Professor for Library and Information Science,
Fachhochschule Potsdam, Germany
(Paper delivered at the 62nd
Conference of IFLA in Beijing, China)
In his inaugural ALIA (Australian Library and
Information Association) Library Week Oration delivered
1st May 1996 and entitled "Reading the Future",
Anthony Mason, director of the Australian National Library, described
some of the present challenges the libraries are facing. Because
of the technical developments they have to provide computer-based
facilities for all sorts of new "electronic publications"
and "New Media" in addition to maintaining infrastructure
for print material. Since the computer entered the scene, the
new equipment and the special skills required for its use are
characterised by a decreasingly short life-time and the constant
need for additional staff training and re-allocation of limited
resources. Mason then outlines some of the major uncertainties
with which librarians now have to deal with today. There is at
least the technical uncertainty of the long-term reliability of
the new media: nobody really can tell us how long the digitised
material will last. And there is the all overshadowing juridical
uncertainty of the new situation: which material may be distributed
and which electronic text is under special copyright? Mason goes
into detail on this specific question because of the current Australian
discussion. In fact, the crucial aspects of the current change
of the information world are the juridical and ethic questions
referring to copyright, information protection and the re-organisation
of the information distribution channels.
Another major uncertainty for the Library world
is how the users (authors/readers) and the publishing industry
will behave in the future. Will the library survive or will other
players take its role and functions in the new game? By observing the newest developments
in the information and communication industry you may discover
new forms of activities which are able to replace the library
like electronic document delivery services, commercial "Virtual
Libraries" or scientific-community based specialised information
servers.
On the other hand we have already seen the
birth of these "fluid, dynamic documents" (Mason) in
form of HTML-objects which are constantly self-renewing with the
living resources of the Internet and which are deeply questioning
the purpose of the traditional library as confined archives of
finite elements of knowledge formerly called books.
Even worse: you can hear people talking about
"substituting the librarian" by technical devices
such as search engines, information agents or knowbots. Although
Edward Valauskas appeases us by declaring
that "Librarians have been information gatekeepers as long
as records have been gathered and preserved" he shows how
different the job of the future librarian will be after the rise
of the artificial life in the overall connected information world.
The roles which remain for the "human librarian" are
according to him and his colleagues:
You all remember: printing as a new technology
changed mediaeval libraries from those hegemonic institutions
which laid books on chains to public libraries which have the
mission to "spread the books". Will the recent inventions
in information processing and especially in telecommunication
technology continue in this line of development in making the
institution disappear in order to proliferate its content?
You may think that only the latest developments
- which can be described by "Internet" - are questioning
the future of the library. However, it is exactly ten years ago
that almost the same topic was raised at the IFLA conference in
Tokyo. (At the time it was the section on Information Technology
which organised the Open Session.) And it was the provocative
speech by Pat Molholt ("A view from
the chip") which generated a vivid discussion and met with
wide approval. We should try to compare her arguments from ten
years ago with the current situation and ask us if the library
community is now prepared to cope with the developments predicted
at the time.
She also stated that "the invention of
the printing press was a mixed blessing for libraries. (...) So
long as books were expensive artefacts libraries were crucial
to the preservation and transmission of knowledge" but with
electronic abstracting and indexing services the reader no longer
"has to come to the book". Remember that at that time
nearly nobody spoke of "Internet"! Like Anthony Mason
she rose the question of access versus ownership and described
it as a possible solution to the technological evolution of media:
"The farther we get into accepting the principle of access
over acquisition, the easier it will be to incorporate additional
types of information as they become economically viable."
(16) New cost structures (access costs instead of acquisition
costs) and the necessary redistribution of funds was an important
question 1986 in Tokyo as well as 1995 in Istanbul. It is not
the concept of networked and distributed information which is
now at the basis of this discussion but the concept of multimedia
new at the time. It allows, according to Pat Molholt, rather
a subject than medium-based collection policy.
Finally she draws a picture of the new library:
"I envision the library of the not too distant future (...)
as an information support centre." (15) It will be a fast
reacting service which is indifferent to location of information
and to its form. It will have access to a highly indexed body
of information, and will be highly personalised (!). Compared
to computer centres the library is defined especially through
its user friendliness and a high degree of subject expertise.
The central pieces missing 1987 asking for "development work
involving intense co-operation" are:
Please judge yourself whether this intense
co-operative development work has been accomplished since then.
Interestingly enough, she already saw the new role for librarians
in the design, implementation, and maintenance of expert systems
modelling the reference interview (being the librarian's core
knowledge). When she quoted Michael Koenig (member
of our section's standing committee describing the basic skills
of librarians comparable to systems analysts) and re-defined the
librarian as a knowledge engineer, Pat Molholt was almost
not contradicted.
Only Takayasu Miyakawa rose
the question concerning the human factor and asked if librarians
were capable to assume the new roles: "Looking around colleagues
working with us, I have to confess that it is highly unlikely
that the majority of librarians in my generation could become
chips in the novel library expert systems. Librarians are inclined
to be conservative by nature, and usually express hesitancy and
trivial criticism toward such a major change in their jobs."
This is still a very delicate topic addressing the everlasting
question of the image and self-confidence of librarians. But it
points also to another crucial aspect which even underlay this
problem: did library education curricula change as fast as the
technology since 1987? Coming from an educational institution
I must confess: we could have done better. But as Pat Molholt
already put it: "people change slowly" and even more
so administrations. However, there are improvements as for example
in the denomination of library and information schools which sometimes
either drop the term "library" or add "information"
as a new term. But considering the fact that education always
takes effect only several years later, it could be too hesitantly.
Looking back we must generally recognise that
What has been done was mere automation: reflecting
on the new technologies and adapting to the new situation has
never taken place. The result was that other players in the information
business are starting to take over our roles and the ground to
be regained is continually increasing. The library has not to
change just for the sake of changing. It has to adapt to
the user habits which have changed as a result of the new technological
possibilities. For this reason it has become more important than
ever to reconsider some basic notions of librarianship like
I hope the discussion in this year's open session
will create new ideas on these points and will provide the same
visionary insights as the meeting ten years ago. Perhaps we can
look back in another ten years time to complain again that we
have known the development but could not react appropriately in
time.
References:
Hobohm, Hans-Christoph: Entering the New Market Place: on the Role of Traditional Social Science Information Providers within the Internet Community. IFLA Journal, 21 (1995), S. 26-30
Koenig, Michael: Librarians: The Untapped Resource. Datamation, 1983, pp. 243-244
("Librarians being able to:
Line, Maurice B.: Access versus Ownership: How Real an Alternative Is It? IFLA Journal, 22 (1996), pp. 35-41
Mason, Anthony: "Reading the Future".
Inaugural "Australian Library and Information Association"
(ALIA) Library Week Oration delivered at the State Library of
New South Wales, 1st May 1996
(available at: http://www.nla.gov.au/nla/staffpaper/mason.html)
Miyakawa, Takayasu: Response to pat Molholt's paper on "A View from the Chip" An Economist's View. IFLA Journal, 13 (1987), pp. 23-25
Molholt, Pat: A View form the Chip: The Influence of Information Technologies on Libraries and Librarianship, IFLA Journal, 13 (1987), pp. 14-22
Nardi, Bonnie A.; O'Day, Vicki; Valauskas, Edward J.: Rotwang's Children: Information Ecology and the Internet. Paper presented at the 20th Annual Conference of the German Society for Classification, Freiburg, March, 6th - 8th 1996 (proceedings forthcoming: Heidelberg et al.: Springer)