Future Directions in Academic Library Technical Services the next 5 years

1
Future Directions in Academic Library Technical
Services the next 5 years

• Tony Harvell
• December 12, 2008

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Where are we going?

• Increased efficiencies driven by tight budgets
• More partnerships with our vendors to leverage
  their services with ours
• Shared technical services between institutions
• Reshaping the OPAC better user experience
• Blending of discovery tools
• Rethinking long-held notions about how our users
  look for information

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Some of the catalysts for change

• Tighter budgets less people
• Improved technology (Web services, Web 2.0)
• More standardization (ONIX)
• Industry changes, vendor need to diversify
  revenue stream(OCLC/RLG merger, vendor
  consolidation)
• Better research to support decision-making
• K. Calhoun, The Changing Nature of the Catalog
  and its Integration with Other Discovery Tools
  (2006)
• Report of the Working Group on the Future of
  Bibliographic Control (January 2008)

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Why are we changing?

• Decreased operational budgets - most have
  reduced staff
• Electronic collections are different from
  print-based collections in which our TS
  operations evolved
• Retirements of seasoned technical services
  personnel
• Demands from our users for more consolidated
  services that are easier to use
• Response to external organizations (LC) whose
  work affects our own (eliminate series authority)
• we want to highlight our more unique collections
  - redirecting the work of many of our current
  staff to support this

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Partnerships with vendors

• With downsizing, libraries look for more
  efficient ways to process materials and
  eliminate redundancies in the workflow stream and
  apply economies of scale
• Vendors look for opportunities to strengthen
  their market position in volatile times
• Examples
• Vendor records at point of order (data earlier in
  the supply chain)
• Shelf-ready services PromptCat/MarcNow
• Journal Expediting and Technical Services (JETS)
  - EBSCO
• OCLC WorldCat Selection Service streamlining
  selection/ order creation
• Authority outsourcing - Backstage Library Works
• Blackwell TOC Enrichment Service

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Shared Technical Services

• Within consortia, library systems can we scale
  acquisitions/cataloging at a network level to
  achieve cost/time efficiencies?
• Centers of expertise for specialized
  acquisitions/cataloging
• How do we centralize bibliographic control
  without moving large amounts of physical material
  around?

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Eliminating redundancies at the local level

• Most libraries have routines for their ILS, link
  resolvers, union catalogs, ERMS, library portals
  that require duplicate effort
• What can we give up?
• How can we maximize our effort to do things in
  one place and do it really well?
• E.g. e-journal serials holdings maintenance
  where? OPAC? KB? Journal Portal A-Z?

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Working at the network level

• Most cataloging is done in OCLC yet we continue
  to manipulate records locally, often not sharing
  that work with others
• How can we benefit from the collective work of
  others?
• What really has to be done in the ILS versus what
  can be done at the network level?
• Given our inter-connectivity do we really need
  a library OPAC or could WorldCat local meet
  some of our needs better?

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Improving our discovery tools

• We have multiple discovery tools, but most dont
  talk to each other
• Blurring of the discovery tools to our users
• A large and growing number of users bypass
  library catalogs in favor of other discovery
  tools (e.g. Google scholar)
• Need to establish more linkages outside the
  catalog by working with vendors and other
  organizations to support interoperability
• Need to use the best features of non-library
  discovery tools (Amazon, Google)
• Maximize use of Web Services and API to move
  between discovery tools

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Minimize customization

• Eliminate the ..but we are special arguments
• Minimize customization in favor of accepting
  cataloging without review or modification
• Work more in batches and less one-by-one
• Accept the concept of the evolving bibliographic
  record improved by many
• Expand cataloging at the network level
• Abandon the notion of the perfect record in favor
  of better access

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Improving the user experience

• Give our patrons what they want, not what we
  think they want requires research and user
  studies at the local level
• Do users really need LCSH? Series authority?
• What do our users expect to find? TOCs,
  snippets, folksonomies, user reviews, full text
• How does the born digital generation look for
  information?
• What do they want to do with it once found?

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Better serving the Millennials

• Deliver resources quickly at point of need at
  network level (including visual, audio,
  multimedia)
• Accommodate different discovery and access
  preferences
• Allow personalization of the interface
• They want simplicity in our interfaces, want to
  figure out for themselves
• Millennials often will settle for information
  that is convenient and fast good enough
• Want services that allows for multitasking

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The OPAC of the future

• Libraries not just books and journals anymore
• What should the future online catalog contain?
  Just our locally held resources?
• Indexing at the article level? Reviews?
• Social content (user reviews? Ratings?)
• Full text of mass digitized books (e.g. Google,
  OCA)
• Digital objects- better access, rights
  information
• Web 2.0 content blogs, wikis, geospatial data
  how it is it represented?

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Tech services staff of the future

• Most positions require a higher skill set and
  ability to think outside the box
• Less routine based and more judgment based
  more comfort with gray areas
• Ability to marry library and users need with
  new technologies
• Good business savvy to negotiate with external
  vendors
• Good political acumen to navigate at the network
  level

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What our departments will we look like?

• Likely leaner and meaner
• More blurring between departments
  (Acquisitions/Cataloging/Access Services/Digital
  Library Program)
• Greater interaction at the network level
  (consortia, systemwide, national)
• More focused on providing better access to our
  unique resources, less time spent on the
  routine processing in our collections
• Greater interaction with our users and producers
  of content

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How do we get there?

• To succeed with innovation and cost reduction
  research libraries will need to master
  organizational change management and achieve
  unprecedented levels of collaboration with peers
  and external partners.
• Karen Calhoun, The Changing Nature of the Catalog
  and its Integration with Other Discovery Tools
  (March 2006).