for?
We are looking for presentations that reflect the challenging and exciting times in college and university libraries. Particular topics of interest include assessments, collaboration, collection development, reference services, theory, digitization, scholarly communications, and more. This is a great opportunity to present your ideas, research or experience to your peers. Spotlight on Research At the 2010 Conference we added a new type of session called Spotlight on Research. In these sessions two presentations were showcased in one 75 minute time slot. The intention was to highlight the research being done in areas related to academic libraries and where a 30-35 minute time slot was more appropriate. If you are currently working on research you would like to present at the conference, you may wish to note that you would be interested in sharing a Spotlight on Research slot when you submit your proposal.

How do I submit a proposal?
You can submit a proposal for a session you would like to PRESENT; however, you can also submit a proposal for a topic that you would like to see covered but that you don’t want to present. Please submit your proposal or idea to the OLA website at:
www.accessola.com/education/superconference

To ensure that your submission does not get lost in the online universe, please also email the title of your submission to: pgreen@conestogac.on.ca

What if I have other questions?
Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns pgreen@conestogac.on.ca or j.bengtson@utoronto.ca
We look forward to seeing all your great session ideas!

Collegially,

Patricia Green pgreen@conestogac.on.ca Jonathan Bengtson j.bengtson@utoronto.ca OCULA Super Conference 2011 Program Planners

For a broader perspective on the conference, search for Twitter hashtag #CIL2010.

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.”

Rolling Stone guitarist, party guy, one of the Glimmer Twins and so much more, Keith Richards, tells The Independent with a mention (and image) in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he has a “secret longing” to be a librarian.

He even made an attempt to organize his personal library using Dewey but it was, “too much hassle.” Ouch!

Perhaps Forest Press/OCLC could do it for him or LibraryThing Founder and CEO Tim Spalding and his staff could organize a flash-mob to get the job done.

The Independent article not only has a great title, “It’s Only Books ’n’ Shelves But I Like It,” but contains more about Richards book collection.

Here are two examples:

1) Keeps Favorite Books Close at Hand With Others “Languishing on Dusty Shelves”
2) Lends Out Book To Friends

Where is all of this “info” coming from and why now? This October, Richards will have his autobiography titled Life, published and apparently it revels these revelations and more.

Finally, both The Independent article and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer summary include the following quote from Richards. In a word, wow!

“When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equaliser.”

With such positive (and yes, important) comments library organizations like the Public Library Association and ALA should be working contacts (and perhaps other librarians around the world) to get an interview specifically on libraries and/or invite Richards to speak (and maybe even play a turn or two) at a conference.

Rock On!

Source: The Independent, Seattle PI, Wikipedia

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?