Network information: Who is responsible?

[Simon Bains]

I'm new to this list, so please forgive any covering of old ground. I 
am interested in starting a discussion about some of the following issues.

I have recently started in a new role (to me and the institution) as Network Information 
Specialist at Cranfield University (a predominantly postgraduate college devoted to 
science, technology and management).  I am part of the Information Sevices team rather 
than Information Systems, and have limited technical expertise.  My role is to try and 
coordinate and support Internet-based library initiatives, ensuring that they respond to the 
needs of our customers, rather than being technology-driven.

My first priority is to test the following hypothesis:
"Cranfield University is not making effective use of the Internet and the library service can 
help remedy this situation."
I intend to accumulate qualitative data about the use of the Internet by academic staff, and 
what we can do to help.

Issues I expect to be important include:
What are people using it for? (we know there's a lot of activity, but is Professor Bloggs in 
the College of Aeronautics accessing the NASA database, or is he working through "links 
for cricket fans"?)
How do people navigate the net?
Do they need training? What training? How?  (This type of thing is already being analysed 
by eLib initiatives such as EduLib, Netskills and TapIn,  but we don't know what the 
requirements are at the local level.)

Questions such as these, it seems to me, must be answered before we rush to provide new 
 services.

I would be very interested to hear from anyone involved in this area. Does this job exist in 
other institutions, or is it something that it being added on to existing positions?  One 
school of thought is that these tasks are the responsibility of subject specialists.  Ours 
would beg to differ.  They are already responsible for cataloguing, online searching, 
training and the full-time manning of an enquiry desk.  They don't feel they have the time to 
search the Internet themselves, let alone find out what other people are doing with it.

Any comments gratefully received,
Simon

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Simon J. Bains
Network Information Specialist
Cranfield University
Cranfield
Bedfordshire
MK43 0AL
Tel: 01234 754442
Fax: 01234 752391
Email: s.j.bains at cranfield.ac.uk
URL: http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/library/libinfo/mircstaf.htm
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