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Whither Academic Information Services in the Perfect Storm of the Early 21 st -century?

Whither Academic Information Services in the Perfect Storm of the Early 21 st -century?. Michael A. Keller Stanford University For the 8 th Bielefeld Conference 060208. Ubiquitous network access Low cost computers & PDAs Plentiful, cheap magnetic memory “Just in time” commercial culture;

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Whither Academic Information Services in the Perfect Storm of the Early 21 st -century?

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  1. Whither Academic Information Services in the Perfect Storm of the Early 21st-century? Michael A. Keller Stanford University For the 8th Bielefeld Conference 060208

  2. Ubiquitous network access Low cost computers & PDAs Plentiful, cheap magnetic memory “Just in time” commercial culture; Public Internet an “open” culture Investment market based on quarterly reports Google, Yahoo, MSN, millions of other providers, some free, some fee Blog-sphere, Wikis, RSS feeds Course Management Systems Collaboration environments Virtual, global communities Anonymous institutional information environments Elements of the Perfect Storm

  3. Google ProjectLibrary Partner Motivations • Vastly expand intellectual access to our collections • Populate digital repositories for long-term persistence of digital avatars of our collections • Defense of fair use, by employing it! • Alternate reader functions from the ones Google presently offers

  4. Course Management Systems • Increase use of web resources to enhance/extend in-person instruction • Dominate in most American universities • Produce lots of digital objects for institutional repositories and sharing • Make use of functions: locate, gather, deliver, create & sharing • Drive e-portfolio services

  5. Web services • Discovering • Locating • Requesting • Delivering • Gathering • Creating • Sharing

  6. Web Services based on systems • On-line public access catalogs • Internet Search Engines • Proprietary Search Engines • Course Management Systems • Institutional Information Topographies • Web Browser Applications • The World Wide Web itself

  7. Services beyond Google’s • Taxonomic indexing – providing access to ideas in a text • Associative searching – providing access by statistically ranked lists of co-terms • Hyperlinking of citations • GUIs to navigate search results • More subtle searching • Alerting services driven by user terms • Recommendation services • “Info-tools” assisting readers to find definitions, locations, biographical sketches

  8. “High Touch” Services • First, make users predominantly self-sufficient • Provide in-person and personalized services on demand – subject & technial specialists needed • Serve communities in responsive and distinctive ways • Bibliographic, communication, & analytic services advancing research, teaching & learning

  9. How many e-books? • Quick Stanford study 2005 • 22,892 titles in English acquired in 2005 with imprint years 2001-2005 • Random sample of 1,373 titles (6% of universe) • 181 titles available as e-books (13.2%) • Hypothesis needs to be tested on other imprints, especially European ones • Will e-books replace physical books soon? • We conclude doubtful soon, but e-book readers are coming

  10. How much information? • 9B web pages indexed by Google • 90B web pages behind access control • Federated searching behind access control difficult, but important service to provide

  11. Digital Repositories • So far experimental • Transparent, auditable services needed • Portico, KB, BL, LOCKSS/CLOCKSS, Stanford Digital Repository, others • Later more wide-spread as techniques proven

  12. Aquifer of DLF • Middleware services • Standards, including meta-data • Collection policies • Intended to support the federation of numerous local collections • Not an architecture, but a tool kit • Katherine Kott, director

  13. Service Framework of DLF • Organizes effort and resources toward… • Integration of systems, applications, standards to… • Develop & evolve systems architectures • Responsive to users • Responsive to rapidly changing i.t. environment • Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC, lead

  14. What about our people? • Re-treading and re-engineering vital • Employing well-qualified engineers vital • Engaging computer scientists vital • Shared vision, mission, goals vital

  15. Libraries & Virtual Libraries • Libraries as places heavily populated • Services well used • Millions of books move (more as mass digitization and indexing on the web proceeds • Virtual libraries heavily used, but metrics? • Planning bookless libraries, e.g. Engineering • Planning traditional libraries, e.g. Art • Bibliographic literacy & information heuristic

  16. Basic functions, regardless of medium • Selection & gathering • Intellectual access to information objects • Distribution of content & access • Interpretation of content; navigating the ordered set and the information chaos • Preservation of the avatars of content – physical & digital • Analysis, manipulation & presentation

  17. Client Focus, not Guild Focus Let the rising tide of access to information lift all the boats, everywhere

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