Being a Librarian

Karen CalhounAcademic AssemblySeptember 14, 2006

Yellowstone Mud Pots

Background of This Talk

“Being a Librarian: Metadata and Metadata Specialists in the Twenty-first Century” (in press)http://dspace.library.cornell.edu/handle/181

3/2231The Taiga Forum

http://www.taigaforum.org/

“Whether we are in technical services, public services, collectiondevelopment, or information technology, we must develop cross-functional vision that makes internal organizational structuresmore flexible, agile, and effective.”—Taiga home page

Welcome!

The More Things Change …

“It is doubtful whether the subject catalogue does as much good as it does harm. The average student uses it without discrimination. He wants a treatise on electricity; the catalogue offers him a choice of a hundred titles, and he copies one of them absolutely at random.”—Charles Henry Hull, then assistant librarian at Cornell

Library Journal 15, no. 6 (June 1890): 167.

“Within the next five years …

… a large number of libraries will no longerhave local OPACs. Instead, we will haveentered a new age of data consolidation(either shared catalogs or catalogs that areintegrated into discovery tools), both of ourcatalogs and our collections.”

Provocative Statement #5,http://www.taigaforum.org/docs/ProvocativeStatements.pdf

BooksJournalsNewspapersGov docsMapsScoresAVDissertations

Special collectionsManuscriptsPapersUniv records

Journal articlesConference proceedingsEtc.

Library catalogs

Archives

Abstracting &Indexing services

The Way We Worked

From Dempsey, Lorcan, Eric Childress et al. 2005. “Metadata switch.” In E-Scholarship: A LITA Guide (Chicago: LITA).

The Larger Context: Knowledge Management

Knowledge communities “interpret information about the environment in order to construct meaning … create new knowledge by converting and combiningthe expertise and know-how of their members …[and] analyze information in order to select and committo appropriate courses of action.”—Chun Wei Choo,professor of Information Studies, University of Toronto

The Knowing Organization: How Organizations Use Information to ConstructMeaning, Create Knowledge, and Make Decisions (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1998), xii.

DOMAINEXPERTS:

Professors, grad.students, researchers, deans,university leaders and staff

THE UNIVERSITY KNOWING

COMMUNITYINFORMATIONEXPERTS:

Librarians, recordsmanagers, archivists,

others

IT EXPERTS:Desktop, computer lab

and server support; applications for academic, research, administrative

support; networks,telecommunications, security

Knowledge Pyramid of the University Community

Adapted from Choo, Information Management for the Intelligent Organization, 238.

A multidimensional framework for academic support: a final report submitted to the Mellon Foundation from the University of Minnesota Libraries, June 2006, p. 47.http://www.lib.umn.edu/about/mellon/docs.phtml

Geocentric/Aristotelian view:The local catalog is thesun

Heliocentric/Copernican view:The local catalogis a planet

Vision for Change: The Catalog

The catalog will evolve toward full integration with other discovery tools

Shared catalogs and open information systems will radically democratize access to library collections and boost scholarly productivity to new levels

Calhoun, Karen. The Changing Nature of the Catalog and Its Integrationwith Other Discovery Tools.  Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 17 March 2006. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/calhoun-report-final.pdf

“Within the next five years …

…there will no longer be a monolithic libraryWeb site. Instead library data will be pushedout to many starting places on the Web anddirectly to users.”

Provocative Statement #6,http://www.taigaforum.org/docs/ProvocativeStatements.pdf

“Within the next five years …

… academic computing and libraries willhave merged. The library will be a partnerin the learning and research support infrastructure. Its value will depend on itsability to reallocate resources to new curation, workflow, and resource specializa-tion services.”

Provocative Statement #7,http://www.taigaforum.org/docs/ProvocativeStatements.pdf

A New Kind of Library

Build a vision of a new kind of library

Be more involved with research and learning materials and systems

Be more engaged withcampus communities

Make library collections and librarians more visible

Move to next generation systems and services

An online social network

Information Silos

21 LIBRARY SYSTEM

PUBLIC SERVICESTECH SERVICES

COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT

IT

7 UNDERGRADUATE COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS, 7

GRADUATE/PROFESSIONAL COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS

“INFORMATION NETWORK” PROCESSES

Outreach: A BOTH/AND World

DATA

PEOPLE

Outward Integration

“Integration should be outward rather than inward, with libraries seeking to use their components in new ways”

--Interviewee for LC report on future of the catalog

The Tucson Retreat

“Instead of being a hoarder of containers, the library must become the facilitator of retrieval and dissemination.”—William Wulf,professor of engineering and applied science,University of Virginia

“Individual libraries will still maintain uniqueand wonderful special collections, but our primary investment will be in access systems.”—Joseph Brewer et al., Tucson Retreat

Joseph Brewer et al., “Libraries dealing with the future now,” ARL Bimonthly Report 234 (June 2004).

Knowledge Creation and Social Networks

“Improving efficiency and effectiveness in knowledge-intensive work demands more than sophisticated technologies—it requiresattending to the often idiosyncratic ways that people seek out knowledge, learn from and solve problems with other people.”—Rob Cross,University of Virginia

Rob Cross et al., “Knowing what we know” Organizational Dynamics 30, no. 2 (November 2001), 101.

“Within the next five years …

…libraries will have reduced the physical footprint of the physical collection by at least 50 percent …”

Provocative Statement #2,http://www.taigaforum.org/docs/ProvocativeStatements.pdf

Library Space and Print Collections

MAS 2010: Models for Academic Support: Final Report to the Mellon Foundation.Cornell University, November 2003, p. 5. (Oya Rieger, MAS2010 team chair)http://www.library.cornell.edu/MAS/MAS2010%20Final%20Report.pdf

Gaps in Satisfaction

-1.6

-1.4

-1.2

-1

-0.8

-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

E-resourcesremote access

Easy-to-useweb site

Print or e-journals

Printed librarymaterials

Multimediacollections Space for study Group space

Undergrad Graduate Faculty

Online library Collections Space

LibQUAL+ 2005 Survey: Cornell University Library. Association of ResearchLibraries. http://www.libqual.org

30 Second Summary of MAS2010 Recommendations

Front-end: Central Campus Buildings State-of-the-art user spaces (individuals and groups) Service and consulting desks House high-demand/selected portions of physical collections

Middle: Online Collections & Services Digitize Provide easy-to-use systems Fast content delivery, preferably at the speed of the Internet Push content out to where users are

Back End: Off-Campus Nearby Free up prime space on central campus to enhance collaboration of

researchers and learners Move less-used collections offsite Establish library service center for provision of integrated back-end

services (e.g., acquisitions and cataloging)

MAS2010 report, p. 13.

“Within the next five years …

…there will be no more librarians as weknow them ...”

Provocative Statement #8,http://www.taigaforum.org/docs/ProvocativeStatements.pdf

Summary: Being a Librarian

Cross-functional teamwork

Project management User-centered design Partnerships Collaboration Relationship

management

Metadata Outreach Advocacy Marketing Active participation in

university community IT fluency >> IT

specialization And more …

Be a Librarian First

+ Endure

Defend and promote the freedom to readConnect people and ideas

Help people discover and use information resourcesProtect privacy and confidentiality

Make space for lifelong learning, quiet reflection and community