University of
Oklahoma Libraries
Oklahoma City
Conference
March 4-5, 2010
Summary of
Presentations
Tim J. Watts
Jay Jordan, President and CEO, Online
Computer Library Center, “Climbing Out of the Box and Into the Cloud: Building
Web-Scale for Libraries.”
Libraries
will be able to spend more money and effort on innovation instead of
maintenance by moving to the computing cloud, where applications and data are
stored on the Internet instead of locally. This “web-scale” will increase the
sharing of data and allow more interoperability, giving staff time to be more
innovative. WorldCat Local, from OCLC, is an example of moving into the cloud.
Dennis Dillon, Associate Director for
Research Services, University of Texas, Austin Libraries, “Sacred Longhorns, Ox
Carts, Arranged Marriages, the Ego-Centered User & the Information
Aristocracy.”
Libraries
are full of sacred cows – things we have always done – but economic realities
will force us to give them up. Librarians must change and concentrate on the
users; when people’s expectations, information needs and behaviors change,
libraries must change with them. Delivery of information makes up the supply
chain, and libraries must concentrate on individuals and be hooked into the
supply chain.
Charles Lowry, Executive Director,
Association of Research Libraries, “Year Two of the Depression – North American
Research Libraries in Fiscal Crisis.”
Lowry
reported on how the economic crisis has affected research libraries. Revenue
consists of varying percentages of public funding, tuition, gifts and
endowments, and grants, depending on the type of institution. Last year, most
institutions took cuts in staffing and protected acquisitions. This year, cuts
have been among staff. Even if no further reductions are made, accelerated
changes will result in libraries. These changes include: reduction or
elimination of low-impact areas and services; redefined large-scale strategies
for delivering information, such as institutional repositories and
digitization; and, more multi-institutional collaboration in collection
management.
Joan Giesecke, Dean of Libraries,
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, “Finding the Right Metaphor:
Restructuring, Realigning, and Repackaging: Today’s Research Libraries.”
“Nimble
Dinosaurs” is a metaphor being used for libraries trying to change to meet
today’s needs. Other metaphors have been used in the past and today to help
people see libraries and librarians differently and understand them better. Some
metaphors have been more positive than others. Those used today include the
library as ecosystem and the librarian as scholar/practitioner. No perfect
metaphor for libraries has been found, since we keep changing.
James Neal, Vice President for
Information Services and University Librarian, Columbia University Libraries,
“Collaboration by Cliché: The Radicalization of the Academic Library Commitment
to Cooperation and the ‘Two Cool’ Initiative.”
Libraries
can become terminally extinct or evolve into something else. Innovative, even
radical, strategies for partnership are necessary. Requirements for radical
collaboration include only 2-3 institutions, a sustainable business plan, a
legal framework, governance, risk capital, and competitiveness. Public-private
partnerships, such as Google’s plan to digitize books in public institutions,
are potentially good collaborations, and may also include off-site storage,
scholarly publishing, and data storage and archiving. The 2CUL (Too Cool)
collaboration between Columbia and Cornell has achieved real collaboration.
Initial areas include technical services, collection development, technology
and digital preservation, grants, resource development, and new
services/outsourcing for other libraries.
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