The Future of the Academic Library

With the summer 1999 issue of The Olive Tree, we began a tradition of guest essays on topics of interest to library Friends and users. We would like to thank everyone who contributed to our first topic, Tradition and Technology: The Future of Books in a Digital World. 

With this issue we begin a new series of essays. Our topic is The Future of the Academic Library. Our first essay was written by Sean Ociepka, who worked as an intern in the Friends office as part of ENG 496: Field Experience in Professional Writing. He is a senior English major at The University of Maine. The information was gathered from an interview with Jim Bird, Head of Fogler’s Science and Engineering Center, who has conducted extensive research in this field. Ociepka’s article introduces the subject by discussing some of the current thinking on this topic.

The academic library is an ever-changing entity, morphing and re-shaping itself to support the needs of the University community. Jorge Luis Borges once envisioned a "Library of Babel," which contained every possible book with every possible permutation of words. The library building was infinitely large and contained all texts that had been or ever would be written; however, most of the writing was unintelligible and incomprehensible. Among the large percentage of nonsense, though, existed King Lear and Crime and Punishment. Today this fantasy seems a little more real than it was when Borges imagined it, but instead of an infinitely large building we have "cyberspace," the digital Library of Babel. How the physical library and digital resources work together is perhaps the biggest issue facing academic libraries today.

The Library of the Future Task Force at the University of Calgary states, "Over the next 5 to 10 years the library will be conceptually less about place and more about service." There are many indications that the library building of the future will be smaller. First, as resources become more decentralized, there is less of a need to have all material confined to one specific place, which will create different satellite functions, located outside the library. Second, remote storage will become increasingly important for holding little-used paper resources. Nevertheless, as these situations decrease the need for space in the library, more space will be needed to support other services. Helen King, of La Trobe University, sees the need for more "flexible learning spaces equipped with network access capability for group study and project work." 

As library resources move toward the Internet, the audience of users becomes larger, more diverse, and harder to define. It becomes difficult to pinpoint such things as individual information needs and how information is being used. These factors make it important to continue assessment and analysis of user feedback. Dr. Ross Todd, of the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, states, "The development of the ‘digital library’ or ‘virtual library,’ particularly with its emphasis on web-based connectivity and interactivity, has created an information environment that is complex and fluid, connective and interactive, and diverse and unpredictable." From this unpredictable Internet, new resources, such as electronic journals and online databases, are appearing almost daily. With all of the different formats now available or becoming available, it is important to understand which collections to build and how users will access those collections. In his article, Academic libraries in a digital age,  John V. Lombardi notes, "[Libraries] will buy fewer materials. No one will care what volume of material each library owns, only what volume of materials each library’s clients can access." 

Some researchers, such as Nicholson Baker, argue that libraries have too often thrown out books and newspapers once they have obtained microfilmed or digitized copies. In an interview with Jeffrey R. Young in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Baker says, "The job of the research library is to keep the stuff that people read. And that’s a very simple task... If next Tuesday everything was published electronically, the research library would have the job of keeping the stuff that people read, because people are always going to read... We’re always going to have shelves full of books because it would be monumentally expensive to scan those things." Baker compares the rush toward digital technology to the initial reaction to microfilm. He maintains that these materials should not be "substitutional," but supplemental. 

With the drastic increase in the amount of online information, the librarian’s role as educator and teacher will become more important. One goal of information literacy is user self-sufficiency. Chris Miko, of Bowling Green State University, says, "It’s not providing the information. It’s providing the service to help people find the right stuff." People seek out librarians because they are viewed as reliable sources of information. In order to ensure continued reliability, librarians need to educate users on how to sift through the endless stream of electronic information to find reputable data. Along with guiding users to this type of information, the librarian must also work to dispel the myths about electronic information. Many users believe that all information is online, all information is free, and all information online is easy to find. Education about online resources is the only way to clear up these misconceptions. The librarian will play a significant part in working with faculty and campus tech staff to facilitate information use. The academic library of the future may merge with computer departments to become a part of the university IT.

The digital Library of Babel is not yet a reality. But why settle for Borges’ library when there is a better option? The digital world contains a lot of useless information, but also much of value. Librarians will know (as they have for ages) where to guide patrons in order to find King Lear and Crime and Punishment. In the future, will this guidance come more in the form of a hyperlink than a walk through the stacks?