Interview
1.
What are the major changes that have occurred in libraries in the
21st century?
The
big changes that have taken place in the past ten years have been
related to technology and the big changes are related to the digitization
of information, of sources of resources and the sources that are
traditional library sources- particularly periodicals, journal articles,
proceedings, and even some monographs are now available in digitized
form and that changes the library considerably. The access to the
Internet and all of the other information on the Internet changes
the way people perceive the library. So those two aspects of technology
have had a tremendous impact on our profession.
2.
What are the benefits of these changes?
The
benefits are that it provides more access for more people. People
can access resources from a variety of different areas, their own
home, their office where formerly they would have to go to a library
to actually get access to materials. And that's a big benefit it
provides people with a lot more access.
3.
What are the challenges that librarians must face as a result of
these changes?
There
are so many challenges. It's really interesting to hear the people
talk next door who are at Alexander Library and to watch them work
over the years and watch how their work has shifted. All of the
basic challenges of providing a collection and access to a collection
are still there but there are different issues due to technology.
In a prior age, there was a definite confined collection and a librarian
would think about what would go into that collection, would select
that collection. Now the challenge is that all that material is
digitized. What is really in that collection and what is provided
by access? There is access provided in that particular library but
it's not really part of that collection. The kinds of issues blur.
The challenges are tremendous in just the organizer role, managing,
selecting and providing access. Then there are also the issues of
people's perception of what the library does and what they can do
on their own. What is the role of the professional librarian? That
is a change and challenge for librarianship, not to lose our tradition
but to be able to move into this new environment.
4. What problems result from increased technology in libraries?
How does this technology create more uncertainty on the part of
users?
There's
the other side of this pervasive access and that's how do you select
the materials that will be useful to you? It is important to be
able to provide those services to people and to articulate those
services so people perceive that the library can enable them to
develop meaning-making in the face of the overload of information.
I think I've talked about some of the problems with organizing and
providing that collection in the development and management role.
There's also the other side of the tremendous amount of information
that people have available and then what do they do with that, and
the problem that people think that searching is easy. People can't
get to the information they need because they don't have the keyword
or the concept of how you search this particular source and so there's
the user education and user assistance problem.
The
issue of uncertainty is interesting. There's the uncertainty relating
to what resources are available and how many resources I can access.
The other sense of uncertainty initiates information seeking and
that uncertainty is what begins a creative project. With the amount
of information it's easy to get into an information overload situation--getting
so much information that it kind of blocks people out. It's easy
for someone to get overloaded early on when they're trying to get
an understanding of what this problem is about. The problem of uncertainty
in the information search process has become more critical due to
technology.
5.
In the final chapter of Seeking
Meaning, you assert that in order for librarians to continue
valuable library service in the 21st century they need to develop
"new roles." What are these new roles?
I see
these roles as in the process of being developed and I don't see
myself as having all the answers. As a profession we have some things
we have to look at together and explore. What I tried to do in Seeking
Meaning is to look at the roles of librarians in traditional
ways and within these new environments and tried to explain them
on different levels. So librarians organize and provide a collection,
then orient people to what the collection is about and orient them
to one particular source or a group of sources. But the area that
is most critical it the one that promotes information seeking to
achieve a task. I see librarians needing to get more understanding
of what people are trying to do with the information without being
intrusive but by being helpful. They must try to understand the
tasks that the person is trying to accomplish. I see that as a key
role of librarianship in the 21st century. More of a personalized
service, yet how do you do that? That's the dilemma.
6.
How do the new roles improve library users' learning experiences?
If
you look at information seeking as a learning experience, librarians
play a key role in that information seeking process. People can't
really move ahead in this learning process. People expect to be
able to get a quick and easy answer and they find that they can't
make sense of this mass of information. A personalized information
role for the information specialist is to find the zone of intervention,
where people are having a great deal of problem moving ahead and
they think they're doing something wrong. The librarian needs to
understand where they are and the different kinds of information
they need at different points in the process and guide them through
the process.
7. Why are user-centered services becoming more necessary in libraries?
Because
people have access to information in their workplace and at home
with the Internet, the library becomes the one place they can go
and get some help with process. I think this is an important role
for the library. People have to be educated to understand that the
library has this role and can help them in this process. Reference
can enable people to work through this massive information to accomplish
a task. I see developing user centered services that go beyond directing
people to sources, although that is extremely important, and is
the basis of our work. These will also enable people to work through
the sources to accomplish a task, develop a new understanding.
8.
Do you believe that this trend of increased user-centered services
is harmful in any way? Why or why not?
It
could be intrusive. It could be getting into someone's work. It
may be annoying. I think it's a very delicate high professional
work that librarianship moves into-- an area that requires a lot
of finesse, intuition, tact, knowing when that intervention is important
and when it isn't important. It's a matter of expertise, a matter
of experience, being aware in this process and being able to hear
the signs when it's time to step in and give someone some help and
when it's time to leave people to their own devises, their own thinking,
their own mulling.
9.
Do you think too much user-centered services can make people less
independent?
I don't
think that. It may be something that we might think would happen.
It's not a service that tells people I can do that for you, it's
a service that lets a person know that if you're getting stuck,
I have some strategies that might help you to work through these
sources. I think that kind of service would help people, be useful
and is extremely important.
10.
What services do you foresee librarians providing to users in the
future? What will librarians do differently in five to ten years?
It
is always the role of the library to provide organized information
and access to that information. I see the library as providing the
collection, even if it's a digitized collection, and providing ways
to access all the digitized materials. Libraries need to go beyond
the institution, they must expand upon those basic principles and
ideas to enable people to organize information. I also see librarians
more involved in the tasks that people are attempting to accomplish
and having a better understanding of the difficulty that people
have in accomplishing those tasks with the information resources.
I would see us building on our basic knowledge and traditions in
organization and ethics of fields, in copyright and intellectual
freedom- all those areas we developed. I see those expanding because
all of those are basic issues in our society today. I see librarianship
moving to help people do creative and innovative work and use information
effectively in their lives.
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