Revolutions of Rising Expectations

I just finished reading an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled, "Struggling to keep up" (thanks Colleen). Basically it was about the digital divide in academia. There was always a resource disparity between well funded elite universities and colleges and the rest of us. Scholars and students of my generation expected to have to travel to distant libraries in order to access rare material. Interlibrary loan was a tedious process of searching through what seemed to be miles of the National Union Catalog and waiting weeks for the material if you were lucky enough to find something. Now it would seem, the same scenario is being played out by scholars across the country looking for proprietary digital resources. People are less tolerant of this situation than they were in the past. The false sense of information ubiquity at no cost makes us chafe at the thought that others have access to material we can't get to. Undergraduates seem satisfied with the resources they pay tuition dollars for. It is our researchers and scholars who are becoming more and more dissatisfied with this state of affairs.

Within the University of Wisconsin System we are trying to find ways to address the digital divide between the comprehensive universities and our large research institutions. Currently the System libraries are looking at ways to provide document delivery for articles from high priced journals that our faculty need to support their research. Here at UW - Eau Claire this research takes on added importance because so much of it is predicated on faculty - undergraduate collaboration. As new faculty come to our university, having experienced the wealth of resources available at their post-graduate institutions, they are expecting more from us. We need to work together to find ways to satisfy those expectations.

Libraries in the Contact Zone

Yesterday I read a couple of articles that I thought were really interesting. It started with the ACRL Blog, “Welcome to the contact zone.” That lead me to a short editorial,” Reference, Cultural Values, and the Contact Zone,” and it appears in Reference Librarian Vol. 47, No. 2 for 2007 . We have it in a print subscription on the second floor. A comment on the blog also references and article by Jim Elmborg from last year in RUSQ, “Libraries in the Contact Zone: Creating an Educational Space” and of course the presentation by Mary Louise Pratt, “Arts in the Contact Zone” that started it all.

In very simplistic terms Pratt spoke about the cross-cultural interaction between dominant and client cultures as represented by the story of a manuscript written in 1613 to the King of Spain telling him how to justly rule the colonies. She interwove the story of the manuscript and her son’s interaction with the elementary education system. Both of these stories dealt with the “zone” that was created by the the complex interaction between the two cultures as they came into contact. In both interactions there was a dominant and subordinate culture. Contact zone theory has a variety of implications for libraries. The main implication that I brought away from the articles was that we often look at our students through our world view not theirs. We expect them to learn our systems. We expect them to thirst for the knowledge that can be gained by a complex research project and not just want to get through it with as little effort as possible. Contact zone theory takes on even greater implications when librarians interact with students from diverse cultures. Read the articles, they explain it much better. I especially recommend the Elmborg article. He never fails to help me think more deeply about art of library science.

Strategic Planning at Eau Claire

This morning I attended a Leaders Symposium that is part of the strategic planning process underway on campus. Attending today's meeting was a great way to spend a morning one week before classes start. It offered another opportunity to get to know people and get a feel for what the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire is all about. My sense is that people on campus are very proud of the institution but realize that the current environment calls out for change. Actually at the end of the session someone came up with the best way to frame the purpose of this planning process was more about improvement than change. Change, of course, has much more negative connotations than does improvement. That sort of thinking resonated with me and others in the room. Everyone recognized that the University has been doing great things but will need to improve on that very solid foundation in order to compete in a time of much more limited resources.

Much of the morning was devoted to the history of UWEC and the good things that should be preserved as we move towards the future. Here were some of the points that struck me as important.

• A strong history of student focus throughout the University.
• Close student - faculty relationships built in the classroom and through collaborative research.
• A dedication to a "liberal education" which is not limited to the Liberal Arts and Sciences but which permeates throughout all University disciplines.

There seemed to be a recognition that some change was long overdue but also a wariness about the process. The assembly was divided into groups based on the decade in which they first came to UWEC. I was in the 2000's group and we decided that our era has been one of "energy, angst and possibilities. We have gone through a period where there have been a large number of leadership positions held by interim appointments. Now that many of these positions have been permanently filled, people seem ready to tackle problems and find solutions. But in order for people to buy into the process everyone recognized that people need to see the urgency for improvement and they need to see some actions coming out of the process. The community must see benefits from changes that are suggested.

It was stressed that we are in the beginnings of this planning process and that much more discussion would take place around campus. The need for transparency came up over and over. Throughout the morning I kept wondering what role should people from the Library play in this process. Without a doubt we all need to take a serious interest in the process and educate ourselves about what is going on. Throughout September there will be opportunities for input through a series of "Charrettes". (I had to look it up.) I hope that everyone in the Library takes part in the charrettes or the online discussions. This is an important process that will set the direction of the University for years to come. The Library is critical to the future of any high quality university that values excellence!

Facebook

I just had an interesting thing happen; something I never expected to happen. I just received a reference question on my Facebook account. I have always been skeptical about the value of Facebook as a means of connecting librarians with students. I still am but events like these will crack my convictions. I remain skeptical because one question does not make an overwhelming argument and this question came from a graduate student. I think they may view Facebook in a different manner than undergraduates. But if things like this are happening with more regularity, I could be convinced that we need to offer services through Facebook. I would like to hear from others who have been contacted by students requesting "library type help".

Preparing for Eau Claire

Friday was my last day on the job at OSU. I wrapped up all my loose ends and went around to see as many people as I could before I left. It was a bittersweet time. Although I will certainly miss the folks at the OSU Libraries, I am getting very anxious to begin working at the McIntyre Library. I now have my e-mail account set up and am checking my messages through web mail. I have a couple of annual reports from the library that I am reading and three articles on diversity that will help direct conversations on campus during the coming year. It promises to be very exciting. I am very interested in increasing diversity on campus having been an advisor to Latinos Unidos at Augustana College and a mentor with the ACRL Dr. E. J. Josey Spectrum Scholar Mentor Program. During the last year I have been serving as a mentor to someone getting his MLIS at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. I think that I learned more from the experience than he did.

In the mean time, this week will be spent packing dishes and books (of course) and canceling services in preparation of the move to Eau Claire. It is becoming more real everyday.

Hipster Shushers

I finally read the article on hipster librarians that appeared in the fashion section of Sunday's New York Times; "A Hipper Crowd of Shushers". A friend of mine, who is much hipper that me, sent me a message about that post and a couple of reactions to it in the Library Journal student blog, "Student Affairs", and a blog by someone who writes as the "Annoyed Librarian". Evidently the article really annoyed the Annoyed Librarian. Personally, I thought it was a fun little article that poked another pin in a stereotype that we all know is erroneous. If you haven't read the article in the NYT (my friend says everyone in libraryland has already read it) take a look at it and the reactions to it.

As a side note, the second post in Student Affairs is written by a woman who is doing an internship at the Valley Library here at Oregon State. She talks a little bit about answering reference questions through the chat box I mentioned yesterday that is on the OSU Libraries' web pages. Her posting provides an interesting insight into virtual reference.

Whither the Reference Desk

This morning when I opened my e-mail the first message I saw was from Betsy Richmond. She was forwarding on a lengthy compilation of messages that reflected a Collib-l discussion of how to best attract students to the reference desk. Many academic libraries are seeing a fall in their reference desk use statistics. The discussion was wide-ranging and I suspect is reflective of what many of us are thinking about. Is time spent on the reference desk the best way to utilize professional librarians? Is it the best way to reach students? Is that where our students expect to find help with their research assignments? Are there better ways to assist students by utilizing new technologies?

I too have been thinking about this for years but have not come up with any clean answers. At one point I was wondering how one could be a good steward of university finances if the highest paid people in the library spent a large portion of their time sitting at a desk waiting for someone to ask them a question. But that really seemed to forget the nature of libraries. Here at OSU we have been working on lessening the time librarians spend on the reference desk to free up their time for doing other activities. The question was one of impact. Could librarians make a greater impact on campus by working more closely with faculty and graduate students with their research? By developing technologies that allowed students to learn and use library services more independently? Or would they have a greater impact on student research by offering one on one consultation sessions?

They are still working on finding a model of service that works best for OSU students and faculty. I would hope that during the coming year we will discuss how best to develop our reference services that are best suited to our university and our students and faculty.

One technology that seems to have worked very well here is having a chat box available in the upper right hand corner of most library website pages. From the very beginning of offering this option, students have been submitting chat questions as much or more than they have at the reference desk.