School of Information Management and SystemsThese remarks are influenced by the following assumptions:
1. There is a need for more attention to strategic planning, which
we can distinguish
from operational decisions and tactical moves. Strategic planning is commonly taken to
be concerned with those decisions that will shape the development of an organization
over a three to ten year period. Alternatively we can think of strategic planning as
being concerned with broader trends, with how we wish to develop.
2. Disproportionate attention has been paid to new information technology. It is not that too much attention has been paid to computing, data storage, and telecommunications, but, rather, that too little critical attention has been paid to the older information technologies of paper, card, and microfilm. What have been the principal problems with the style of library service we are accustomed to?
3. Talk about electronic libraries still sounds unfamiliar and novel. But we have considerable relevant experience, considerably more than is generally recognized.
4. If you don't know what to do, it may be wise to retreat towards first principles.
5. The change to electronic libraries may seem to be a large change. But we should remember that it is only a part of the situation is changing: There is very significant change in the technology which can be used as a means for library service. But the human users are still the same human users and it is not clear that the purpose of libraries will change.
The role of a library is to facilitate access to documents and the mission of a library is to support the mission of the institution (or population) served.
The first of these statements stimulates us to ask how "facilitate," "access," and "document" should be interpreted and how the role of the library should relate to the role of the book trade, computing, and other services.
The second statement means that the determination of what should be done is unique for each library in its own specific context. Further we need to distinguish between ends and means, between process and purpose. We need to examine alternative means -- alternative processes -- so that we know what our options are.
Discussion of ends and means also implies consideration not only of what is good and not so good, but also different kinds of goodness.
"How good is it?" is a question concerning quality or, in effect, a question of capability with respect to serving some actual or imagined demand and relates to means. We may speak of "a good collection" or "a good bibliography." Output or performance measures are commonly of this type.
"What good does it do?" is a different kind of question concerned with value and appropriate to the evaluation of ends and to the relating of means to ends. What good do we wish to see achieved? What is our purpose? Planning processes that concern themselves with which performance measures to use may be of this type.
The good news is that new means are becoming available. Modern library services were devised in the nineteenth century and have stayed relatively stable for a century. When means remain stable, the distinction between means and ends become blurred. If there is only one means (one process), then more of the same process will achieve more of the purpose. More of the means is more of the ends. This is convenient, but a blurring of the difference between means and ends leaves one ill-prepared to deal with new means, if and when, as now, new means arise.
I have found it helpful to think in terms
of three types of library:
1. The Paper Library: Until recently the technical operations of libraries (e.g.
purchasing, processing, cataloguing, and circulation) and library materials (primarily
exts) were based on paper and cardboard. We call this the "Paper Library."
2. The Automated Library: Over the past two decades, the technical operations of
libraries have become based on computer technology while library materials still remain
overwhelmingly on paper and paper-like media: the "Automated library."
3. The Electronic Library: Today, the increase in the amount and variety of materials
becoming available in electronic form is quite dramatic. The prospect that library
materials as well as library operations, will increasingly be in electronic form indicates a
third form, the "Electronic Library." The concept of the Electronic Library is important
because library materials will increasingly be in electronic form and, therefore, libraries
will have to provide access to them.
The transition from the Paper Library to the Automated Library includes a transformation of bibliographic access, especially changes in the procedures for cataloging and development of online catalogs and online bibliographies.
The transition from the Automated Library to the Electronic Library will change collections and collection development.
We have defined these three theoretical types of library -- Paper, Automated, and Electronic libraries -- for the sake of discussion. Any real library service is likely to be a combination.
Meanwhile a significant shift is occurring among the users of academic libraries. They, too, are making increased use of computers and electronic documents and data. To the extent that library users operate in a personal computing environment they need to be served by an Automated Library or, better, an Electronic Library. Library use in the past was "come, read, think, and (maybe) write." But as library users adopt computer-based techniques, the way they work becomes more complex. Library service needs to be developed in parallel.
Features of computer-based operations and of electronic records that distinguish them from paper-based operations are that they allow use from a distance, multiple simultaneous users, and a variety of different forms of use (scanning, sorting, revising, reformatting, and so on).
We should be clear concerning the
problems characteristic of the Paper Library so that we can know what we want the new
technology to change for us. What are the weaknesses of the Paper Library? What do
we want the new technology to change for us? Here is a list of the problems
characteristic of the Paper Library:
1. The service is localized. Paper and reader have to be in the same place. This may
seem a trivial and obvious statement, but this one characteristic has dominated the
design of library services.
2. Paper Libraries have serious space problems. The nine campus University of
California system, for example, needs some 19 kilometers of additional shelf space ...
each and every year.
3. Paper is a relatively inflexible medium. Documents on paper are not suitable for
revision or reformatting.
4. In a Paper Library the catalog is separate from the documents cataloged. Finding a
catalog card is not the same as finding the document.
5. The users are separate from the library. They have to travel to it. Library use tends
to be very sensitive to distance.
6. Computers can be left unattended, but Paper Libraries have to be staffed whenever
open. As a result, most Paper Libraries are, in fact, closed most of the time.
7. A paper document can ordinarily be used by only one person at a time. However,
the demand for documents is highly skewed. Some titles are more popular than others,
so there is competition for the use of documents. In university libraries, studies have
repeatedly shown that about six times out of ten a desired document is not found,
usually because it has been borrowed. In other words, normal performance for finding
a document in the Paper Library is little better than 50% availability.
8. Because of the distance to the collections and, in a large library, the separation of
the documents from the catalog, use of the Paper Library can be time-consuming.
9. Paper Libraries have problems of scale. A library with a small collection can offer
only limited service; a library with large collections provides more service but becomes
less convenient because there are diseconomies of scale. The larger the collection of
documents, the longer it takes to identify and find one.
10. The universe of Paper Libraries is characterized by extreme geographic inequality.
The provision of library service varies enormously from place to place. Library services
are so much better in a large, important city like Tokyo, than in a remote, rural area, or
even large cities in developing countries. This is an obvious problem, but often
forgotten because, with the Paper Library, such inequality is inevitable.
These disadvantages of paper documents are the reason why the size of collections is so important in the Paper Library and in the Automated Library. Bigger is better, because good library service depends on the local collection.
The benefits brought by the Automated Library have been mainly for those who provide library service: Increased effectiveness and comparative efficiency inside the library. In addition, access to an online library catalog brings the catalog records closer to the user and there are interesting possibilities for linking catalog records with online bibliographies. Otherwise, since the collections remain on paper, the Automated Library continues the disadvantages of the Paper Library.
What have been the effects of the change from the Paper Library to the
Automated Library? My list would include:
- Greater standardization of data. Without standards, such as the MARC format, one
cannot cooperate and the benefits of automation are much reduced;
- Remote access to files;
- Cooperative use of files. Libraries now use shared catalog records;
- Fewer duplicative local files;
- Access to multiple files from many different places;
- The combining or linking of files;
- The ability to use records in more different ways; and, a definite disadvantage,
- Increased risk from technological failure.
We can expect a continuing trend towards automation for economic reasons. Unit costs for computing power, data storage, and telecommunications are all becoming cheaper relative to labor costs. Further, there is the high cost of housing collections of paper documents, approaching US$19 per volume in California for conventional library stacks. The high cost of housing collections of paper documents will increase the pressure to change.
The online catalog is, in itself, a very significant innovation. However, we can expect more far-reaching developments in bibliographic access to follow. Online catalog records can, in principle, be linked with entries in online bibliographies and vice versa. In this way, items recorded in online bibliographies can have the locations of holdings linked to them. Thus bibliographies can serve as a dramatic enrichment of the catalog, providing very detailed access to collections.
Further, as more resources are connected to networks, the number of bibliographic files searchable from any workstation anywhere becomes very large indeed.
There is, currently, a very rapid increase in the number and variety of documents in electronic form in all subject areas. Electronic documents are not inherently "local" as paper documents are. Remote access is feasible.
What can a librarian do with an electronic documents? The options seem straightforward: Store them in some suitable place, assign addresses, create a bibliographic description, and place entries in bibliographies and catalogs to ensure that the documents can be identified and located. There seems little alternative to what we have always down with paper documents.
Even if believes that documents on paper were the most suitable medium for reading, there are circumstances in which electronic documents are to be preferred.
Electronic versions are preferable when the information is changeable because they are more easily updated. Electronic versions are preferable when there is a need to look quickly through a documents for some word or name, because a computer can do that very well with an electronic document. When the document is at a distance, and when documents need to be shared with remote co-workers, it is very useful to have an electronic version of the document. These exceptions can add up to a substantial proportion of use. And, remember that electronic documents can be reproduced on paper when that is desired.
The linking of online catalogs, online bibliographies, electronic documents, the users' workstations, and users' personal computing environments provides a basis for overcoming the separations that are typical of the Paper Library.
The selecting, collecting, and processing of library materials--collection development--dominate libraries' budgets and space requirements. The shift in the technological base for storing library materials from paper to electronic form offers the possibility for new thinking about library collection development policies.
Why do we have library collections? This is a very important but neglected question.
There seem to be four quite different roles of library collections:
- An archival or preservation role;
- A dispensing or document delivery role;
- A bibliographic role in that the classified array of documents on the shelves enables
searching by subject and browsing; and
- A symbolic role in that collections can bring prestige.
Of these four roles, the dispensing role is of particular interest because, with paper documents, large collections everywhere -- generally containing the duplicative copies of the same titles -- are necessary for good library service. This one "dispensing" role accounts for most of the operating expenditures and most of the space needs of the Paper Library and of the Automated Library. But with electronic documents storing a copy locally becomes optional rather than necessary. The dispensing role, therefore, which accounts for most of the expense, also appears to offer the greatest potential for innovation and cost avoidance in the move to the Electronic Library.
The move to the Electronic Library implies some predictable
changes in the character of library service:
- A shift in emphasis from cataloging to bibliography;
- A change in collection development from a focus on local collections to cooperative
network-wide collections. After all, what matters is not which document you own,
but which document you can make available quickly;
- Greater attention by librarians to users' (computer-based) work habits; and
increased
complexity as more resources become interconnected.
If the Electronic Library were to stimulate some of the demand for library service which is currently latent, then it is unlikely that there would be enough library staff to mediate it. A further shift from service to self-service in library provision is indicated.
Although the initial use of computers tends to be a mechanization of existing procedures, simply substituting the new technology for the old misses the point of technological change. Different technologies have different capabilities and different constraints. Sooner or later, redesign rather than a substitution is to be expected.
Since there is no reason why we should expect paper to disappear, we can expect Automated Libraries and Electronic Libraries to continue indefinitely and for any actual library to become a combination: part Automated Library and part Electronic Library.
As these changes take place, we can expect changes in library organization and governance. I do not know what these changes will be, but, since form should follow function, such changes should follow naturally from changes in the design of library services if we remain flexible.
Some consequences of moving to an Electronic
Library appear to be predictable:
- Greater standardization of data;
- remote access to
files;
- cooperative use of files;
- fewer duplicative local files;
- access to multiple files from
any point;
- the combining or linking of files;
- the ability to use records in more different
ways;
- and increased technological vulnerability.
It will be noted that this is the same as the list of consequences of moving from the Paper Library to the Automated Library. This is reassuring because it means that we have already had substantial experience in dealing with them. We can also add the prospect of a dramatic reduction in the geographic inequality in library service that has characterized library service hitherto. This, I think, would be of great interest for a national library, because it increases the ability of a national library to serve the whole nation, as well as making copies of the nation's documents for easily available to the national libraries of other countries. An indication of the possibilities can be seen in the increasing possibilities for searching in remote online library catalogs. We can expect changes in document access to follow changes in bibliographic access.
As we face the prospect of moving to the Electronic Library,
three precautions should be helpful:
1. Avoiding confusion between research and development, a technical task of
identifying what options are feasible, that managers can delegate, and innovation, the
responsibility for choosing which feasible options to adopt and when, that managers
can not delegate.
2. Funding is likely to be provided to the extent to which library services are perceived
to be effective, relevant, competently managed. "Marketing" among funders in the
public sector is as relevant as marketing in a commercial situation.
3. Remember that new technology brings more than technological changes. The first
stage in using computers is usually to perform existing work: to do the same things
differently and better. The really interesting change comes later. Once electronic
technology has been adopted then the new challenge is to different, better things, to
redesign library services.
Modern library services were developed a hundred years ago. As I tell my
students, we now have the challenge of developing library services again.
Revised, M. Buckland, March 22, 1996.