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LIBRARIES
IN A NETWORKED TEXAS
The
following summary is based on research conducted by Dr. Philip Doty,
Ph.D.* Associate Director, TIPI.
Libraries
have been an important part of the educational, social, and political
infrastructure of Texas for many decades. Public libraries, in particular,
have played a number of important roles in securing the well being
of the citizens of Texas. The convergence of computing and telecommunications
offers libraries and other nonprofit institutions new opportunities
to serve their constituencies; it also offers new challenges.
The Internet and the WorldWideWeb are especially important in this
convergence, and the goal of this policy brief is to explore a vision
of libraries in a networked Texas. This vision goes beyond libraries
as simple information providers, building upon existing roles of
libraries in print media and envisioning new roles for them as well.
Such a vision also gives rise to important policy issues and implications.
Old
Roles
There are approximately 237 public, 108 academic (post-secondary),
60 special, 6 governmental, and an unknown number of school (K-12)
libraries in Texas. Libraries of all kinds are not simply centers
for getting information. Depending upon their missions and home
institutions, they are many things: for example, they are important
in adult continuing education ("the people's university"), the site
of important educational and research activity, a place for business
information, a center for economic development and advice, a site
for political empowerment and involvement, a place to get advice
about the provision of government services, and a safe place for
children to do homework. Libraries are also centers for community
meetings, political activism, literacy training, parenting classes,
and entertainment and performances.
Old Roles Continued in New Contexts
In addition to the roles noted above, libraries offer at least three
kinds of mediation between users and information: transactional,
intellectual, and social. Transactional mediation takes place when
a librarian works directly with a client face-to-face or electronically.
Examples include offering help with a reference question, advice
about how to use the file transfer protocol, or support in the use
of an electronic interface. Intellectual mediation involves the
organization, description, and distribution of information, e.g.,
by writing abstracts, indexing, developing and using controlled
vocabularies (e.g., Library of Congress Subject Headings), designing
databases and Web pages, and retrieving information. The third major
kind of mediation is social: finding, identifying, and distributing
information that is reliable, authenticated, and of high quality,
in other words, playing the gate-keeping role. These three kinds
of mediation are not mutually exclusive -- rather, they reinforce
each other.
While many commentators believe that the use of electronic information
will lead to end users' becoming completely self-sufficient, such
a belief is not supportable. In fact, the proliferation of digital
information services and products requires more mediation, not less.
The hybrid information environment is disorganized, chaotic, and
uncontrolled -- users need guidance and advice on how to find information
and, more importantly, how to evaluate it. Systems are paradoxically
more complex and more transparent. This ambivalence requires persons
who can help users, no matter what their technical and topical expertise,
when things go wrong. Troubleshooting and individual counseling
is perhaps the most important service that libraries and librarians
can offer the increasingly independent end user.
New Roles
While general and specific old roles continue in the electronic
environment, there are new roles that the library and librarian
can and should play. Because of their training and experience, librarians
already are playing such roles.
Design of user interfaces Libraries are well-equipped to
help system designers understand the psychology and social context
of information seeking and use. Libraries are good laboratories
to explore the heterogeneous nature of information use and to identify
important components in the use of interfaces by real people facing
real information problems.
Design of user agents Many assert that individual, intelligent
agents are the answer to the complexity and disorganization of the
Internet. While that assertion is debatable, what is clear is that
most users cannot and will not design agents of their own. Instead,
they will rely on existing agents or need help in the design of
agents for a particular task or set of tasks. Librarians already
do such counseling and design, both for individuals and for groups.
Negotiating licensing agreements As information technologies
pose new challenges to the existing copyright and other intellectual
property regimes in the U.S. and internationally, libraries are
in the forefront of determining how it is that intellectual property
can be shared legally. Libraries can also be a center for helping
individuals negotiate display, reproduction, and usage rights with
rightsholders. By doing so, libraries protect the interests of rightsholders
as well as those of users.
Negotiating telecommunication costs A favorable rate for
telecommunications is important in the networked world, yet it is
often extremely difficult for individuals to secure such a rate.
Libraries and their home institutions can aggregate individual demand
for telecommunications services and negotiate lower rates for users
of such services in or through the library.
Serving local information to the world Libraries increasingly
develop electronic information locally and distribute it worldwide.
Such information includes library catalogues, genealogical sources,
unique local sources, business information, names and contact information
for governmental and other services (often called Information and
Referral services), cultural and performing arts information, and
so on.
Technical consultant Librarians can provide technical expertise
on an occasional or continuing basis to nonprofit and for-profit
organizations. This kind of cooperation is essential to the success
of distributed computing and leverages existing expertise and relationships.
Training users As technologies appear and are surpassed,
libraries are essential to the continual education of users, especially
the information and financial have-nots. While such support is critical
to the success of information technologies, library training of
all comers, in fact, has a ripple effect across a community. Technological
literacy in one context is often transferable, with modification,
to other contexts; thus, library training reaps benefits at work,
school, and elsewhere.
Providing access to information, software, and hardware Individuals
with financial and other limitations on their acquisition and use
of telecommunications equipment often have nowhere to go but to
the library. A socially responsible institution with the knowledge
of telecommunications and the dedication to the public interest
in information is key to achieving the democratic ideal of informed
participation in the political process and the economic ideal of
highly skilled and motivated workers. The library is that institution.
Research shows that "alternative points of access" such as libraries,
museums, and other civic organizations are how growing numbers of
users get access to the Internet.
Center for economic development While the library is already
an important place for economic information, telecommunications
offers new roles here as well. The library can broker relationships
between information generators, distributors, and users that were
impossible to imagine even a few years ago. The library can maintain
databases, listservs, and contact information of entrepreneurial
ideas, people involved in developing those ideas, and people interested
in businesses that specialize in such ideas. Given their experience
with library records, libraries have developed internal methods
to protect confidential information while still making it available
to appropriate parties.
Conclusion
The library as we know it is only about 125 years old, yet it has
a history of dedication to all members of society and a record of
achievement of important intellectual, cultural, social, and political
ideals. New roles are continuously invented for this institution,
and now new policies and sources of support are needed to maximize
libraries' potential in the networked environment.
Among the major policy issues that the networked library faces is
how to distribute personnel, equipment, and time to support remote
as opposed to local users. While there are many political and sometimes
financial advantages to having a wider presence online, there is
little new money to support such efforts. Interlibrary Loan has
been an important part of library service, but computer networks
far exceed support heretofore made available to remote users.
Two closely intertwined policy issues in the networked library are
privacy and freedom of expression. How can the library and other
institutions protect the privacy of individual users? Especially
important are protections of transaction-generated information (TGI),
the trail left as users search files, display Web pages, and purchase
goods and services online. The library's tradition of protecting
clients' records directly conflicts with the keeping of such electronic
records and with the commodity value of such information.
Privacy overlaps with concern about freedom of expression and access
to information considered "indecent" or otherwise inappropriate.
How should the library limit, maximize, or otherwise determine clients'
ability to access online information? How does the library play
such a role without compromising clients' privacy and freedom of
expression and association? How do different kinds of libraries
answer these questions?
These and other issues, such as copyright conflicts, cannot be addressed
easily or quickly. At the same time, however, it is clear that the
library is an important place for exploring and offering answers
to information policy questions.
One important component of libraries of all kinds has been their
designation as public spaces. They are comfortable, quiet, safe,
without pressure to buy. As we see increased competition and conglomeration
in computing and telecommunications and as information grows more
valuable as an economic commodity, we need the library even more.
There the important business of the community, whether real or virtual,
local or remote, economic or cultural, can take place. There those
with the desire and talent can create knowledge, not just consume
it; they can take part in the national conversation, not just listen
to it. There our cultural legacy is conserved, and, through the
training and support of clients, the library helps recreate that
legacy. The library also serves as a counterbalance to the powerful
governmental and commercial actors in information. Librarians of
all kinds have been a strong voice for the public interest in information.
Digital technologies and the important policy conflicts about them
underscore the continued importance of this role.
Whether we invoke the political and economic visions of the National
Information Infrastructure, the commercial visions of the telecommunications
and computing industries, or the social visions of community organizers,
the library is key to the realization of such visions. The modern
library is a place where competing ideas have been welcome, where
vital skills have been taught, and where significant cultural and
educational goals have been articulated and supported.
The Internet and other information technologies offer us new ways
to realize our visions of community using the library. What remains
to be seen is what we make of the opportunity.
Acknowledgement
* Many thanks to Jane Fleming, Greg Coleman, Sanda Erdelez, and
Sharon Strover for their contributions to this policy brief.
For
more information contact:
SHARON
STROVER, DIRECTOR sstrover@mail.utexas.edu
(512-471-6667)
PHIL DOTY, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR pdoty@uts.cc.utexas.edu
(512-471-3821)
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