Libraries have always been an integral part of the community. Libraries exist to provide information resources that meet the needs of its population. The traditional library was a stable, service-oriented organization that collected and distributed information resources. The libraries primarily collected tangible materials and provide access to them in a physical space.1 The development of the Internet has created a new form of library. The new libraries will be dynamic organizations that motivate, are innovative, and initiate new ways of meeting the needs of the community. Technology-oriented libraries provide access to information directly rather than pointing the user in the general direction of the information for browsing purposes. Often, the library can provide access to this type of information without having an actual physical location, which can make the library more appealing to the user. “The transformation of the meaning of information, knowledge, education, and community in our late twentieth century/early twenty-first century culture affects libraries. This transformation affects how we define the purpose of libraries, how we expect them to function, and what the meaning of library for the culture might be in the future.”2
The academic library is in a particularly interesting situation because the population it serves is becoming increasingly reliant on the Internet. Every year the number of college students who use the library for research decreases because they believe that everything they need can be found online. A report sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation found that many college-aged students don't perceive the library as being involved in the digital age.3 Most college students view the library as a place to go study or find books. Very few realize that many of today’s libraries are starting to offer more technology-oriented services. The students who do recognize that technology is present in the library usually perceive it as something that will point them to the information, such as an online catalog, rather than something that has the information readily available, such as the many full-text journal databases available today. The libraries that continue to follow the traditional library model will have a limited reach compared to those libraries that embrace change. The libraries that embrace the changes in information delivery are much more likely to reach those students and become a greater presence in their community because they are speaking in a language that students understand. Each library is embracing and accepting technology and the Internet in a different way, which creates a multitude of options for how and where the libraries offer support to their communities.
Many librarians realize that information access is rapidly changing and are steadily working on ways to insert the library back into the lead of the information resource community. The Library Administration and Management Association (LAMA) has taken the lead in developing a new concept for libraries called “information communities”. An information community (IC) is essentially the traditional library offered over the Internet. The IC is composed of a group of people or organizations who join together to form a community around a common interest to exchange information.4 The organizations typically involved in the information communities are libraries in collaboration with organizations outside of the field.
There are some organizations that have already begun building information communities. The Making of Ann Arbor (MOAA) is an illustrated narrative about the history of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The site includes a database with photographs and other visuals that are not included in the narrative. MOAA was developed through the cooperation of the Ann Arbor District Library, the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Society, and the University of Michigan Digital Library Initiative.5 The organizations joined together because of their shared interest in historic Ann Arbor and their desire to make that information available to the public. Each individual organization lacked a particular knowledge, such as the historical background, the technical expertise, or the experience in working with a wide audience. The cooperation of these groups allowed for a project to be built that ordinarily wouldn't have because of the combined knowledge involved.
“L.A. as Subject” is another information community that joins together a geographic region through collaboration. “L.A. as Subject” is a collection of historical narratives, lectures, and exhibitions intended to celebrate the diverse culture in Los Angeles, California.6 The collection is the result of a fourteen-year research project designed to recover historical information about L.A. The IC allows the information to be delivered in many different formats, including through lectures, exhibitions, and public forums. The collection would not have been possible if the local universities and institutions didn't realize the need for an innovative way to present the historical information.
HealthWeb is a collection of health related resources developed by more than twenty health sciences libraries in the United States. The librarians at the different institutions realized that they were all working toward the same goals and that they would be more successful if they collaborated. The result is HealthWeb, a place where they can share their knowledge and access non-commercial, health-related information.7
Another way that libraries are trying to meet the needs of their population by catering to their use of the Internet is by offering access to a variety of free, reliable websites. Most libraries take two approaches to offering access to the free websites to their populations; the first is directly through their online catalog (OPAC) and the second is by creating lists of sites on the library website. There are a variety of reasons libraries have begun to use free URLs in their catalogs. The three most popular reasons for academic libraries are that students prefer Internet resources, government documents are increasingly only available online, and budgets are rapidly shrinking.8 The positive side to having the URLs directly in the OPAC is that the students are interacting with the library database and hopefully seeing the other resources that libraries have to offer. Theoretically, this increases the likelihood that the students will turn to the library before using general search engines for their research. The downside to cataloging websites is that it is a lot of work to keep the URLs current and accurate. However, the same problem occurs when compiling lists of websites on the library site, in addition to the fact that the students will not have direct access to the other library resources available to them. There are sites, independent of a physical library, solely intended to offer users organized access to free websites. In these cases, the sites can be very useful because the librarian often has time to ensure the sites listed are accurate and authoritative and is not worried about teaching users to use other library resources.
In 2003, Gerald Burke, Carol Anne Germain, and Mary K. Van Ullen conducted a study surveying 123 academic library OPACs and the URLs contained in them. They studied libraries belonging to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) by taking samples from each OPAC and evaluating how current and accurate each cataloged URL was. They also sent surveys to each library to determine the policies and practices of including free Internet sites in the catalog.9 The results were grouped into three different categories: human errors, technical errors, and not found errors. The human errors were the largest percentage of errors found in the OPACs, which included further navigation to get the information, moved sites, wrong dates, and incorrect content.10 The technical errors were those that had either a “Failed DNS Lookup” or “Local Host Refused” message. The not found errors were the generic “404 Not Found” messages. The researchers concluded that libraries are best advised to link to pages with content, rather than pages primarily composed of navigational pieces. The problem with this practice is that the content pages often disappear before the navigation pages do,11 which creates more work when keeping the OPAC accurate and authoritative. Given that all of the libraries involved in the study cataloged websites, it appears that librarians are beginning to believe that linking to free Internet resources is a good way to draw students into the library catalog. This practice will hopefully familiarize them with the benefits of traditional library resources and also ensure that they are using reliable Internet sources.
Libraries have a complex information resource environment. Students often don’t find the library search engines intuitive or easy to use. Students want fast, easy access to unlimited full-text information. This, in a nutshell, is why search engines like Google and Yahoo! are so popular with the general public. However, the popular search engines often return so many results, many of which are useless, that it is difficult for the searcher to actually find the needed information. This is a key reason why electronic library resources are so important. Libraries and library vendors need to start thinking like the search engines and make their products more easily accessible. The easier it is for a student to find the need information, the more likely it is that he will continue to use those library resources. If libraries continue to improve upon their electronic resources, then they will have users for life. ProQuest has started listening to libraries and is working on making the search engines easier to use and understand. RedLightGreen is a search engine that was developed by a group of national libraries, universities, historical societies, and other institutions. The engine looks very similar to Google’s search screen, but returns results related to library materials.12 Given the popularity of Google, the changes are high that this will be a widely used and successful product.
Librarians across the country would like to see valid information resources show up high in search engine results. It would be one more way to reach the library further into the community. There are many new digital library projects in development that are not being indexed by the popular search engines because the content is not easily accessible to the search engine “spiders” that collect the information for the engine. Libraries are beginning to collaborate with Google and Yahoo! to develop ways to index those valuable library resources that have thus far been considered hidden information on the Internet.
Google is working with MIT and its DSpace project to help make the collections more accessible through Internet search engines.13 Yahoo! is working with the OAIster project in Michigan to make the content more accessible through its search engine. OAIster is a search engine designed to decipher metadata tags for easier searching. It was developed through an open archives initiative, which is indexing scholarly documents and images from over 277 institutions. The project uses metadata tags to index the information, making the documents easier to search through OAIster, but harder to find using popular search engines. The results of the collaboration with Yahoo! so far seem to be positive; content from the OAIster database is beginning to be displayed in the search results of popular search engines.14
Another interesting project is the collaboration between OCLC and Google. The team is working on a pilot project called Open WorldCat, which makes library catalog records searchable through popular search engines. With Open WorldCat in place, if someone searched for a title of a book in Google, one of the first results would be, “Find in a library:” followed by the book’s title. The results would list local libraries where the book could be found.15 This is an exciting possibility for libraries. Suddenly, valuable resources are available to their populations without having to force them to use library databases to access them. This is a wonderful example of a library-oriented organization working to find new ways to use the Internet to meet the needs of their users.
As shown above, librarians are using several different methods to reach out to their communities through the Internet. Whether librarians like it or not, the Internet and libraries are linked. Students look to the Internet before libraries for their information needs. “It’s as if the library and the Internet are on parallel tracks, sharing the same power source, but the latter’s track is widening while ours is narrowing.”16 Librarians seem to be spending more time reacting to changes in technology rather than acting. However, not many librarians are evaluating whether their efforts are appreciated and meeting the needs of the target population. In 1999, John Lubans, Jr. surveyed 146 second-semester college freshmen about their use of the Internet and libraries. The results showed that library websites and databases are the third most frequently used sites by college students.17 Perhaps in the last few years, this view has changed, but it is encouraging to know that at some point in time students definitely chose to use library information. When students were asked what they would like libraries to do for them in terms of facilitating their use of the Web, the majority asked that the library continue to provide reliable links, develop finding aids, rate the search engines, and offer classes in the use of the Web.18 Luckily, many libraries have been working on tools and resources similar to what students are asking for. There are many libraries today that offer online tutorials for search engines and library databases. Lubans suggests that librarians evaluate all possible methods of information delivery, regardless of how unlikely it may be, and use the ideas that best fit the population. In terms of college students, it is almost a given that the information must be delivered over the Internet in some form or another.
Similar to his 1999 study, in 2002 Lubans surveyed college-bound students to determine how well libraries are actually meeting the needs of their populations. Lubans surveyed high school seniors about their use of the Internet for schoolwork. He discovered that many don’t use libraries at all, which is not a surprising result, however disheartening. The study showed that students use the Internet 80% of the time.19 They use the Internet because it allows anytime, anywhere access to information and gives them a sense of freedom. Students like the Internet because it minimizes the dependence on libraries. Apparently, many students are still viewing the library in the traditional, paper-based sense. Continued work on improving electronic resources should change this view. “The librarian’s challenge is to integrate the library’s many good services in a way that facilitates the student’s finding and using the information from outside”20 The results of the study were not surprising, but they should be used to guide librarians toward finding ways to meet the ever changing populations’ needs. For instance, the search engine, Google, is constantly testing, acting, and revising their products. Libraries should follow Google’s lead and learn to anticipate what users will want and need.
The changing role of information and technology has created many new and interesting challenges for libraries. The information communities are just a few examples of the actions libraries are taking to meet the needs of their users in innovative ways. Other libraries are embracing the use of free URLs in the online catalogs to draw students into the library resources and the library itself. Digital libraries are a very popular method of reaching many different types of populations all within the comfort of their homes. The work that Google and Yahoo! are doing to make those libraries more accessible to the average user is a huge development for the future of libraries. The Internet was originally something that the library had to compete with, but as times change, librarians are finding ways to work with the Internet and expand the way libraries serve their populations.
1Hensley, R.B. (2003). Technology as environment: From collections to connections. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 94, 23.
2Hensley, R.B., 23.
3Glogoff, S. (2001). Information technology in the virtual library: Leadership in times of change. Journal of Library Administration, 32(3/4), 65.
4Durrance, J.C. (2001). The vital role of librarians in creating information communities: Strategies for success. Library Administration and Management, 15(3), para 5. Retrieved June 15, 2004 from H.W. WilsonWeb OminFile Full Text Mega.
5Durrance, J.C., para 10.
6Durrance, J.C., para 11.
7Durrance, J.C., para 12.
8Burke, G., Germain, C.A., & Van Ullen, M.K. (2003). URLs in the OPAC: Integrating or disintegrating research libraries’ catalogs. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 29(5), 290.
9Burke, G. et al., 291.
10Burke, G. et al., 293.
11Burke, G. et al., 294.
12Bell, S. (2004, February 20). The infodiet: How librarians can offer an appetizing alternative to Google. The Chronicle of Higher Education, para 10. Retrieved June 15, 2004 from EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier.
13Young, J. (2004, May 21). Libraries aim to widen Google’s eyes. The Chronicle of Higher Education, para 7. Retrieved June 16, 2004 from http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i37/37a00101.htm.
14Young, J., para 22.
15Young, J., para 31.
16Lubans, J. (2002). Act or react? Leadership and the Internet. Library Administration and Management, 16(4), para 1. Retrieved June 15, 2004 from H.W. WilsonWeb OminFile Full Text Mega.
17Lubans, J. (2000). “I can’t find you anywhere but gone”: Avoiding marginalization. Library Administration and Management, 14(2), para 10. Retrieved June 16, 2004 from H.W. WilsonWeb OminFile Full Text Mega.
18Lubans, J., I can’t find you, para 17.
19Lubans, J., Act or react, para 10.
20Lubans, J., Act or react, para 10.