Network information: Who is responsible?

[traffens at condor.depaul.edu]

On Fri, 19 Jul 1996, Simon Bains wrote:

> 
> 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.

Me too, and I'm glad you brought these things up. All those who have 
already hashed out this "overview" stuff - thanks for your patience and 
input.

> 
> 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.

The tough part is when there are potential services that users don't even 
know about. "If we implemented this cool service, would they use it?" 
Gathering data on this type of thing is quite a challenge. Any ideas?

> 
> 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"?)

He's doing both; and other interesting things ;->

> 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.)
> 

Assessing local needs and skills is very difficult. At DePaul University, 
i find a wide variety of needs, skills, and willingness to use services via 
the Internet. I was told by one professor that the Internet will "never 
be a serious medium for scholarly communication" and have seen others 
use the internet to greatly enhance their access to information and their 
ability to communicate with other scholars and students. What I'm getting 
at is that an important part of being a librarian-info specialist is 
marketing. Librarians (excuse the generalization, I'm one too) have not been 
tremendously proactive in promoting services. Reaching out to users with 
a "what do you need? - this is what we can do for you" service attitude is 
important for raising awareness and sounding the depths for user needs.

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

Yes and no. If we wait until we know everything, It'll be too late. What 
is required is a sustainable flow of communication/data between users and 
service providers. With a quickly changing user population and set of 
services, the questions as well as answers are constantly changing. 
DePaul, in particular, is grappling with the changing demographics of 
urban Chicago and attempting to provide programs accordingly.
 
Generalizeable, in-depth research in info science is valuable, but often 
impractical for many practitioners as an ongoing proposition. A close 
rapport with users along with practically accessible qualitative and 
quantitative data on user needs seems a productive way to design and 
implement useful services. "Shoot first, ask questions later" may 
have it's place (admittedly rarely). Sometimes it is relatively easy to 
implement a new service (like e-mail reference), advertise it, and then 
see if/how it is used. 

> 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.
> 

Well, they better make time. The skills bibliographers, reference 
librarians, and instruction librarians use in providing "traditional" 
services are well suited to providing Internet-based services. Dividing 
the field is a big mistake, given that services provided through 
different venues complement each other.

Here at DePaul, there is a range of involvement in providing 
Internet-based services. All subject bibliographers maintain collections 
of links to resouces on the Internet. In addition, some work with faculty 
to create pages for classes, selecting and arranging materials to support 
the curriculum. Instruction Librarians work with DePaul's IT department 
to provide Internet instruction. There are also specialized committees 
made up of people from all library departments to explore and implement new 
services, such as email reference, electronic ILL and purchase requests, 
and offering more bibliographic databases via the Web. We have campuses 
all over Chicago, and cater to a large number of "commuters" so remote 
access to services is important. 

> Any comments gratefully received,
> Simon
> 

I hope that positions such as yours are transitional :-)
Really, I think it is just an evolution toward an integrated provision of 
services. While I think specialization is valuable, excessive 
compartmentalization can lead to duplication of services, contradictory 
policies, and and ultimately confused and alienated users. I like the 
"interdisciplinary" approach here at DePaul. The systems specialists 
work closely with reference, instruction, and bibliographers in the 
design and implementation of services. I think our challenge here is to 
systematically collect data/input from users and incorporate it in our 
planning process. What mechanisms do you anticipate for doing this at 
Cranfield?


Tom Raffensperger
Reference/Instruction Librarian
"but I do a little bit of everything"
DePaul University Libraries
Chicago, IL
traffens at condor.depaul.edu
http://condor.depaul.edu/~traffens