Discovering Our Way
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A detailed briefing on the current position of the library catalog and its prospects in the age of internet discovery and changing preferences for information seeking. Based on the speaker's extensive research and writings abou the catalog and metadata at Cornell University Library and for the Library of Congress. Prepared for the "New Age of Discovery" Institute sponsored by ASERL and hosted by Auburn University Libraries. Presented July 19, 2007. Includes speaker notes.
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Discovering Our Way
- 1. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 1 Discovering Our Way Karen Calhoun ‘New Age of Discovery’ Institute ASERL, SOLINET, Auburn University Libraries Decatur, Georgia July 19, 2007
- 2. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 2 The Catalog: First Self-Service Information Tool
- 3. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 3 “Within the next five years … … a large number of libraries will no longer have local OPACs. Instead, we will have entered a new age of data consolidation (either shared catalogs or catalogs that are integrated into discovery tools), both of our catalogs and our collections.” Provocative Statement #5, http://www.taigaforum.org/docs/ProvocativeStatements.pdf
- 4. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 4 “Within the next five years … …there will no longer be a monolithic library Web site. Instead library data will be pushed out to many starting places on the Web and directly to users.” Provocative Statement #6, http://www.taigaforum.org/docs/ProvocativeStatements.pdf
- 5. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 5 The Well “They come and go and draw from the well” I Ching, hexagram 48 •The Library as a center of collections •The Library as a center of experts and tools to guide users to appropriate resources
- 6. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 6 The River
- 7. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 7 Where Do You Begin a Search for Information on a Topic? Starting an Information Search 89 2 0 20 40 60 80 100 Search engine Library Web site Where Search Begins Percent College Students’ Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: a Report to the OCLC Membership: http://www.oclc.org/reports/perceptionscollege.htm
- 8. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 8 The Larger Context: Knowledge Management Knowledge communities “interpret information about the environment in order to construct meaning … create new knowledge by converting and combining the expertise and know-how of their members … [and] analyze information in order to select and commit to appropriate courses of action.”—Chun Wei Choo, professor of Information Studies, University of Toronto The Knowing Organization: How Organizations Use Information to Construct Meaning, Create Knowledge, and Make Decisions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), xii.
- 9. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 9 DOMAIN EXPERTS: Professors, grad. students, researchers, deans, university leaders and staff COMMUNITY INFORMATION EXPERTS: Librarians, records managers, archivists, others IT EXPERTS: Desktop, computer lab and server support; applications for academic, research, administrative support; networks, telecommunications, security Knowledge Pyramid Adapted from Choo, Information Management for the Intelligent Organization, 238.
- 10. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 10 A Hierarchy of Organizational Learning Transformation of information into learning, insight and action Info resources, IT (tools), policies and practices ID informa- tion needs Use informa -tion Acquire info Organize/ store info Develop products/ services Distri- bute info Adapted from Choo, Information Management for the Intelligent Organization, p. 24-25.
- 11. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 11 Knowledge Creation and Social Networks “Improving efficiency and effectiveness in knowledge-intensive work demands more than sophisticated technologies—it requires attending 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.
- 12. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 12 Implications Students and faculty engage in information network processes with or without libraries Libraries have the opportunity to engage more proactively with teachers and learners Librarians have natural partnerships with subject domain and IT experts Libraries and librarians need to better understand how social networks and information seeking styles contribute to learning and teaching
- 13. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 13 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 with campus communities Make library collections and librarians more visible Move to next generation systems and services An online social network
- 14. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 14 Who ARE These Guys?
- 15. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 15 Knowing our Learners Baby boomers 1946-1964 Generation X 1965-1982 Net Generation 1982-1991 http://www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen
- 16. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 16 Generations of Students 22% 55% 23% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Boomers Gen X Net Gen 95% 5% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 25 Years Or Less Other Ages Joel Hartman et al. University of Central Florida study. In Educating the Net Generation Robert B. Kvavik. EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research. 2004 study. In Educating the Net Generation
- 17. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 17 Net Generation Learners Intuitive visual communicators Can integrate the virtual and physical (gamers) Learn better through discovery than lecture Able to shift attention rapidly Respond quickly and expect rapid response “People want to build stuff” Diana and James Oblinger. Is it age or IT? In Educating the Net Generation.
- 18. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 18 Net Geners and Library Services: A Disconnect They like Multimedia environments Figuring things out for themselves Working in groups Multitasking Learning directly related to courses We offer Text-based environments Systems that require prior understanding (or librarian help) Services for individual use Focus, logical sequence Catalogs, databases, subject guides and pathfinders Joan Lippincott, Coalition for Networked Information. In Educating the Net Generation
- 19. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 19 Digital Repositories and Interactive Learning http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
- 20. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 20 Michael Habib’s Library 2.0 “Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model,” p. 35. http://etd.ils.unc.edu/dspace/handle/1901/356
- 21. Gaps in Satis faction -1.6 -1.4 -1.2 -1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 E-resources remote access Easy-to-use web site Print or e- journals Printed library materials M ultimedia collections Space for study Group space Undergrad Graduate Faculty Online library Collections Space LibQUAL+ 2005 Survey: Cornell University Library. Association of Research Libraries. http://www.libqual.org
- 22. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 22 What Did Users Say They Want? (2002) •Faculty and students do more work and study away from campus •Loyal to the library, but library is only one element in complex information structure •Print still important, but almost half of undergraduates say they rely exclusively or almost exclusively on electronic materials •Seamless linking from one information object to another is expected •Fast forward to 2007: these trends many times stronger! Do you use electronic sources all of the time, most of the time, some of the time, or none of the time? 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% All of the time/most of the time Some of the time None of the time Responses Percent Faculty/Graduate Undergrad http://www.clir.org/PUBS/reports/pub110/contents.html
- 23. Cornell Catalog and E-Resource Searching, First Quarter 2005 0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Weeks 1 to 13 NumberofSearches/Sessions Catalog Sessions E-Resource Searches Total (Library Resources) Students return E-resource system problems Spring break Average/week (Q1 2005): Google: 441 million Library: 47 thousand Titles in catalog: > 4 million E-resources: 379 thousand
- 24. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 24 Networked E-Resources at Cornell About 10% of the collection 36% of the materials budget (2005) About 50% of the use All searches from library pages = a tiny fraction of the use of search engines
- 25. 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
- 26. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 26 VIVO: Connecting Life Sciences Researchers Combining social networking, traditional library services, & more
- 27. So what about the catalog????
- 28. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 28 Unanswered Questions Who uses the online catalog? Who uses library Web pages? For what? How much? Compared to what? Compared to library e-resource discovery systems? Compared to Amazoogle?
- 29. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 29 Who Uses the Online Catalog? 8.6 15.9 1.5 61.2 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Percent Undergraduate Graduate Never At least once a week Surveying the Students: the 2005 Student Survey On the University of Virginia Library. p. 15 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/mis/reports/stusurv05/ultra_short_final.pdf
- 30. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 30 Review of Unanswered Questions Who uses the online catalog? faculty and graduate students (comparatively more) students (comparatively less) librarians Who uses library Web pages? How much? strong preference for search engines
- 31. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 31 Strong preference for full text and media, other Web content Some are familiar with bibliographic data/tools, many are not (and find what they want anyway?) Personal and professional networking are important aspects of information seeking Compared to What?
- 32. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 32 The Catalog in Context •Online catalogs represent one node in the student’s and scholar’s information universe •As information systems, catalogs are hard to use
- 33. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 33 The Continuing Importance of the Catalog Books and serials are not dead, and they are not yet digital ARL libraries spent the lion’s share of $665 million on books and serials in 2004 The legacy of the world’s library collections is tied to the future of catalogs
- 34. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 34 New Models for the Catalog What is Primo? “an enterprise-level solution for the discovery of institutional resources and the delivery of materials and services for different types of collections.” Thirteen Libraries Join Innovative for Encore Development (Press release October 2006) worldcat.org eXtensible Catalog (XC) “an open-source online system that can unify access to traditional and digital library resources.” WorldCat Local Pilot
- 35. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 35 Longer Term Vision Local catalog one link in a chain of services, one repository managed by the library More coherent and comprehensive scholarly information systems, perhaps by discipline Infrastructure to permit global discovery and delivery of information among open, loosely-coupled systems Critical mass of digitized publications and special collections online Many starting points on the Web leading to many types of scholarly information objects Switch users from where they find things to library-managed collections of all kinds
- 36. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 36 Find It on Google,* Get It from My Library Open WorldCat WorldCat.org, WorldCat Local Google Scholar Google Library Project Microsoft Live Search Books Million Book Project Open Content Alliance E-books Print on demand *The word "google" was first used in the 1927 Little Rascals silent film "Dog Heaven", used to refer to a having a drink of water. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_(verb)
- 37. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 37 Intermediate Vision Better library interface > better user experience >> more interaction, more fun! Draw on the local catalog’s strongest suit: support for inventory control and delivery Shared online catalogs: begin to aggregate discovery function for books, serials, and their e-counterparts Larger scale collaboration on collection development/resource sharing, storage, preservation
- 38. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 38 Intermediate Vision, 2 Start to build bigger scholarly information environments—with libraries playing a role—to aggregate more of the expanding universe of scholarly digital assets Metadata and outreach skills = strategic assets
- 39. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 39 Intermediate Vision, 3 Beginning of the era of special collections Aggregate discovery of digital collections More emphasis on visual resources
- 40. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 40 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
- 41. July 2007 Calhoun / Age of Discovery 41 Thank You! Karen Calhoun VP, WorldCat and Metadata Services OCLC, Inc. calhounk@oclc.org
Editor's Notes
- Thanks to Bonnie MacEwan and John Burger for orienting me to today’s Institute. I’m hoping that I’ve chosen topics that will set the stage for further exploration of new tools for better discovery the future of cataloging and metadata services end user behavior and preferences for discovery and delivery of library materials In my talk, I’ll move well beyond the boundaries of the catalog, to place the catalog in the context of the user’s discovery experiences and needs. The title I’ve chosen plays on the Institute’s theme of discovery. I will speak to OUR discovery of the user’s discovery experiences, behaviors and needs, as well as OUR discovery of how to respond and adapt to the new age of discovery.
- The catalog was the first discovery tool for the self-sufficient user of library collections. It has been remarkably successful and has served the self-sufficient user for over a hundred years. Library services today can be roughly divided into a few categories— 1--those services intended to help the self-sufficient user, who uses the library but may seldom or ever actually visit the library buildings or talk with librarians or library staff—one example is the catalog here. 2--In contrast, there are a critical set of library services based on human interactions with users 3--the library as a physical space. I am going to talk about services for the self-sufficient user.
- Over the last hundred years, librarians’ esteem for the catalog rose mightily. Yet now, at the beginning of the 21st century, the catalog is under fire, as evidenced by this first of the Taiga provocative statements that I’ll weave into this talk. (read) If you are wondering, what is the Taiga Forum, it was an invitational conference in March 2006 for library leaders interested in the future of libraries. In advance of the conference, the planning committee put together a number of deliberately provocative, sometimes outlandish statements to challenge conventional thinking about libraries. This is one of Taiga provocative statement, number 5 to be precise.
- And here is Taiga provocative statement number 6, which goes further to challenge the centrality of the library Web site itself. In addition, it introduces the notion of making the catalog (and the collections it describes) more visible to those using popular search engines.
- I’ll come back to the catalog in a bit. For now, let’s thing about libraries in light of the discontinuous changes wrought by the Internet, widespread ownership of personal computers and rising computer literacy, and the shift in information seekers’ demand for online, easy to use sources of information. In the 20th cent., two conceptualizations have dominated our profession’s thinking about academic libraries: 1) the library as a warehouse of collections and 2) the library as a center of experts and tools that guide users to appropriate library resources. Within their communities, libraries have been a well of knowledge and nourishment of the human mind and spirit.
- Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, both of these concepts of the library are having the effect of restricting academic librarians to an unnecessarily narrow role in their communities and in the learning process. We need to be part of the flowing rivers that tie us all together in the messy but invigorating process of technology-driven, community-based and interactive learning, study, and teaching. The goals—contributing to the nourishment of the human mind and spirit and to the public good—are the same, but new conditions are driving changes in librarians’ and libraries’ roles. Information seekers interact with libraries, services and collections both in library buildings and on the Web. Numerous studies support the view that information seekers in university communities prefer to work online from their homes and offices. Many types of information objects interest and engage them, not just books and the scholarly journal literature. Their interests go well beyond what libraries have traditionally provided stewardship over. In fact, today, library collections and scholarly journals are only part of the flowing rivers of information that engage the attention of students and faculty. This situation provides not the death knell for libraries or their information systems, but the opportunity for libraries to be more and to do more for students and faculty.
- Our users, particularly college students, are definitely out there navigating the waterways of the Web, not clustered around the library well. I imagine many of you are familiar with this widely-cited finding from the OCLC study on user perceptions of libraries. College students are overwhelmingly more likely to begin an information search with a search engine than on a library Web site—and some subset of the library Web site use represents use of the library catalog. How can libraries become a stronger presence in the waterways of the Web?
- To begin to answer that question, let us examine the context in which academic libraries exist, higher education. To help me I’d like to draw upon the work of Chun Wei Choo, an expert in knowledge management on the faculty of the University of Toronto. Read If we assume that the university is a knowledge community that observes and makes sense of the world, creates new knowledge, and seeks information to support decision-making, then the role of an information service such as a library comes into focus: to participate in the generation and processing of information and knowledge for our communities.
- Choo further defines a proactive role, rather than a reactive one, for the library. He says “in the knowing organization, information systems and services go beyond simply what people want to know, to why and how they will use the information.” This figure is an adaptation of Choo’s illustration of a highly collaborative model for knowledge creation and organizational growth. This figure suggests new partnerships between “domain experts, information experts, and IT experts” to bring together the communities’ capabilities. Domain experts – personally involved in creating and using info Info experts – have the skills to select, acquire, organize info into systems and structures, to enhance the accessibility and quality of info, and to provide services to promote learning and awareness IT experts – possess specialized technical expertise to build and maintain IT infrastructures
- In his research at the University of Toronto, professor Choo has written of the “information network processes” of knowledge communities. Information network processes—the acquisition, organization, distribution, and use of information—occur in any community, with or without a library. I have developed this graphic of organizational learning. Chart based on Choo concepts, but my own extension, elaboration of them Explain base, “info network processes” in middle, and top transform info and processes into new learning, insight, action. I believe that in the future, the continued success of academic libraries is linked to the integration of the library into the larger information network processes of their colleges and universities. This includes engaging with the information network processes of students, who often find our library resources and systems difficult to figure out and who are too seldom interested in library instruction or developing information literacy skills. And so, what would it mean to move to participation in knowledge creation, and from an inward, library-centric orientation (around our well) to an action-based, outward orientation on the riverfront?
- If as Choo suggests with his notion of a “knowledge pyramid,” being a librarian will require more active participation in its knowledge communities, librarians will also need to have a deeper understanding of where students and scholars turn for information. This is a quote from Rob Cross, assistant professor at University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce, and others. Cross and his team’s research into social networks builds evidence that working relationships and personal contacts are enormously important to the ways people obtain information and learn. Read
- This concludes my brief look at libraries and information processes in the context of higher education. Here is a quick summary to make explicit what I’ve tried to say about the implications and opportunities for libraries of today’s technology-driven, community-based and interactive study, teaching, and learning. (read)
- This slide attempts to articulate a new service model for the library, in which, instead of having users come to us and to our Web pages—that is, to our well-- the library meets users where they are—navigating the waterways of the Web. The library has the opportunity to be more proactive both locally and globally by (read—start with second bullet)
- To successfully meet our users where they are, we need to understand them better, and doing so is far from inconsequential. Blue Man group Amazing Strange Loud
- Cite Educause collection, Educating the Net Generation Net Generation – aka the Millennials Campus community tends to be made up of a blend of these three generations plus the Silents, those indivs born before 1946
- Different colleges and universities have different demographics when it comes to student. On the left is the breakout from a study of the age demographics of U of Central Fla students taking online classes, showing quite a mix of younger and older students. On the right is the breakout of the age demographics from an EDUCAUSE-sponsored, cross-institutional study of 13 colleges and universities in 5 states. In this study of more traditional campuses, offering predominantly on site coursework, 95% of the students were 25 or less—that is, were millennials or part of the net generation. So there are a lot of net geners around campus.
- What are the net geners like? Diane and James Oblinger article. Read
- In Joan Lippincott’s analysis of net geners and library services, she found a disconnect between what net geners tend to look for and what libraries offer Read
- Besides multimedia, what other kinds of information resources do net geners care about? There is evidence that undergraduates also respond enthusiastically to digital library collections of primary source materials. The popularity of sites like the Valley of the Shadow, whose opening page is shown here, suggests that primary sources arranged for experiential, interactive learning will make a hit with the net generation. The Valley of the Shadow lets students use records and images from two counties—one Union and one Confederate—to draw their own conclusions about the Civil War.
- It seems that at least some of the current crop of graduates from library and information science master’s programs have an intuitive grasp of Web 2.0 environments. This fascinating slide is from the master’s paper of Michael Habib, a December 2006 graduate of UNC’s LIS program. Know you can’t read it closely so I’ll explain the gist. Michael proposes a library 2.0 concept model in which students engage in their information network processes – exchanging and gathering information for example -- in social, library and academic space, both physical and virtual. In the library physical space are study rooms, the information commons, the café (note he leaves out the stacks) – and in the library virtual space he places blogs, wikis, and the OPAC. He is describing the library as part of a continuum of social and personal interactions that a student has, from his or her informal and fun use of Facebook and instant messaging, to his or her formal use of course management systems and scholarly Websites. I would suggest pushing Michael’s Library 2.0 conceptual model a bit further, to include the concept of embedding the virtual library in the user’s information space, wherever that may be. That, is being where their eyes are, whether that’s a search engine, on a homework help page, on a social networking site, on a course web page, in Second Life, you name it.
- But, our libraries serve more than undergraduates. How do the different communities vary by generation, role, and discipline? Here is a quick look at some of those differences. A number of large libraries in the US regularly conduct a kind of user satisfaction survey managed by the Association of Research Libraries. The survey is called “LibQUAL.” This chart indicates the largest gaps in satisfaction between perceived and desired levels of service at Cornell, as measured by LibQUAL in our 2005 survey. Note the chart shows the gaps for undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty separately (blue, magenta, yellow). Click Two of the largest service gaps point to issues with the online library, three with collections, and two with the library as a place. There appears to be rough agreement among undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty about the gaps related to the online library. In contrast, undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty place different emphases on the gaps related to collections, with faculty caring the most about print. As for space, undergraduates and graduate students both want better space for individual study, and undergraduates have a keen desire for group study space. Faculty care less than the other two groups do about library space, according to this survey.
- <number> Let’s look some more at differences in our campus communities, particularly those related to discovery. Research completed in 2002 on behalf of the Digital Library Federation and the Council on Library and Information Resources examined how university faculty, graduate students and undergraduates use print and electronic information sources. The study found that faculty and students like to work online because they can work from their offices and homes, rather than having to come to the library Print remains important, and the library remains important. At the same time, nearly all faculty, graduate students and undergraduates say they rely on electronic information from a variety of sources to some extent. And, undergraduates are more willing to rely on electronic information all or some of the time. Students have become familiar with the hyperlinked world of the Web, where they can instantly follow links from one information object to another. They have come to expect this kind of linking of library online resources as well. For example, they want to be able to go with one click from a citation to the full text of an article. This is the “reference linking” or “Get It!” functionality you have been hearing about.
- Now let us look at some more Cornell results, these drawn from transaction logs from the first 13 weeks of 2005. I must offer the usual caveats about the comparability of transaction log data across systems. In this case, it offers us a quite rough and ready view of what was happening. I have provided labels indicating the reasons for the early peak at week 3 and the dips at weeks 6 and 11. At the time this usage data was captured, Cornell was offering about 379K networked e-resources—these are mostly licensed scholarly databases and e-journals—vs. the more than 4 million titles described in the online catalog. The online catalog does include the 379K e-resources, but the library provides a separate e-resource discovery system as well. The transaction log data suggests the searches during the height of the semester of the e-resource discovery system (the darker magenta area) make up a little less than half of the combined searches of all library resources of about 47 thousand searches per week. Placing these results in a much, much larger context, in this same time frame, Google was getting about 441 million searches per week. Of course we don’t know how many Google searches the population using Cornell library Web pages were doing each week, but we can speculate that the Google searches outpaced the library searches by some order of magnitude.
- Again, I would not lean too heavily on the accuracy of this transaction log data, but the data do support other studies that document a surge in scholarly interest in electronic vs. traditional library materials. To summarize quickly then, the Cornell transaction log results suggest that networked e-resources represent (read slide)
- Now let’s take a look at faculty. Another figure you can’t read, but I will talk you through it. Normally the expectation in a library is that faculty will come to the library or its Web pages—that is, the well. Faculty are pretty much on their own to find others in the community with shared information needs and interests. In a library that engages users in the waterways of the Web, the library pays attention to the faculty’s information-seeking behavior and processes and tries to meet the faculty in the information environments that they inhabit. This amazing diagram comes from the recent University of Minnesota Libraries’ extensive study of humanists’ and social scientists’ needs. The diagram places the basic functions common to scholarly activity – discover, gather, create, and share – at the center. In the next circle out, we see the scholars’ information network processes—for example, for the “discover” behavior in the center, finding both information and colleagues with similar interests and keeping current in the field. In the next circle out, we see the problems they are having with these activities—for example, 87% of the scholars in the Minnesota study reported they draw on literature from multiple fields. In the outermost circle, we see a set of library services to address the scholars’ needs—for example, customized search services.
- Cornell’s VIVO combines social networking and traditional library services important to the life sciences community—both faculty and students. You can often hear me referring to VIVO as an exemplar of 21st century librarianship. because it combines what faculty and students are telling us they want – social networking capabilities, information resources, course information, information about facilities and equipment – all in one place And here is the best news about VIVO and other emerging library sites that are centered not so much on what they library has in its collections, but on the user’s discovery behavior and practices—metadata is really central to making these sites work well.
- OK OK so you may be thinking, she’s taken pretty far afield! So what about the catalog? Let’s go through the same ideas I’ve tried to present so far, in the context of the catalog.
- In the waterways of the Web, not around the well, there are some unanswered questions about the library online catalog. Read
- <number> Jim Self and others, U Va. As you can see from this chart, nearly 9% of undergraduates reported they never use the catalog, and less than one in five undergraduates reported using the catalog at least once a week or more. Graduate students are much less likely to never use the catalog, and nearly two out of three reported using the catalog once a week or more. These results correlate with the results that I showed you earlier about the net generation, the kinds of interactive sites they like, the heavy use of e-resource discovery systems and search engines, and graduate and faculty vs. undergraduate usage patterns with respect to online and print collections.
- Returning to our unanswered questions then, the user studies I have so briefly summarized for you today suggest some possibilities. (Read)
- Thus, user studies and other evidence suggest that information seekers not only have a strong preference for search engines but also (read first two) With respect to the second bullet, I did not present any evidence today, but there is information about this point in the OCLC Perceptions study I cited earlier. 61% of college students completely agree that Google provides worthwhile information vs. 45% who completely agree that the library Web site provides worthwhile information, vs. 41% who completely agree that the online catalog provides worthwhile information. Students tend to think they are good searchers and they tend to trust search engine results. With respect to the third bullet point, the research of Drs. Choo and Cross and others suggests that (read third bullet)
- Remember how I began, with my speaking of the catalog’s being the first ever tool for the self-sufficient information seeker? Self-sufficiency, ease of use, and convenience are really important to users. Here are two key findings from my assessment of the current situation for catalogs, as information systems for self-sufficient users, that I completed recently for the Library of Congress. Read I concluded in the LC report that catalogs need to change or risk being displaced over time by other discovery tools. The displacement of catalogs would be very bad for the world’s library collections, because discovering and using legacy library collections relies on catalog data.
- Catalog data is part of the life’s blood of the library, because for the most part it is all we have, for now, to connect information seekers to our rich library collections. Without catalog data to support discovery and delivery of our collections, which will not all be digitized for many years to come, these collections would be simply warehouses of books and serials much, much too large to browse. The 2005 Association of Research Library statistics suggest that ARL libraries continue to invest heavily in printed materials, and their print collections continue to grow.
- There is excellent news about all of this. Libraries are responding to the challenges of this environment by modernizing their catalogs and making them more like the tools they need to be for today’s self-sufficient users. I anticipate that our next speakers on the panel will tell us about some or all of these examples (click through)
- <number> Once more stepping back from the catalog to speak of the student’s or scholar’s larger discovery context, I’d like to conclude this talk with a look at one possibility for how discovery systems might work together within five to ten years. My vision attempts to leverage both the strength and power of popular search engines with the traditional and digital assets that libraries and scholars have to offer. In this new, larger discovery context, libraries, integrated library systems, and organizations like OCLC play roles, but not the only roles. The new age of discovery might look like this Read
- <number> For now, we are seeing a lot of tinkering with the pieces of a new discovery environment. These are some of the projects that dome to my mind as harbingers of what is to come, at least in the realm of books and journals. We should not forget that there are many other realms. I believe libraries, librarians, and the organizations that serve them will continue to have important roles to play in discovery, but success will require heretofore unprecedented levels of collaboration between us.
- <number> We are already seeing the results of some excellent work. Some, like Ex Libris, Innovative Interfaces, OCLC, and those at the University of Rochester working on the Mellon-funded eXtensible Catalog project, are working on improving the user’s experience with the online library, and working to integrate more types of scholarly resources, making them more visible and easier to use.. Beyond this, the OPAC interface is more likely to be part of a shared catalog of some kind, with the local catalog and ILS serving as “last mile technology” to carry signals from and to the shared OPAC and provide infrastructure at the “neighborhood” level to complete the discovery to delivery chain. As these trends gain momentum, there may be more compelling reasons to share the costs of building, storing, preserving, and delivering library collections themselves.
- <number> I believe libraries will start paying more attention to the research and learning objects that are popping up all over campus and that I tend to refer to as “digital assets.” Students and scholars are creating these assets, but generally libraries are not involved in supporting them. A growing number of ARL libraries have DSpace repositories, and some of the faculty assets are stored there, but not many. This an area that is evolving, and there is much work for the metadata specialist in it. As the trend toward bigger and more heterogeneous scholarly information environments takes hold, the library will have at least two strategic assets to offer—experience with effectively organizing and preserving information on behalf of others (that is, metadata), and the ability to engage directly with students and scholars in learning, teaching and research (that is, outreach).
- <number> Libraries and the organizations that serve them have the opportunity to make special collections into a shared system. These collections have been hidden away, but circumstances could be such that these unique special collections will take on more importance, prestige and weight for libraries. We will need to manage multiple systems delivering a wide variety of objects from special collections—images, text, sound and other media.
- In conclusion, while the catalog is one of many sources consulted by students and scholars navigating the waterways of the Web, I believe that the catalog—and catalog data—have bright futures in the new age of discovery. I also believe that defining a strategic future for the library catalog has a great deal of potential to serve the public good, just as the catalog has done for the past hundred years.
- A final word to the catalogers who are here today. I believe that catalogers are well positioned to make worthwhile contributions to the colleges and university communities they serve, provided they focus on the needs they meet rather than the methods they presently use. It is important not to let our present methods become ends in themselves, but to keep the true end in mind—serving the self-sufficient user. Metadata is key to empowering information seekers and to building scholarly information access systems that are easy to use. Your metadata expertise is a sustainable strategic advantage that libraries can and should embrace and promote to faculty and other members of the university community. Seize the opportunities you have to contribute your expertise to the continuing mission of libraries—not only to connect self-sufficient users with the information they seek, but to help the university community transform mere ‘information’ into knowledge, insight, and action.