Rhodes LI855 Research Paper 1

Grace Rhodes LI855 Research Paper Electronic Resources Emporia State University Fall 2010

Rhodes LI855 Research Paper 2 The technology that todays students use on a daily basis, and are comfortable with, is what they prefer to use when searching for information. This technology includes such devices and machines as computers, smartphones, and e-readers. The way that students of the net generation (Shepard) uses these technologies can be surprising to those who are used to more traditional information gathering methods. These students routinely use the same device to learn, to read, to listen to music, to communicate with friends, to purchase goods and to enjoy leisure time (a probably much more besides) (Shepard). By embracing these technologies, libraries can enhance student research, provide library instruction, and promote library services (Starkweather). An understanding of these technologies and how they are used by students will help libraries to better serve these students and help to keep libraries relevant to them throughout their lives. Computers are routinely provided for students use in the school library, computer labs, and in classrooms. Many students, both secondary and post-secondary, have home computers and perhaps even laptops they take to class. Fifth and sixth grade students at a school in Texas, according to Minkels article Yours for the taking, are given laptop computers that come preloaded with electronic textbooks and a library of 2000 books. The electronic book library used sells for $200 per computers and includes software for searching the collection (Minkel). Another technology used by students is smartphones. These devices are cellphones with many additional features that make them more like a miniature computer. The biggest difference between smartphones and simpler cellphones is their ability to access the Internet, and other capabilities such as GPS tracking, digital cameras, and digital music (Starkweather). Different downloadable applications, apps, exist for smartphones, for example there are more than fifty-

Rhodes LI855 Research Paper 3 thousand specialized apps for the iPhone and new ones being designed for the Blackberry and the Palm Pre (Starkweather). While this technology is still relatively new, it is rapidly gaining use both in the United States and throughout the world. In fact, in 2008, smartphone use grew by 69% up to 25 million users leading the majority of Internet experts to agree that smartphones will be the primary connection tool for most people in the world by 2020 (Starkweather). Abilene Christian University in Abilene, TX has already gotten onboard with smartphones for students by distributing iPhones and iPod Touches to their 2008 freshman class (Starkweather). One way libraries have taken advantage of smartphone use is through texting, as demonstrated by the University of Nevada Las Vegass text-alibrarian service (Starkweather). These modes of communication and information gathering present both challenges and opportunities to libraries. Although students may not believe they need the help of librarians or library resources, academic and school librarians can take a more proactive approach to reaching students. As stated by Alford in her article Promoting electronic resources to different audiences, this means we dont have to sit back and wait for students to come into the library we can reach out to them were they are, through both printed and electronic channels. This attitude allows for more options when it comes to helping students with their information gathering. However, it does mean that librarians must use different types of promotion strategies and offer different forms of information in order to accomplish this goal. Electronic means can be used to promote both traditional and electronic library resources and services. These include social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. At Alford and Schroeders library, they took advantage of students

Rhodes LI855 Research Paper 4 use of social media by posting fliers on Facebook during finals week, so when someone at Michigan State logged on to Facebook, they could see one of our fliers for resources at the library (Alford 19). Michigan States library also takes advantage of their online course management system, ANGEL (similar to Emporia States Blackboard), by putting direct links to databases, e-books, and e-journals in a library folder in an ANGEL course page (Alford 19). Making digital copies of materials available through the online course management system provides access that would have otherwise been very costly and space consuming since digitals can be made availablerather than needing to purchase copies for each student (Sharp). Other electronic outreach done by Michigan State University includes links to the library from Google Scholar and from Amazon.com using Greasemonkey (Alford). Electronic resources can be accessed whether in or out of the library via the technologies previously mentioned. These technologies are not good only for promotion of library materials, but also for accessing the electronic information managed by libraries. The forms of information available from libraries are changing. More traditional forms of library information such as microfilm, VHS tapes, newspapers, and even books, in some cases, have either become obsolete or are falling into non-use. Additionally, different forms of information, not necessarily electronic, are being used: ephemera and grey literature, pamphlets, popular magazines, comic books, visual imagery, films and video, manuscript and archival collections, and sound recordings (Hazen 118). Besides information that began as electronic, many library materials are being digitized as a method for preservation and for space saving measures. As Hazen states in his article Rethinking research library collections, large-scale digitization is transforming the library world (115). This shift is brought about by changes in expectations of the research done by

Rhodes LI855 Research Paper 5 students since they routinely require students to grapple with primary sources and special collections, as well as secondary works and synthetic texts (Hazen 118). Because of the types of information needed by students our traditional collecting expectations, which were far more static and staid, no longer serve us well (Hazen 118). An immediate issue that arises when libraries attempt to acquire all the possible materials that students may need for their research is the issue of space. In Sharps article No more room aboard the ark!, he refers to large academic acquisitions as hoarding and says that libraries large physical collections have created a major space crisis. There are multiple ways to solve this problem: electronic resources, digitization of existing materials, the forming of consortiums with other libraries to share materials, and the discarding of materials. Having the physical material in a librarys possession is becoming less important as new methods of accessing materials are explored. One space issue that can arise even if the physical collections size is reduced is that libraries then need to dedicate more floor space to computers. This does not necessarily mean that more computers need to be purchased; students would just need sufficient seating and outlets to plug-in their laptops (Sharp). The idea of reducing the physical collection is an emotional topic for any library and needs to be approached carefully. Faculty, students, and alumni could all potentially be against the idea and it is up to the librarians to determine how best to reduce the size of onsite collections without either destroying the soul of their libraries or sending their faculty to the barricades (Barclay). These stakeholders reasons for opposing the scaling down of a librarys physical collection need to be recognized by librarians. Librarians need to be able to articulate to faculty and students the necessity for the

Rhodes LI855 Research Paper 6 change and then educate them on how to best use the library after changes have been made. Some stakeholders may think that electronic resources would lead to libraries and librarians becoming obsolete. Librarians are still relevant and needed whether the resources are print or electronic there is still content, which is central to all that we do (Hazen 119). Electronic resources and electronic access to those materials contribute the changing view of the library as less of a place and more of a community, especially an online community (Alford 19). As long as there are information seekers, there will be a need for librarians. Students will always have questions like How do I find the information? How do I access it? Whats different about an online database that has authoritative resources versus somebodys web page that I could get from Google? Heres a great picture I found or a great article I found ethically, what can I do with it? How do I cite it? (Weinstock). Education of faculty and students about library services is critical when people may still be of the mindset that all librarians do is check books in and out. In Alford and Schroeders article, they share some of what they do to promote library services at Michigan State University. Some of their strategies are assigning librarians to specific departments and having those librarians instruct students about services, sending liaisons to attend orientations and faculty meetings, and promoting instant messaging with librarians (Alford 19,20). A concept that goes along with an academic librarys desire for a large print collection is the belief that the presence of large numbers of printed books creates something a vibe, an ambiance, a holiness that engenders scholarly behavior among the student body (Barclay). Those who hold this belief feel that a library with fewer or no books would be difficult to view as a library simply because it would look

Rhodes LI855 Research Paper 7 different than the library in their memories. However, libraries need to move beyond traditional models in order to best serve current student needs. A shift that is happening is for schools to become more inter-disciplinary and for teaching to focus more on open-source collaborative and participatory tools (Hazen 116). Students work is also encouraged to move beyond just print materials. Hazen speaks of this need for electronic materials when he states that mash-ups and other digitally recombinant possibilities encourage projects that transcend an exclusively textual framework. This means a change in the way libraries need to handle the information needs of students and faculty. Even with these changes, people are still attached to print materials in the library. Therefore, communication with faculty is key to gaining support for making changes to the librarys print and electronic collections. Librarians need to bring faculty and students on board with plans by making them aware of processes and reasoning (Sharp). In Sharps article about academic libraries in the United Kingdom, he shares that they make the rationale for storing materials off-site available on the librarys website in order to keep faculty and students aware and involved. One major difference in a library with more electronic resources is that there are not as many printed books to browse. People enjoy browsing books because of the possibility of a serendipitous discovery of a book. However, these discoveries are subject to several factors that determine whether or not a book will be found. The most obvious problem with browsing is that the seeker will only see the books that are actually on the shelf. This is an issue for finding the information needed because the books in highest demand are most likely to be in use and, thus, off the shelf, browsing academic library shelves is the equivalent of hitting the sale tables on day three or a three-day-sale (Barclay). Books can also be difficult for student to spot on

Rhodes LI855 Research Paper 8 the shelves due to overcrowding, lack of bookjackets, and an unattractive appearance (Barclay). In his article The myth of browsing, Barclay likens browsing a librarys shelves to the browsing done by a grocery shopper because just as products positioned on the middle shelves of grocery stores sell better than those on higher or lower shelves, books that come to rest on the middle shelves of library stacks circulate more than books above or below. Although it is assumed that browsing an academic librarys physical collection has always been a part of how libraries operate is a mistake that many make, even though prior to the Second World War, the typical academic library was neither designed nor managed to support the browsing of collections (Barclay). In these days undergraduate students were not allowed to go into the stacks, whereas faculty may have been permitted to browse (Barclay). Todays electronic resources do not actually take away the ability to browse, rather they enhance it. Electronic search tools help to make the collection more browsable by leading researchers to sources that would have remained invisible in a context limited by the traditional apparatus of field-specific bibliographies, indexes, and abstracts (Hazen 116). This also supports the move toward inter-disciplinary study because it allows materials to be searched using multiple subjects. This is superior to browsing an actual shelf of books because the fact remains that a single book can sit in only one place in the library regardless of how many subjects it may encompass (Barclay). Electronic resources can also be searchable within themselves through innovations such as linked footnotes within the content. These links can lead a student immediately to related material that they would have had to find in print before (Hazen 116). Another electronic device that is also impacting libraries is the e-reader. Ereaders, such as the Kindle, Nook, and iPad, are small handheld devices that are

Rhodes LI855 Research Paper 9 capable of downloading, storing, and viewing e-books. Although e-readers can help solve issues, such as space in libraries, there are concerns as well. In an academic setting such as a school or university library, it would be beneficial for students to be able to carry one e-reader rather than a backpack full of textbooks. With electronic textbooks and library materials available online, students do not have to worry about the book they want being unavailable to them, even after school hours. However, the actual cost to an institution of buying and maintaining is impractical. In Weinstocks article Turning the page, Carolyn Foote a school librarian in Austin, TX says that its too expensive for schools to buy a device that just does one thing. Foote notes that, unlike e-readers, laptop computers can be used to read e-books and online books and also do a wide variety of other tasks for students (Weinstock). One of the most well-known examples of a library using e-readers is that of Cushing Academys electronic library. This K12 school made the revolutionary move to create a bookless library where the content is all electronic. Students at Cushing do their library research either via downloads from one of Cushings web-based ebook providers or on one of the schools nearly 1-to-1 supply of Kindle and Sony ereaders (Weinstock). Although Cushing has received much criticism in addition to praise, James Tracy, headmaster, contends that our entire purpose was to actually try to save the library from irrelevance. To be presented as somebody who is antibook and anti-library was completely false (Weinstock). Tracy follows this up by saying: I think people mistook printed pages for reading. (Weinstock). While many do think that reading is unable to be effectively separated from print, forward thinking librarians understand that going electronic is the direction we are heading and the way we need to go. Besides, it is possible to get a print copy of electronic resources, print it out yourself or use a print-on-demand service (Barclay).

Rhodes LI855 Research Paper 10 Despite the benefits of e-readers for most students, there is a group for whom they are not generally recommended. Children do not benefit from e-readers the way that older student do because children need a more tangible experience in order to learn. Even Cushing, with its all electronic library, does allow a print childrens collection (Weinstock). In another school mentioned in Weinstocks article, elementary students do benefit from electronic books by viewing them as a class when projected onto a screen by their teachers. It is possible to get electronic childrens books, however most childrens books online are books from the public domain that appeal more to adults than to modern children (Minkel). One website that Minkel gives is an example of an online childrens book source that has both new and old titles: International Childrens Digital Library (www.icklbooks.org). One access issue that goes along with electronic resources is the issue of the technology gap. Libraries need to understand their users and be aware of the differences in technological abilities among different groups. As Shepard notes in the article Why deliver learning resources online?, some users work well with online resources but others do not have the skills, resourcefulness, equipment or bandwidth to download or stream learning resources from an online source. It should also be noted the access that these groups have to various technologies, whether based on location, economic status, or other factors. The various audiences that school and academic libraries serve include people such as faculty members, graduate students, undergraduate students, staff members, and communitiy users (Alford). Even if a group, like students, is comfortable using technology in most ways, they may not be informed about how to use them to benefit them academically. These academic groups can be divided even among themselves, saying while some of them (university students) are knowledgeable about using the library, many of them

Rhodes LI855 Research Paper 11 are unaware of the variety of resources and services that are available (Alford). Alford and Schroeder describe their efforts to resolve some of these issues at Michigan by offering online tutorials for using library services like electronic databases. A worry that many express about electronic resources is the seeming impermanence of these forms of information and information access. These concerns are real, especially in the examples of a crashed computer, dropped ereader, or defunct website. The unstable nature of electronic resources is a concern for academic libraries because scholarship relies on enduring access to constant content, a goala that remains elusive in the digital domain (Hazen 119). Online resources can be difficult to rely on since it is easily changeable as content is added, changed, and removed; links shift around and disappear (Hazen 119). Therefore, when faculty recommends students use particular resources, they need to be confident that the source will be available in its present form for at least several years (Shepard). Online resources can also be difficult in the sense that they can be hard to find. Popular search engines might not necessarily bring up the most relevant or authoritative information on the first page of search results (Hazen 119). Electronic materials can be difficult for libraries to work with since they may not own them the way that books or journals can be owned. If a material is leased or free, it is not under the direct control of the library and may be subject to change. The amount of information available is increasing, however the amount of tangible resources under the librarys direct control is in decline (Hazen 121). Cost can be prohibitive to access to electronic resources through either the cost of the material or of the equipment. Online information, though usually free to access, can be expensive for institutions because delivering resources exclusively

Rhodes LI855 Research Paper 12 online may pass additional costs of training and infrastructure onto others further down the education hierarchy (Shepard). This can also be an issue for purchased or leased resources. One way that electronic resources become expensive is through artificial scarcity created through restrictive manipulations of the digital marketplace (Hazen 120). Artificial scarcity restricts access to products through electronic gatekeepers such as license agreements (Hazen 120). It is possible for institutions to retain some of their collection rather than discarding it or going to an all electronic format. Consortiums can be created between libraries to share resources, either physical or electronic. Shared resources help individual libraries maintain access to large amounts of information without acquiring large amounts of printed materials or dealing with the challenges of electronic resources alone. In addition to the rare materials that libraries usually share via interlibrary loan, these consortiums could also be used to share core data in electronic forms (Hazen 120). Although some may be concerned about a stored or shared item becoming unavailable or undiscoverable, thanks to existing and emerging online search tools, books that go off site in the digital age are actually more discoverable than they were sitting on the shelf in the predigital world (Barclay). Critical Analysis: Since beginning this class, and this program, my opinion of the benefits of electronic resources has changed considerably. Before, the thought of a completely bookless library seemed almost ludicrous and caused me to be fearful of the future of librarianship, but now I feel that this is actually a reasonable response for libraries based on long-term trends in information seeking and forms of information. Thinking

Rhodes LI855 Research Paper 13 about ancient libraries helps me to understand these contemporary changes. I wonder if ancient librarians and library users were worried about the future of libraries when scrolls replaced tablets or when books replaced scrolls? While I dont believe that electronic materials will ever completely replace printed materials, we need, as a profession, to keep the mission of libraries in mind as we think about how to best serve our librarys users. In order for libraries to remain, or become, relevant in the lives of students, they need to provide help that the students would not be able to get otherwise. Perhaps a student can Google an information need, but do they understand how to dig deeper and find the best information? A common theme throughout all of the articles I used was the importance given to the role of the librarian in a library using electronic resources. It is critical to gain resources such as databases, software, hardware, and so much more. However, it is also critical for librarians to be knowledgeable of what they have, how to use it, and how to help get library users in touch with the resources. The articles emphasized that outreach needs to be done to inform and educate all library users, whoever they may be. A item in print or digital can be equally useful as long as they are used.

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References: Alford, Emily and Heidi Schroeder. Promoting electronic resources to different audiences: the information needs of library users vary, and the tactics for promoting electronic resources to them must vary as well. Information Outlook. 14.4 (June 2010) p18. Barclay, Donald A. The myth of browsing: academic library space in the age of facebook. American Libraries. 41.6-7 (June July 2010) p52. Hazen, Dan. Rethinking research library collections: a policy framework for straitened times, and beyond. Library Resources & Technical Services. 54.2 (April 2010) p115. Minkel, Walter. Yours for the taking. School Library Journal v 50 no. 6 (June 2004) p33. Shepard, Kerry and Denis Wong Peters Phillips. Why deliver learning resources online?. British Journal of Educational Technology 38 no.1 p161-3. Starkweather, Wendy and Eva Stowers. Smartphones: a potential delivery tool. Information, Technology and Libraries 28.4 (December 2009) p187. Weinstock, Jeff. Turning the page: printed books are losing out to digital resources, bringing profound change to school libraries while provoking a fierce debate over the very act of reading. T.H.E. Journal (Technological Horizons in Education). 37.6 (June-July 2010) p32.

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