Perception Gap -- Librarians and Scholars
Ladybird clambering via Flickr, Creative Commons license
Roger Schonfeld and Ross Housewright examined the relationship between libraries and the faculty at institutions of all sizes. They uncovered trends in how scholars are perceiving libraries and a big gap in perception between what collections librarians and scholars, including humanities researchers.
Roger and Ross state in the introduction to to their report (PDF) that
To succeed in the internet age, libraries must be aware of which traditional roles are no longer needed and which potential roles would be valued, and strategically shift their service offerings to maximize their value to local users. We hope that this document, describing the findings of two large scale surveys conducted in 2006, will help librarians and others interested in scholarship in the digital world think about these changing needs and prompt consideration of how to best serve faculty in a rapidly changing world. [My emphasis] -- Ithaka’s 2006 Studies of Key Stakeholders in the Digital Transformation in Higher Education, August 18, 2008, p. 5
Some key takeaways to ponder. Let's look at some of the good news first.
On the positive side, the vast majority of faculty view the role that librarians play as just as important as it has been in the past. ... (60% of faculty at very large institutions see the librarians’ role as just as important as it was in the past, compared to 70% of faculty overall) p.6
But there are real differences by discipline and subdiscipline.
The researchers looked at three roles that libraries play over time to discover trends and what importance is attached to playing these roles: purchaser, archive and gateway.
Purchaser was universally high. Preservation is mostly stable but dropping for some disciplines. The role of gateway has decreased across the board and most significantly among scientists.
The Perception Gap
The declining importance of this role to faculty stands in stark contrast to the perceptions of librarians, as shown by our 2006 librarian survey. Although the importance of the library’s role as a gateway to faculty is decreasing, rather dramatically in certain fields, over 90% of librarians list this role as very important ...and almost as many – only 5 percentage points less – expect it to remain very important in 5 years. Obviously there is a mismatch in perception here. p. 7
Beth Jefferson, founder of BiblioCommons,reported on a study library customers and their perceptions of library web sites at Ontario Library Association Conference in 2006 and showed that public library users were usually discovering materials and books on sites other the library, such as Amazon and then coming to the library as a cheap fulfillment mechanism. Amanda Etches-Johnson posted notes from this conference presentation.
As library professionals we need to mind this gap and consider carefully what strategies we pursue. Beth Jefferson decided to try to close this gap by dramatically improving the discovery of resources on the library sites by creating a new product that tapped into social recommendations and better discovery system. They initially targeted public libraries but it is expanding to academic libraries.
The last two year's have seen many libraries rolling out new OPAC products and federated search. Given that in 2006, the time period of the last data collection, our users were already seeing less value in libraries as gateways are we making a difference or have our major investments been for not? I know from anecdotal evidence from usability testing sessions that our role as "the gateway" has diminished over the last 10 years.
Even as libraries plan to adapt, faculty expect to grow even less dependent on the library than they already are. This is the case across disciplinary groupings, although humanities scholars expect to maintain a greater dependence on the library than do social scientists, and both foresee a greater level of sustained dependence than do scientists. p. 7
Often what we depend on, we value (or resent). How do libraries retain their value in an age of disintermediation and declining dependence? How do we make "freedom" of choice/discovery a high value? How do libraries rule for our customers in 2008? Think about Zappos shoes and how they totally rock for their customers. Look at Zappo's feedback on Yelp. How does your library feedback look?
One library director that I spoke to recently said they are training all of their staff to provide personalized service - to do the extras, to go beyond the basic, to delight.
In their conclusion the analysts suggest that
This period of transition poses serious questions about the future roles of the library. Information – the historic province of the library – is the focus of more attention than ever before, and yet the profile and relevance of the library is in decline. There are a number of possible futures for the academic library, and strategic thought and change is needed to ensure that we move into a world in which the library continues to play an important role in the intellectual life of the campus. The library exists to serve the needs of its campus; a clear understanding of these needs will allow the library to maximize its value to its constituency, both improving its own stature locally as well as facilitating scholarship, teaching, and learning among its community. p. 34 [my emphasis]
Tags: computing | faculty| future | higher education | libraries | librarian | scholar
