What I appreciate about Stanley's take on the Future of Libraries is that it's not about specific solutions, but about relationships and processes.
Two paths forward
an edited version of Stanley Wilder’s candidate speech for the
Dean of Libraries position at Louisiana State University
March 30, 2014
Images by Maggie Ngo, UNCC
Here
are some things I hear: Everything I need to know is on Google. I’m a faculty
member and I don’t use the library. I’m a senior in college and I’ve never been
in the library. I’m a senior in college and still use my hometown public
library. Hasn’t the Internet made libraries obsolete? I don’t need a library. I
don’t read books. Information wants to be free. Librarians are scary people and
I don’t trust book stacks!
Every
one of these comments is easily and demonstrably wrong, and at the same time,
each one is a gift of the first
order. Each one is the gift of attention,
an invitation for us to explain who we are and why we’re here. We librarians ask
for nothing more.
Oh, we get where these questions come from: In
an age of dizzying change in the nature of academic work, and the shifting
shape of the discourse that drives it forward, where should the library go from
here? As I see it, the library has two paths forward, and I submit this vision
as my response to the prompt you’ve given me.
The
first path for the research library is its traditional role. A crucial aspect of
the nature of learning and research is timeless, absolutely so. In this sense, if you want to know what research
library will do in the future, well the answer is that it will do what it has always done.
If
you’ll bear with me, I’ve drawn a picture of what I mean.
This is
the scholarly record. It is the record of what is known or imagined about the
world. Teaching and research consists of assimilating
the scholarly record as it pertains to the disciplines we study, in such a way
as to enable us to synthesize something new. In the case of faculty, this
synthesis is the creation of new knowledge or new art that adds to the
scholarly record, where the cycle starts over. This picture applies to students
as well, wherein the syntheses they produce often take the form of apprenticeships
for the work their faculty do.
Assimilation,
synthesis, reading, writing. Here is teaching, learning, and research, as an
endless, virtuous cycle around the scholarly record.
I
worked for a great Dean of Libraries who came up with the beautiful aphorism:
“A
library is a place where readers come to write, and writers come to read. “
I say
YES to that: the core function of a research library is now and always will be to
build the collections that drive this cycle. Of course it’s not enough to simply
build collections, the library also has to facilitate how people interact, at
both ends. For example, teaching generations of new students how to work with the
literatures of their chosen disciplines. But really, all library services can be characterized in this
way. They cluster at these transition points, here and here.
And
with that, I’m going to stop myself because I promise you, I could go much further with this silly drawing. My
point is this: the idea of the library
is so embedded in the fundamental nature of learning and research that it makes
no sense to ask whether you need one.
The real question before us is whether you need a great library.
That,
then, is my first path. Everything about it relates to the “what” of academic
work, what it is fundamentally, what it intends to do in the world.
And
yet, at this very same changeless moment, we are now in a period of full-scale revolution in how academic work getsdone. Students and faculty alike are using new tools, in new ways, to produce scholarship
in forms that were unimaginable just ten years ago. I used the word “dizzying”
a while ago, and I meant it: in this environment, uncertainty abounds.
But
here’s one thing I am sure of, and if
you retain nothing else from this presentation, please let it be this: this new
environment is going to allow smart research libraries to perform that ancient
role in ways that produce spectacular new
value. This is the library’s second path: embracing, inventing the future so as
to do better what we have always done.
Like
what, for example. There are so many opportunities that really, our problem is
choosing from among them. I’m going to just call out some, a simple list of
examples that… illustrate my point, obviously, but I’ve also taken care to
choose examples that I have experience with helping produce.
Every
item on this list is now or should be a new part of a research library
portfolio. What’s more, each one relates directly to issues that faculty and
institutions are wrestling with right now. In many cases, they are wrestling, but not knowing that what
their library has to offer. There’s nothing dismissive or condescending about
it, they just don’t know.
Ladies
and Gentlemen: the biggest threat to research libraries is low expectations. Sometimes they come in thoughtlessly dismissive ways,
“Aren’t libraries obsolete?” But just as often, low expectations feel warm and
fuzzy, filled with nostalgia for a world that no longer exists. To my ears,
both are equally toxic.
So no,
our communities can’t be expected to
just know enough, say, about the dangerous
instability in the scholarly communication marketplace to understand the
importance of open access, or any of the other ways we librarians can make
things better. No, we have to tell
them, and we have to show them.
I think
constantly about how the library positions itself vis-à-vis students and
faculty. Imagine a continuum. At one end is library as simple service provider,
and on the other end is library as full partner, contributing in a substantive
fashion to any campus conversation relating to the institution’s core academic
mission. Yes services are crucially
important. But make no mistake: real sustainable relevance on campus requires assertiveness, it requires visibility.Everything on this list is an invitation to do just that.
I have
one more thing that I must say about the list. The work required for each is
grounded, in one way or another, in traditional research library values and
expertise. At the same time, every one of them is situated in an entirely new context. I feel a real sense of urgency
on this point: this list is turf, and
it is ours for the taking. But doing so means that as a profession, as a
library, we must recognize that producing the transformational outcomes that
are possible here also requires new
skills that we must either learn for ourselves, or hire into our organizations.
This is not a phase, it’s the new normal.
Let’s talk about students. The library’s student
role is large and diverse, as it always has been, but here again we find watershed
developments all around us, and once again, the new opportunities that come
with.
Half of
a research library’s student function is pedagogy. Instruction. The thing we do here is to increase the
sophistication of students in interacting with the literatures of their chosen
disciplines. Fine, but as you see from the list on the screen, that pedagogy isn’t
just situated in terms of discipline, it’s also situated in a broad range of
learning environments, which makes it subject to the same seismic change that
is shaking teaching throughout higher education.
A quick
story to illustrate: Recently, the head of our instruction programming discovered
that faculty are very receptive to hearing about ways they can pare back on research
paper assignments, in cases where doing so allows them to focus attention on
the topic-choosing, question-framing, literature searching, basic-synthesis-forming
skills. Library instruction can help with all
of that, and this librarian and her staff have created web-based,
interactive, and discipline-specific instruction modules that support that use
case. And now Stephanie Otis has
a fine trade in advising faculty with their course design.
That’s a
small but significant example of what I mean by proper positioning of the library on campus. Stephanie puts us exactly where we want to be.
The
second half of our student function is building-related, the spaces we provide
for student academic work. I have a missionary’s
zeal as to the following idea: research libraries can be instrumental in building the culture of study on campus. There is a powerful synergy here that only we can offer: the co-location
of librarians with collections, and technologies, placed in appropriate spaces,with appropriate furnishings, long hours, and reliable security. No one else
can do that!
I like
to say that a good research library should be like a zoo. As you pass through it,you will see students in the very act of learning:chemistry equations here, Chinese vocabulary there, marketing, biology and all the rest, live and happening right before your eyes. You can even point at
them, you can throw popcorn, they
don’t mind, but the thing you’d be pointing
at is the thing we all work every day to produce, it’s our professional reason
for being. If you don’t walk through that zoo and feel energized, I suggest you
may want to find another line of work. I would have all students socialized in
this way, to where those zoos are just normal: long hours of intense group or
individual study?
The
title I’ve used for this section is “the world,” as shorthand for a whole range
of externally-focused responsibilities that take the library far beyond the scholarly
record drawing I talked about earlier. I might also have used the word “leadership.”
I’ve
got a bit of show and tell to do for you now, a bit of bragging, maybe, but my
intention is to give you a feel for this vision in action.
My
story begins this time last year, at UNC Charlotte. Our library was presented
with an exceedingly generous bit of one-time money in a more or less blank
check fashion. At that moment in time, a number of very prestigious University
Press book publishers suddenly made their current lists available, as a package,
and in digital format. No limits on simultaneous users, no digital rights
restrictions, and good preservation characteristics.
We
jumped, bought everything of this sort that we could. We added 75,000 monograph
titles last year, average price per ebook volume: about $10.
By
June, everything’s in place, the community has full access to these books.
Now,
our staff looked at those titles and recognized that there were many among them
that were going to be assigned reading for students in the fall. If we could
get the word out to faculty and students, we could save students lots of money.
With
this insight, our staff flew into action, and just in time for fall semester, produced
this web page, complete with links
to the ebooks. They also prepared a social media campaign to alert students
and faculty. Here’s what we learned: if you use Twitter and Facebook to spread
the word about free textbooks? Get out! In a PR sense, nothing we’ve ever done
has been so successful, so fast.
So fall
semester follows, and the use data on these new ebook packages starts to roll
in. Friends, I’m here to say: the scholarly monograph is NOT dead, its use in
ebook format is fantastic. Quick example: we have a huge investment in Springer
journals and ebooks: our book chapter downloads, from day 1, run slightly ahead
of Springer article downloads. Sure,
this is a bit of apples and oranges, but on the face of it, it flies against
every instinct a research librarian could ever have. Kinda mind blowing.
Spring
semester comes, and this time we have had more time, we’re better prepared, and
come up with this web page, and associated PR. The results have been stunning,
faculty and students alike galvanized
around our initiative, we know of a history professor teaching graduate classes for which the students
have heavy reading lists, but no books they must buy.
Now
we’re up to 4 weeks ago, our staff unveiled their own invention, a database that faculty can
use to “shop” for ebooks appropriate for assigning for classes. The
database consists of 140,000 titles, every ebook we own, plus every ebook we
can get easily get from one of about a dozen University Presses. As you can see, if you’re a faculty member,
see something you want to use for class, we buy it immediately if we don’t
already own it.
Now
class, let’s review: this anecdote gives us a shiny example of both paths: path
number 1: exactly what is new about a research library buying books to support
curriculum and research? And then once we’ve got them, what is new about making
those books available for class use? It’s reserves! OK, there’s our ancient function, but we’ve
also got path number 2: everything about how
we did all this is new, not just new, it provides brilliant new value that
wasn’t possible before.
One
last point about that anecdote: I ask you: did the University ask the library
to invent a program like this so as to lower the cost of going to college? Because
that’s exactly what’s at stake here. NO!
They couldn’t have, they couldn’t have known to ask! I talked about low expectations
awhile back: sometimes low expectations flow from folks just not knowing what
we’re capable of. But I can promise you, people will listen, and they’ll certainly notice.
At this
point our staff are fielding queries from all around the country, folks wanting
the code, wanting to see how we did every aspect of this. Meanwhile, back on
campus, our entire community looks at the library in a different, and better
way.
Here
again, a well positioned library.
I should
pause here to give full credit: the vision behind this anecdote owes entirely
to Chuck Hamaker.
Once Chuck had this idea, he had inspired help from a large number of staff
across units. Oh, and here’s another point: my role in this project? I
supported it. Nothing more than that!
Seeing
your library also means seeing its staff. Committed professionals every single
one, they possess a spectacular range of expertise.
And
yet, like the books on the shelves, these people in front of us also evoke the
generations of staff that preceded them.
I’d
like to tell you a story from my early days at LSU. So early that I was still
scrambling to remember the names of my new colleagues. One day a meeting. We
were discussing the consequences of a decision made by a staff member, and,
wishing to contribute, I suggested that I could meet with her to negotiate. Which
prompted whoops of laughter: this person had retired sometime in the 1960s, and
had long since passed.
What an
epiphany in that moment, though: such a testament to the enduring quality of
our work. We can only conclude that we did
not build this thing. It was handed to us as a trust, a sacred trust, that
through our brains and hard work, we
ensure its renewal, and then hand it over in our turn. Stronger than before.