I'm back! While I was away, I kept myself to only the occasional Twitter post about Spaghetti Cat or blender-izing iPhones. It was a real vacation.
It was hard to resist writing about an ACRLog post that came out while I was away: Library as Place: For Air-Conditioning Books. This post discusses a keynote given at Campus Technology 2008 by Adrian Sannier, Chief Technology Officer at Arizona State. In his talk, focused on meeting the needs of Next-Gen students, Sannier mentioned the diminished relevance of physical libraries, saying that all books are digitized now, so we should "burn down the library and change it into a gathering place, a commons." When I read this, I got pretty excited---you know I love incendiary statements and good arguments.
Unfortunately, there really weren't any good arguments over Sannier's talk. The librarians over on ACRLog said that Sannier doesn't understand the importance and central mission of libraries. Perhaps. Wondering if anyone listening was inflamed by this, I did a cursory search of other blogs referencing Sannier's keynote. I found several recaps of his talks. (It looks like he's given this speech in multiple venues.) "Burn down the library" is almost always in there as a brief note, but never with even a second guessed, "Hold on---What??" or "Is he kidding?" Other than the librarians on ACRLog, no one seemed to care.
There were some parts of Sannier's talk (admittedly, I only read about it on ACRLog--I couldn't get the entire file to play) that resonated with me. Of course, we all know that all of the books in the world aren't digitized, so let's just push that easy target aside. I do think he has a point, however, about the central role of library moving from physical repository to dynamic learning space.
On the way back from my vacation, I discussed the whole thing with a friend. Does the physical library today need books on-site? What if we had lightning fast delivery services, and turned over the on-campus facilities to a focus on learning, reference and content creation? What if we got rid of the stacks and used that space for something else?
His response was, "If you take all of the books away, then what makes it a library? What makes it different from the Hub or the campus Learning Centers at that point?" He's asked this question before, and to put it bluntly, I'm getting tired of answering it.
But, patient companion that I am, I restated my belief that it is the library's faculty and staff, expert at helping users learn to find, evaluate and use information, intertwined with great technology, collections, and vibrant physical spaces that makes a library what it is. There is no other place on campus where this convergence of expertise, resources, and inspiring spaces occurs. This will always be at the heart of an academic library's mission, whether the collections being accessed are physical or virtual.
It seemed almost planned when a day or two later, ACRLog discussed the new Ithaka Report. The report, "Studies of Key Stakeholders in the Digital Transformation of Information", surveyed faculty and asked them to rate the importance of the library as gateway to information, archive and buyer of information. In general, the importance of the library as gateway to information for all faculty, across disciplines, has decreased since 2003. The report mentions that in a 2006 study of academic librarians, librarians tended to view the role of library as gateway to information as increasing in importance now and even more so over the next five years. According to the report, "there's a mismatch in perceptions here." It goes on to say:
"...the profile and relevance of the library is in decline. There are a number of possible futures for the academic library, and strategic thought and change is needed to ensure that we move into a world in which the library continues to play an important role in the intellectual life of the campus."
Interesting. The library is viewed increasingly by faculty as a repository in decline. Perhaps what we need to do is mentally burn down our model of the traditional library as it exists today, and continue on our path toward re-envisioning libraries as cutting edge, technology-rich spaces for learning and information discovery and creation. Perhaps Sannier was onto something after all.
It was hard to resist writing about an ACRLog post that came out while I was away: Library as Place: For Air-Conditioning Books. This post discusses a keynote given at Campus Technology 2008 by Adrian Sannier, Chief Technology Officer at Arizona State. In his talk, focused on meeting the needs of Next-Gen students, Sannier mentioned the diminished relevance of physical libraries, saying that all books are digitized now, so we should "burn down the library and change it into a gathering place, a commons." When I read this, I got pretty excited---you know I love incendiary statements and good arguments.
Unfortunately, there really weren't any good arguments over Sannier's talk. The librarians over on ACRLog said that Sannier doesn't understand the importance and central mission of libraries. Perhaps. Wondering if anyone listening was inflamed by this, I did a cursory search of other blogs referencing Sannier's keynote. I found several recaps of his talks. (It looks like he's given this speech in multiple venues.) "Burn down the library" is almost always in there as a brief note, but never with even a second guessed, "Hold on---What??" or "Is he kidding?" Other than the librarians on ACRLog, no one seemed to care.
There were some parts of Sannier's talk (admittedly, I only read about it on ACRLog--I couldn't get the entire file to play) that resonated with me. Of course, we all know that all of the books in the world aren't digitized, so let's just push that easy target aside. I do think he has a point, however, about the central role of library moving from physical repository to dynamic learning space.
On the way back from my vacation, I discussed the whole thing with a friend. Does the physical library today need books on-site? What if we had lightning fast delivery services, and turned over the on-campus facilities to a focus on learning, reference and content creation? What if we got rid of the stacks and used that space for something else?
His response was, "If you take all of the books away, then what makes it a library? What makes it different from the Hub or the campus Learning Centers at that point?" He's asked this question before, and to put it bluntly, I'm getting tired of answering it.
But, patient companion that I am, I restated my belief that it is the library's faculty and staff, expert at helping users learn to find, evaluate and use information, intertwined with great technology, collections, and vibrant physical spaces that makes a library what it is. There is no other place on campus where this convergence of expertise, resources, and inspiring spaces occurs. This will always be at the heart of an academic library's mission, whether the collections being accessed are physical or virtual.
It seemed almost planned when a day or two later, ACRLog discussed the new Ithaka Report. The report, "Studies of Key Stakeholders in the Digital Transformation of Information", surveyed faculty and asked them to rate the importance of the library as gateway to information, archive and buyer of information. In general, the importance of the library as gateway to information for all faculty, across disciplines, has decreased since 2003. The report mentions that in a 2006 study of academic librarians, librarians tended to view the role of library as gateway to information as increasing in importance now and even more so over the next five years. According to the report, "there's a mismatch in perceptions here." It goes on to say:
"...the profile and relevance of the library is in decline. There are a number of possible futures for the academic library, and strategic thought and change is needed to ensure that we move into a world in which the library continues to play an important role in the intellectual life of the campus."
Interesting. The library is viewed increasingly by faculty as a repository in decline. Perhaps what we need to do is mentally burn down our model of the traditional library as it exists today, and continue on our path toward re-envisioning libraries as cutting edge, technology-rich spaces for learning and information discovery and creation. Perhaps Sannier was onto something after all.
Ellysa,
Another interesting post.
As a former commuter student, I wonder how students view libraries, especially students in each of various categories: commuter, non-traditional and traditional.
Nikki
Ellysa,
I was recently on a panel to introduce new faculty to PSU's College of Education. I can tell you that a number of us extolled the excellence of the libraries and the librarians in particular. Also, my mother is a retired elementary school media specialist, so I am not unbiased.
What I think libraries (and I think more important, librarians) bring is not just a repository (as you said) or as a guide to finding, using and evaluating information. What I think librarians increasingly do, and could continue to expand their value around is organizing our digital intellectual lives. Software like Zotero, which is one I know you love and work with, just scratches the surface of this. As an academic, getting access to the information via the library is not difficult, but what is happening to me is that I am getting buried in all that "access". I have downloaded more pdfs of articles than I could read in a lifetime. I have scans of book chapters, notes in various forms across multiple applications, and just a flood of new information I tag or scrape from the internet. What I need is a toolkit for organizing my local information (or my local links to information in the cloud) that allows me to be nimble, smart and creative without being bogged down in "access". The more information experts like yourself can help non-experts like me with that, the more valuable and central the libraries become to the academic enterprise.
Hi Scott!
I agree. It's interesting that academic libraries have not thought as much about the central role of helping their faculty curate and access personal collections of information. When we talk about bringing longevity to the concept of a library--this is a key role--essentially providing the tools for each individual to personally and powerfully manage their own 'satellite' library.
I just finished reading this report (that was fun), and no explicit mention of the role you identified in there, either. Developing personal tools to help faculty and other researchers manage their flow, organization and use of information, is, as you said, something that tools like zotero are starting to do. Academic libraries like the repository role---let the users come to us---but in the future the library is going to have to co-exist on the user's desktop, hopefully in collaboration with other information search and management tools. I think Zotero Commons is a move in the direction you've identified.
I have to say that if anyone is organizing their information efficiently, it is you. :) I learned more from our tour of cool Mac organizational apps than I have in some time. Tools like Delicious Library just aren't on most libraries' radar yet----but they should be.
Keep in touch!