Vol. 7, No. 1: September 15, 2000
Increasing Access
and Managing Challenges:
UW-Madison Librarians Discuss Academic Libraries Today
by Jennifer Smith, TTT Editor
Recently, TTT met with three UW-Madison librarians to discuss the current state of academic libraries, what new services they're providing, and what the future holds. Interviewees were Jean Gilbertson, Director of Steenbock Library, Tom Murray, Director of Wendt Library, and Lou Pitschmann, Associate Director of Collection Development for UW-Madison Libraries. All expressed enthusiasm for the possibilities opened up by new technologies.
One major advantage held by libraries in the digital age is providing patrons with round-the-clock access to scholarly materials. Users are no longer dependent on the hours libraries are physically open to gather many of their materials. With scholarly web sites, full-text journal databases, electronic reserves, and the like, students can gain access to some materials whenever it is convenient for them. All three librarians commented that they have already noticed a drop in the number of people coming into the library, choosing instead to get materials electronically from their homes or offices. Thus, while the number of people physically visiting the library has decreased, overall library usage has not declined. Many users are choosing remote access to materials, part of a trend seen nationally among academic libraries of all sizes. New technologies mean that not all library use is on-site use.
All three librarians also anticipate a trend towards personalized portal pages for library users. These pages would help patrons manage the rapidly-growing amount of information available by presenting them with personal web pages tailored to their interests. For example, the pages would have links to the journal databases most frequently needed by the user and update the user on new books and resources in their field. In some cases, student portal pages could contain all of the student's essential needs at one web location: library resources, class schedules, financial aid information, and so forth. In fact, this "all-in-one" web page concept is being tested this fall at the UW-Madison with a group of undergraduate biology majors.
In addition to enabling non-stop access to materials and providing a more personalized, tailored library experience for users, technology also introduces new publishing alternatives for scholarly information. (For more on this issue, including links to e-journal advocacy groups, see "Electronic Resources, Academic Libraries, and Scholarly Publishing: Who's Affected and How?" in this issue.) With prices for some journals at record heights, many librarians as well as scholars have come to feel that some commercial publishers are putting profit ahead of the academic value of distributing research as widely as possible at a fair cost. Tom Murray noted that some 2001 journal prices are at an 8-10% increase over the current year's costs, and in some years, certain journals have raised their prices by as much as 20%. While these spiking costs are felt acutely in science, technical, and medical fields, the social sciences and humanities are also experiencing this problem.
Because of the cost problem associated with many journals, librarians have been promoting new electronic alternatives. The organization Create Change urges librarians and scholars to express to the traditional publishing industry their dissatisfaction with high journal prices. Create Change also encourages librarians to inform professors about high costs in scholarly publishing and the existing alternatives, such as new electronic publishing ventures that charge much lower prices for access to their e-journals. The organization's web site even provides sample letters for professors who wish to decline editing or reviewing for major print journals on the basis of their cost.
While Gilbertson, Murray, and Pitschmann all expressed support for organizations like Create Change and SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), they stressed that changes in the publishing industry -- and thus relief for strained library budgets -- will not happen overnight. More scholars need to be aware of the cost issue driving access to academic research and informed about alternative publishing routes. Also, more tenure committees will need to be prepared to take electronic publications into account when reviewing tenure cases.
With changes in the delivery of materials and the publishing industry come new roles for librarians. Lou Pitschmann commented that academic librarians are working more and more in a "development and publishing environment" -- creating new resources of their own in addition to the traditional duty of acquiring materials from outside the library and making them available. Examples of this are subject-area portals developed by university librarians, such as a national agriculture gateway with which Jean Gilbertson is involved. Libraries are also cooperating with professors and providing technical expertise to publish scholarly web sites (for instance, visit sites on an Icelandic author and African culture developed with the help of UW-Madison libraries). Gilbertson commented that as new technologies develop, librarians need to engage in "risk-taking" and be prepared to welcome change.
When asked about what the future holds, Gilbertson, Murray, and Pitschmann spoke about impending e-book purchases (which would make it easy to place entire books on electronic reserve), enhanced cooperation and resource-sharing among libraries, and savings of shelf space no longer needed to house print journals. Wireless technologies also promise to widen off-site library access even further. Gilbertson also noted that electronic dissemination of information can reduce global academic disparities; in some countries where print materials may be very slow to arrive, wired libraries can get new electronic resources simultaneously with their colleagues elsewhere. While "non-virtual" libraries and print materials may still serve the majority of most users' needs, digital technology is allowing cutting-edge academic libraries like those in the UW System to provide significantly expanded services. UW library patrons undoubtedly benefit from the expertise of the librarians who make this possible.