Tomorrow's Library Research Articles

Developing Tomorrow's Library Leaders

Developing Tomorrow's Library Leaders Brian E. C. Schottlaender (bio) One of the hallmarks of the professions is the commitment to, if not the requirement for, continuing education. This is as true of librarianship as it is of medicine, the law, or teaching. In fact, the American Library Association is on record as saying that: Education and Continuous Learning is one of five key action areas adopted by the American Library Association to fulfill its mission of promoting the highest quality library and information services for all people . . . For librarians, continuous learning is critical to renewing the expertise and skills needed to teach and assist members of the public in the new information age.1 Continuing education encompasses a spectrum of possible activities, including workshops, credit-granting classes, professional development programs, leadership development programs, and training—or (shudder) "trainings." Any of these can be certificated, or not; and, increasingly, many take place online, in whole or in part. While professional and leadership development are often considered interchangeable, they are actually different—at least in their focus and intent. Professional development is learning intended to help one earn or maintain professional credentials, while leadership development is the acquisition of skills and knowledge to expand one's capacity and capability for performing in leadership roles within organizations.2 In what follows, I will consider the latter. One of the first post-master of library science (MLS) development efforts of the modern era was launched in 1968 by the Council on Library Resources (CLR): the CLR Fellows program. While one can debate the point, I consider it to have been professional development, not leadership development. The following description, extracted from the College & Research Libraries News announcement of the eighth cohort in 1976, supports this view: "Each fellow will spend three months or more pursuing a self-developed study project, aimed at improving his or her competence in the substantive, administrative, or technical aspects of librarianship."3 This language is much like that used to describe what is arguably the program's follow-on nearly four decades later, the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program that CLIR4 began in 2004: "Fellows work on projects that forge and strengthen connections among collections, educational technologies, and current research."5 The program lists leadership [End Page 227] first among its core goals, followed by awareness, changing roles, relevant resources, and young scholars.6 Nevertheless, its focus strikes me as one of professional development, rather than leadership development. In 1982, Robert Hayes, dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), launched the longest-standing leadership development program in librarianship, Senior Fellows. Following my retirement from UC San Diego in 2017, I was appointed director of that program. I shall describe it in greater detail following this brief overview of cognate programs. In the mid-1990s, CLR and Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, helped launch the Digital Leadership Institute, which rapidly matured in 1999 into the Frye Leadership Institute. Named for the former chancellor of Emory—Billy E. Frye—and cohosted by Emory, CLIR, and EDUCAUSE, the mission of the Frye Institute was to "provide continuing education opportunities for individuals who currently hold, or will one day assume, positions that make them responsible for transforming the management of scholarly information in the higher education community."7 The two-week, annual, Emory-based program continued as such through the first decade of the 2000s, until it evolved again and emerged in 2012 as the Leading Change Institute (LCI). As its name indicates, the latter's remit is more narrowly focused on change leadership and is specifically "designed for leaders in higher education, including CIOs, librarians, information technology professionals, and administrators, who are interested in working collaboratively to promote and initiate change on critical issues affecting the academy."8 With that evolution, the institute also moved to Washington, D.C., and reduced its on-site component from two weeks to one. Launched in 1999, the Harvard Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians is a collaboration between the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This weeklong on-site offering is intended to help "college-level librarians and...

Call to Action: Creating Tomorrow's Libraries Today

Call to Action: Creating Tomorrow's Libraries Today

Book Review: Library 2020: Today's Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow's Library

Library 2020: Today's Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow's Library. Edited by Joseph Janes. Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow, 2013. 161 p. $45.00 paperback (ISBN: 978-0-8108-8714-5). Librarians, despite inherently conservative nature of their role in preservation of knowledge, spend a considerable amount of time looking forward. Joseph Janes, chair of University of Washington's Information School and longtime American Libraries columnist, has brought together a variety of thinkers to answer question, library in 2020 will be--. Participants were selected by Janes from among his friends and people [he] admire[s] a great deal (v). The year 2020 was selected as being enough out that some exciting things might well have happened, but not so far out as to have to resort to shiny-jump suit and hovercar predictions left over from 1965 about 2000 (v). The selections are organized into six sections along thematic lines. These sections include Stuff, People, Community,.... Place, Leadership and Vision, and Janes's own thoughts in a section titled My Turn. Most of selections blur these boundaries, but their placement accurately reflects main thrust of each essay. The Annoyed Librarian opens discussion with a dystopian image of a library world where collections are no longer available to lend. She foresees a future where e-book, video, and music licensing becomes so restrictive that distribution of these items is impossible. Kristin Fontichiaro follows by suggesting that 'libraries can no longer count on describing themselves as repositories for stuff' (7). She goes on to describe even more vibrant future in 2020 in which libraries are makerspaces where community members come together to learn from each other and create. The final two essays in this section echo these themes as Elisabeth Jones describes effect of large-scale book digitization projects on library's role as book warehouse and changing role of librarians within this regard. Clifford Lynch reminds readers of potential barriers to access that these changes might entail as libraries shift to greater licensed and fewer owned collections. The second section deals with most important resource in any library: people. Sarah Houghton suggests a future where libraries are staffed and managed by technologically sophisticated individuals whom she describes as benign geek librarian overlords (35). In his essay, Stephen Abram posits that the library in 2020 will be everywhere (41). He goes on to describe changing roles of librarians as they spend more time delivering programs and providing individual assistance to patrons. He too emphasizes that days of library as book repository are at end. Courtney Greene considers a wide range of possibilities, but comes back to what she considers the enduring value of our work, which lies in serving and supporting our communities (53) regardless of how things might change technologically. Like Abram, Marie Radford sees library in 2020 as being accessible from anywhere via mobile apps of increasing sophistication, and like Houghton she sees a need for librarians to become technological leaders. James Rosenzweig closes section by describing his vision of library as an information base camp and librarians as guides (63). …

Library 2020: Today's Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow's Library

As a former cataloger, my training taught me to use the title of a book to generate ideas for classification and subject assignment. Using a tried and true technique would have contributed greatly ...

A Leadership Primer for New Librarians: Tools for Helping Today's Early‐Career Librarians Become Tomorrow's Library Leaders

A Leadership Primer for New Librarians: Tools for Helping Today's Early‐Career Librarians Become Tomorrow's Library Leaders

Possibilities of Quality Enhancement in Higher Education by Intensive Use of Information Technology

Quality of higher education is a multi-dimensional concept. It lies in effectiveness of transmitting knowledge and skill; the authenticity, content, coverage and depth of information; availability of reading/teaching materials; help in removing obstacles to learning; applicability of knowledge in solving the real life problems; fruitfulness of knowledge in personal and social domains; convergence of content and variety of knowledge over space (countries and regions) and different sections of the people; cost-effectiveness and administrative efficiency. Information technology has progressed very fast in the last three decades; it has produced equipments at affordable cost and it has now made their wider application feasible. This technology has made search, gathering, dissemination, storing, retrieval, transmission and reception of knowledge easier, cheaper and faster. Side by side, a vast virtual library vying with the library in prints has emerged and continues growing rapidly. One may hold that the e-libraries are the libraries of tomorrow when the libraries in prints will be the antiques or the archival objects of the past. This paper discusses in details how information technology can be applied to enhance the quality of higher education at affordable cost. It also discusses the major obstacles to optimal utilization of information technology and measures to remove them.

Developing a Crystal Clear Future for the Serials Unit in an Electronic Environment: Results of a Workflow Analysis

Institutional growth at Old Dominion University and changes within its libraries over the past several years have left the Serials Unit feeling anything but crystal clear. In moving from a print to an electronic focus, the Serials Unit conducted a workflow analysis project. The analysis resulted in a report containing recommendations for reallocating responsibilities and documenting changes in staff skills and positions. This article, which grew out of a presentation at the 15th North Carolina Serials Conference “Crystal Clear? Today's Libraries, Tomorrow's Library Users,” describes the workflow analysis process and expands on how its recommendations have benefited the Serials Unit.

Developing a Crystal Clear Future for the Serials Unit in an Electronic Environment: Results of a Workflow Analysis

Institutional growth at Old Dominion University and changes within its libraries over the past several years have left the Serials Unit feeling anything but crystal clear. In moving from a print to an electronic focus, the Serials Unit conducted a workflow analysis project. The analysis resulted in a report containing recommendations for reallocating responsibilities and documenting changes in staff skills and positions. This article, which grew out of a presentation at the 15th North Carolina Serials Conference “Crystal Clear? Today's Libraries, Tomorrow's Library Users,” describes the workflow analysis process and expands on how its recommendations have benefited the Serials Unit.

New developments on the Turkish school library scene

The overall purpose of this article is to describe the history, growth and development of school libraries in Turkey from 1923 to 2004. For now and the foreseeable future, school librarians will be simultaneously working in the library of yesterday and deeply affected by the library of tomorrow. Changing information needs make it necessary to extend school library services to include new information resources. School librarians must help students understand their information needs and the resources and information technologies available. The research on which this article is based used the survey method. Data were collected through literature analysis, questionnaires, interviews and observation. Observations and interviews were conducted and 3000 questionnaires were distributed in 100 secondary education institutions in Ankara, Turkey during the academic year 2003-4. The research in this article explores the historical background and the current status, role and function of school libraries in providing information resources to help meet the information needs of students in Turkey. It is concluded that in order to optimally deliver information services in secondary education institutions, it is necessary to connect with and guide users by all means available, thereby providing endless possibilities for perpetual connectivity and human development.

Music in the Academic Library of Tomorrow

University of Virginia (UVa) libraries have been engaged over past couple of years in conversations and planning exercises focused around theme The Library of Tomorrow. This sounds more than a little futuristic, and indeed, we often feel that we are looking into a very murky crystal ball, trying to determine if we are seeing fingerposts pointing in direction we should go or merely swirls of mist enticing us down wrong path. When undertaking a similar exercise in late 1960s, Robert S. Taylor, who was charged with task of developing a prototype for what he called the academic library in transition at then newly established Hampshire College in Massachusetts, wrote: There are moments ... when we wish we did not have to use word 'library.' word carries too many connotations, which, partially truth and partially myth, may not let library get to tomorrow, may inhibit its adaptability. term exaggerates differences between print and other media. It emphasizes warehouse rather than dynamic process. It focuses on physical objects rather than on people. (1) Over thirty years later, Taylor's frustrations still echo in current issues facing scholars, teachers, and librarians. How will libraries adapt for future? Specifically, will libraries need to adapt, and how? Music libraries have long encompassed multiple media, but will focus in tomorrow's library still be on physical objects (or their digital replacements), or will its appropriate focus be on people? March 2000 issue of Notes offers several excellent essays by visionary and esteemed librarians on challenges and concerns facing librarians at dawn of twenty-first century. musings offered here are an attempt to examine some of those issues in broader context of planning for future of academic INTRODUCTION Because word carries different meanings for different audiences, before exploring these questions it might be useful to clarify what I mean by and by music in libraries. Twenty years ago, when a student came to library asking for the for Beethoven's Razumovsky Quartet, first question librarian was likely to need to ask was whether student wanted score or parts. Today, more pertinent question is whether student wants a recording or printed notes. These days, a music store sells compact discs. Retail stores that sell notation on paper for any other than commercially popular are becoming increasingly scarce except in cities that also happen to house a performance school. Furthermore, while a student studying performance in a department or school understands to imply common-practice or classical music, to a political science major is popular culture. For purpose of discussing in academic library of tomorrow, this article will refer to two aspects of as it is reflected in academic first is as an art form, and as represented in both recordings of performances and in printed transcriptions that those who are literate in musical notation and proficient in playing or singing from that notation can use to re-create that art form. second is as a discipline in humanities, for which recordings as well as writings on subject are important, but for which musical notation usually is not. This latter context includes all types of from any culture or genre. THE CHANGING NATURE OF ACADEMIC MUSIC COLLECTIONS AND THEIR AUDIENCE Deanna Marcum has mused, whereas information technology and computing professionals tend to think of digital resource development as technological innovation in support of electronic access, question that arises more naturally from librarians is, access to what? She points out that, unlike books, journals, and other physical items that have historically been collected and cared for by libraries, the Web is not under care of librarians. …

Partners for the future: how to maximize public and private sectors to build the library of tomorrow

Partners for the future: how to maximize public and private sectors to build the library of tomorrow

Being Analog: Creating Tomorrow's Libraries. Walt Crawford

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsBeing Analog: Creating Tomorrow's Libraries. Walt CrawfordSteve CoffmanSteve Coffman Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Library Quarterly Volume 70, Number 4Oct., 2000 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/603221 Copyright 2000 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Being Analog: Creating Tomorrow's Libraries,

Being Analog: Creating Tomorrow's Libraries,

The Bertelsmann International Network of Public Libraries

The Bertelsmann International Network of Public Libraries was created by the Bertelsmann Foundation of Germany to think flexibly about the public library of tomorrow and to develop model solutions to address the issues faced by public libraries across the world. From the first meeting, topics of relevance to public libraries were discussed and then the first group of participants had to choose a topic to research and create a model which could be implemented in other public libraries. Summaries of all research papers are available on the Internet at www.stiftung. bertelsmann.de Some models are currently being implemented in libraries of the participants and the new members of the Network are currently working on their research.

“Point. Click. Matriculate:” Corporate Influence in the University and the Academic Library

Corporations are playing a growing role in U.S. universities as they increasingly turn to the corporate sector to supplement the budget of the institution. This coming together of the academy and the business world is having an impact on the universities themselves. To the extent that academic libraries mirror their parent bodies, academic librarians must be concerned about the effect that external corporate values will have on their libraries. Intelligent choices for the library of tomorrow will result from a careful understanding of these issues.

Techno Reference

Summary The current academic library has recently experienced dramatic change. The electronic library of tomorrow is the present reality of today. Library employees and patrons now not only deal with print materials but also with resources in many additional formats including electronic. Concerns have emerged with the proliferation of these resources. Some of these concerns include the possible infatuation of library users with electronic resources over their print counterparts, the explosion of information resources, and providing reference services in an electronic society. Questions investigated in this article include the impact of this growth in electronic resources on traditional reference services and the effects of how library customers are served by librarians. Along with answering the above concerns, information from a survey concerning the impact of electronic resources will also be shared.

Tomorrow's library today

Tomorrow's library today

Mosaic and Medical Librarianship

Mosaic represents a prototype of the highly versatile reference tool for the virtual library of tomorrow. Librarians should make the best possible use of the window of opportunity created by the development of this type of software. Medical librarianship in particular could benefit greatly from the integrative capabilities of Mosaic, because it can be used to access at one single station various forms of media, including audio, graphics, full motion video, simple text, and hypertext-based information sources. The opportunities and challenges offered by this type of software are analyzed and suggestions for implementation are also provided.

Tomorrow's library

The buildings in which we house libraries are like other special purpose structures; the needs they fill are significantly influenced by technology. A prime function of the library building is to house collections (of people, material, and systems) as well as collections of collections (networks). Electronic formats for library material offer new approaches to information service delivery. An example, the information access station, typifies how traditional functions can be reconfigured with respect to space. Flexible design can help ensure that tomorrow's libraries meet the user's needs, but we need to question all our assumptions about building design including those driven by our understanding of the browsing process.

Global Access Information Network Receives Support

Apple Computer has named NYSERNet, Inc. as one of four 1993 “Apple Libraries of Tomorrow” and has given an equipment grant in support of Project GAIN, the Global Access Information Network. NYSERNet has also received $65,000 from the J.M. Kaplan Fund to help fund the Project GAIN initiative.