How flexible are the new generation of ‘flexible library spaces’?
With the massive investment being made in new and refurbished college buildings - including library and learning resource centres – those responsible for seeing through these projects are clearly learning a great deal from the sector’s collective experience in this area.
An RSC Eastern event on Thursday was a case in point. It brought together librarians and others to share knowledge and experience and showcased plenty of exciting work in the region. One delegate spoke of a huge new build project at his college which is effectively doing away with the need for a learning resource centre (LRC) in favour of more flexible and responsive spaces.
Another spoke of a refurbishment which is following similar, although less radical, principles. But, citing the Google Generation report, this delegate questioned whether more traditional approaches were also needed to ensure that libraries could deliver on their mission to support information literacy. He even questioned whether, if a backlash occurred in five or so years’ time, calling once more for more traditional approaches, whether libraries could adapt back to earlier methods. For all their flexibility, he seemed to ask, are the new generation of learning resource centres flexible enough to revert to those more traditional approaches should these be needed?
In her article in this week’s Times Higher, Tara Brabazon (see post below) looks at school libraries and reports: ‘A case has been reported to me of a new head teacher in a Newcastle-based school that is about to enter the Building Schools for the Future programme. He is questioning whether a library should be part of this “new build” because the goal of the programme is to “transform learning”. As the man who decides where the money is spent, his attitudes towards reading, research and scholarship are crucial. Other correspondents confirmed that new school buildings – including cybercafés – are being designed, but no library is in the plans.’
Of course, there are important differences between such developments as these and the design of the kind of responsive and technology-rich learning resource centres we heard about last Thursday, but there is clearly a debate to be had about the place of ‘information literacy’ in the design of learning and library spaces and about how flexible ‘flexibility’ might be should tastes and approaches change in the near future…
Britain may have talent - but its libraries are in danger, says Tara Brabazon
Libraries are the cranium of our culture and librarians are the custodians of knowledge, writes Tara Brabazon, professor of media studies at Brighton University in this week’s Times Higher.
But that knowledge is in danger as Google is increasingly used in the schools sector as a cheap replacement for library services, she claims. Professor Brabazon hit the headlines earlier this year when she called Google ‘white bread for the mind’; in this article, she goes further and attacks the use of Google and the internet by policy makers and others keen to make savings on apparently expendable library services.
‘We have accepted the metaphor of the internet being a library for a decade,’ she writes. ‘It was always an odd and incorrect affiliation, but we are now seeing the consequences of this metaphoric misalignment. If the internet is a library, then librarians are redundant.
‘“Reformers” have been endlessly disappointed by the behaviour of teachers and librarians who aim for efficiency in practice rather than a celebration of new media without context or application.’
The contribution of librarians to information literacy, particularly, she says, to the disadvantaged, is crucial, but so is it vital to ‘the development of informed citizenship’ and social justice which depends on ‘the availability of information to build knowledge and create informed decisions’, she suggests.
But the effects of all this are not confined to schools: ‘If a generation of students in primary and secondary schools, particularly in the state sector, are “managing” education without a properly funded library and the help of qualified librarians, then not only will literacy levels and examination results suffer, but so will our universities and workplaces. Without an ability to read, interpret and think, citizenship and democracy will be traded for consumerism and voting contestants off Britain’s Got Talent. We may discover some great singers, but we will “restructure” and lose committed and inspirational librarians.’
Citing the Google Generation report, she continues: ‘Google has not caused this disrespect for librarians. The key problem is “the Google effect”, where head teachers have assumed that a search engine will – intrinsically – teach students how to find, manage and interpret information. What we learnt from the study commissioned by the British Library and JISC and released in January this year about the Information behaviour of the researcher of the future, often called the Google generation report, was that “the information literacy of young people has not improved with the widening access to technology: in fact, their apparent facility with computers disguises some worrying problems”.
But, in spite of this strong attack on what Tara Brabazon sees as the steady devaluing of libraries, it isn’t, it seems, too late to ‘change our present for a better future.
‘Those of us who believe in education have one decade to respect and deploy currently employed librarians to train and shape the next generation.’
Click here for the article
‘Libraries of the Future’ can support resource allocation decisions, suggests D-Lib editor
Editor of D-Lib magazine Bonita Wilson welcomes ‘Libraries of the Future’ in the latest issue of the magazine, and welcomes in particular its aim to address the needs of future information users.
She quotes the campaign’s ‘essential question’: ‘In an information world in which Google apparently offers us everything, what place is there for the traditional, and even the digital, library?’ - but suggests that the campaign may already have its own answer, saying that ‘the authors tip their hand by almost immediately stating that “libraries will continue to be essential to acacdemic success and the future of education and research…”‘
Bonita Wilson may well be right that there is an implicit assumption involved here and she reminds us of the need not to take anything for granted when she writes: ‘Only time will tell whether that is true or not, and whether this particular approach to focussing activity and discussion will or will not be successful…’ But, she continues, ‘D-Lib applauds the efforts.’
She continues: ‘Envisioning how libraries will be affected by the development of new technologies, and the changing needs and expectations of users, is more than an intellectual exercise. What libraries anticipate as necessary to provide users’ future information needs affects how they choose to direct their resources today. The Libraries of the Future web site could be of significant value to library administrators making those resource allocation decisions.’
For the editorial in the latest issue of D-Lib, please go to: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may08/05editorial.html
Podcast highlights challenges of integrating library systems
Rachel Bruce of JISC and Anne Bell of SCONUL feature on a new podcast on the Panlibus site, talking about the recently published Library Management Systems report, commissioned by JISC and SCONUL.
The report, published last month, recommended that libraries should look for increased value from their library management systems (LMS), ensure that they are integrated with other institutional systems and that they should look to break down barriers between library users and resources.
For Rachel Bruce, one of the messages from the report is that the library management system ‘needs to be more flexible, it needs to integrate with other core library systems…’ For Anne Bell, the report provides ‘expert consideration which the community can determine how to take things forward.’ She goes on to ask: ‘If we were starting from scratch, where would we start from?’ The problem of legacy systems was a difficult one, she said, but the report was beginning a dialogue between librarians, vendors and national bodies such as SCONUL and JISC about the possible ways forward.
Both talk about an event to be held on the 27th June where the report and the issues it identifies will be addressed. For further information, please go to: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2008/06/lmsworkshop.aspx
For the podcast, please go to: http://blogs.talis.com/panlibus/archives/2008/05/jisc-sconul-talk-with-talis-about-library-management-system-study.php
For the LMS report and a JISC/SCONUL briefing paper on the subject, please go to: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/librarymanagementbp
TechWatch report calls for libraries to adopt ‘coherent approach to metadata’
JISC TechWatch’s new report on metadata for digital libraries, by Richard Gartner, explores how high quality metadata frameworks are critical if libraries are to provide seamless searching and retrieval technologies that can hold their own alongside established search engines.
For the full report, go to: TechWatch report
Guardian ‘Libraries unleashed’ supplement - print copies available
Print copies of the ‘Libraries unleashed’ Guardian supplement are now available, if anyone would like to request copies. Please contact Xanthe O’Donnell
Bloggers around the world welcome Guardian supplement
Bloggers around the world have welcomed last week’s Guardian supplement – ‘Libraries unleashed’ – which launched JISC’s Libraries of the Future’ campaign and which highlighted the achievements of UK academic libraries and some of the major challenges they face in the digital age.
The focus of many blogs is the question of change, something the Guardian directly addresses – ‘libraries are changing faster than at any time in their history’, wrote editor Stephen Hoare. For the spineless? blog the Guardian features provided an ‘interesting, though-provoking supplement, which shows just how libraries are changing, and will need to continue to change’. For the EPT blog the highlight was the article on open access, while Neil Beagrie thought it ‘an excellent supplement on academic libraries today – I would highly recommend it to international and
UK colleagues who want a quick overview on the latest developments,’ he wrote.
The articles on ‘e-resources, Web 2.0 and shifting student expectations’ were the focus for VLC horizon scanning, while ‘Overdue Ideas’ called the supplement ‘a great window for JISC’s work in the area of libraries’.
The Royal Society linked to the supplement, as did Goldsmith University and Sintoblog, the blog of a regional consortium in Yorkshire and the E Midlands, which praised the fact that local librarians had featured in the supplement. The commercial sector too was represented - by Panlibus which praised not only the supplement, but also the JISC annual conference - at which libraries played a prominent part – and the ‘Libraries of the Future’ campaign as a whole.
Further afield, ‘lilyheart’ at the University of Melbourne Intelligencer listed the 18 articles which made up the supplement, HangingTogether in the US linked the supplement to ‘excellent communications work by JISC’ at its annual conference, while Library Sharings and Amherst College were among the many sites in the USA which linked to the supplement.
For Lorcan Dempsey, of US library organisation OCLC, the articles in the Guardian are ‘high level and journalistic, as you would expect.’ But, he continued, ‘this is a nice achievement by JISC, as it puts a range of positive stories about libraries in front of the University community.’
DIT Library Services in Ireland pointed to the supplement as did pintiniblog in France, while other blogs in Germany, Hungary and Japan also featured the supplement.
Information literacy was a theme for many blogs – for SIS at the Uni of Pittsburgh, for Bloggable Librarian, Brian Kelly at UK Web Focus and for Dana McKay, who, in response to the supplement, called on education providers to ‘improve search interfaces and online access to academic materials’.
Sheila Webber, senior lecturer in information studies at Sheffield University, wrote that her ‘ability to critique [the supplement] sensibly was compromised by my excitement in being quoted in the front-page article which talks about students’ use of information,’ an article which also features her ‘Second Life’ avatar - ‘Sheila Yoshikawa, blue-haired babe and cultivator of a Japanese garden’.
Positive criticisms were voiced by Tom Roper who, while praising ‘some interesting articles’ bemoaned the fact that the further education sector was under-represented. BriefED in Wales contradicted this slightly when it suggested that ‘most of what is written [in the supplement] applies equally to further education libraries.’
Among the JISC services that talked of the supplement were the RSCs in Scotland who emphasised the debate aspects of JISC’s campaign, copac who were mentioned in the supplement, and Intute, also mentioned by the Guardian.
JISC’s Libraries of the Future campaign also has a blog, which can be found at: Libraries of the Future blog
To access the Guardian supplement, please go to: Libraries unleashed