What Is The Library's Value Proposition?

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Apr 09

The library profession has prided itself on the contributions that it makes in support of scholarship and pedagogy. In the current environment, there are librarians who feel that role is under-rated. Stephen Bell is one such librarian and has expressed his suspicion that the faculty and students don't get it and that libraries need to refocus attention on their contribution to education and research. The recently-released Ithaka Faculty Survey 2009: Key Strategic Insights for Libraries, Publishers, and Societies may bear out his thinking. This year's findings are based on just over 3,000 complete responses from scholars across all disciplines (Humanities (21.6%), Sciences (26.1%) and Social Sciences (38.1%); the remaining roughly 14% were in area studies or "other".).

According to the Ithaka study, faculty believe that the most important role performed by libraries is that of purchasing agent for information resources. On page 11, the report notes "It is striking how faculty members have come to universally perceive the library role as purchasing agent for institutional information resources as essential" (italics added).

That might be somewhat comforting to those research librarians whose responses were included in a recent OCLC report authored by James Michalko, Constance Malpas, and Arnold Arcolio. In Research Libraries, Risk and Systemic Change, the highest ranked threat to the libraries was "a reduced sense of library relevance from below, above and within". This perception was due to the availability of alternative service providers who were providing "a more compelling research environment and support tools." (page 12).

The value of that "purchasing agent" role however shouldn't be entirely dismissed. Information resources are still critical to on-going scholarship. The faculty responses documented by the Ithaka report indicate that "scholars tend to prefer electronic resources specific to their own discipline over those that cover multiple disciplines." This is true across sciences, social sciences and the humanities, although social scientists have a greater tendency to use multi-disciplinary resources than the other two populations. Discipline specific resources are preferred because (1) they reduce the volume of what needs to be searched to a relevant and manageable corpus and (2) more-targeted resources may offer discovery mechanisms and tools tightly engineered to that disciplines workflow needs.

Discovery is still dominated by citations contained within specific journals or monographs and searching online databases that offer full-text access to articles. Google Scholar comes in third behind those two avenues of approach (see page 7 of the Ithaka report).

For-fee information services, then, are critically important in the academic sector. Information professionals should recognize that. More attention needs to be given to all aspects of licensing of content and librarians (particularly those just now gaining their MLS degrees) should fully master the business mindset of vendors and hone negotiating skills in order to ensure the most advantageous terms of use for those who rely on them to continue providing access.

Coverage in the Chronicle of Higher Education offers additional information on the Ithaka findings while Inside Higher Education treats the role of the library somewhat dismissively.