_______________ARE WE READY FOR THE LIBRARY OF THE FUTURE? BY CATE T. CORCORAN (12/02/97)

Every time I pick up an article written by a non-librarian about the "library of the future," I flinch. Writers come to the topic filled with misconceptions about technology. Then they write, "Technology was supposed to do this and that, but I have discovered it doesn't!" But who said that technology was supposed to do this or that? Certainly not any librarian I know. And so it is with Cate T. Corcoran. According to her, "Librarians, like so many people, believe that the entire universe of commerce, communication and information is moving to digital form." Really? No librarian I know thinks that. We spend quite a lot of energy telling people that's not the case. Corcoran says that the "technology ... cuts costs and relieves librarians of work behind the scenes." But it doesn't. In many cases it increases costs and makes for more -- or at least different -- work for library staffs. So if digitized information is not replacing print after all and if technology does not cut costs or make for less work for either the librarian or the public, what use is it? Basically, it enables library users to find more information faster than before. It lets them find more books and articles in their own libraries faster because electronic catalogs and indexes are capable of searching quickly in ways that print catalogs and indexes could not. It lets them find information in online encyclopedias and other reference sources that they could not find in print volumes, and the information they find is more up-to-date. It lets them search the entire text of newspaper and magazine articles, not just the subject headings assigned to them. It lets them find and print out articles that their local library does not have on the shelf. It makes it easier and faster for them to locate books that they want at other libraries and to have them sent to their local branches. But what about the public's need for assistance in using the new technology? Library users labored long under the misapprehension that "paper" libraries were self-explanatory and required no instruction. But advanced researchers and librarians knew better. The card catalog itself was never self-explanatory. Books were listed by author, title, joint author, editor and a variety of other ways -- and BY SUBJECT. But "subject" meant a subject heading from a list of headings assigned by some cataloger to this particular book. What if you didn't know the "right" subject heading to look under? Or what if the cataloger made a mistake? You assumed that the library had nothing on the topic and went away. Doing it right required instruction or help, but few library users realized that. Now, you can do a keyword search of subject headings, titles and sometimes even tables of contents to get much longer lists of relevant materials than was ever possible with card catalogs and indexes. Yes, some instruction may be needed. But that's no more the case now than it's ever been. Certainly, a library user who "can't type" and isn't aware of his or her typos is going to have a hard time locating information. But people who couldn't spell have always had a hard time finding things in library catalogs and indexes. This is not a new problem; it's just that Corcoran has only now discovered it, and thinks that it's unique to digital technology. The "new" role of librarians as teachers and technical support personnel that Corcoran describes has come about not because digitized text has replaced words printed on paper, but because there is so much more that's available now, in so many different formats, and you can't take advantage of it all without help. If all you want to do is read a book or look at a magazine, that's almost as easy as, or in some cases easier than, it used to be. If you want to look at Web sites on a topic, or use complex statistical sources, or download data, you're going to need help. The dilemma for librarians, as Corcoran rightly observes, is how to keep up with the technology so that we can provide this help when it's needed. I doubt that any of us expected the new technology to make our jobs easier -- just more interesting. Finally, the primary difference between libraries of yesterday and those of today and tomorrow is that the library user has to exercise far more care, judgment and discrimination in choosing relevant and accurate information -- the "trying to get a drink of water out of a fire hydrant" phenomenon. More information faster is not necessarily better information. You used to be able to go to a library and know that the periodicals and books on the shelf had been selected by someone based on some reasonable criteria -- popularity, scholarly quality, comprehensiveness of subject areas, relevance to the community or balance of viewpoints, depending upon what the library's mission was. But you cannot make any such assumption about the information provided in many full-text databases, and you certainly cannot make that assumption about information on the World Wide Web. If the new technology does not make the public more discriminating in its use of information, our society is in for a rough go, because the stupid and the ignorant and the out-and-out lies look just like the wise and the informed and the true. Librarians are finding that the new technology has brought them back to their 19th-century origins as a profession, whose vocation it was to educate, enlighten and uplift the public. -- -- Damon D. Hickey Director of Libraries The College of Wooster Wooster, Ohio I agree with much of what Cate T. Corcoran has to say about the computerization of libraries. But if pro-computer advocates make people think they can find exactly what they need with one mouse click, anti-computer advocates commit the equal sin of making people think they can find what they need by walking to a bookshelf and pulling down a book. Even in the pre-digital world, research was not so simple. Corcoran implies that she would have easily been able to find information about whether software in the classroom helps kids learn better, or the causes of ovarian cancer, or the basic procedure for doing a cost-benefit analysis of computer systems, by using printed sources. I don't doubt it, but I suspect that it's due to a great deal of experience doing research, experience which was probably helped along by teachers and librarians. Maybe a reference librarian knows the difference between the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature and Chemical Abstracts -- but how is a library patron supposed to learn the difference? Just as you cannot take proper advantage of electronic resources without some guidance and experience, you can't use a paper index without first learning how the index is arranged, what it includes, how it differs from its alternatives and even that it exists at all. In many disciplines, it is common to have a "bibliography" or "research methods" course as part of the graduate or advanced undergraduate curriculum. The purpose of such courses is to teach students what resources are available in their subject area, and what kind of information is available in each resource. Is such an extensive investment in training really necessary to prepare students to do research in the "user-friendly" print library? Corcoran quotes librarian Karen Coyne: "The library, on the other hand, has an extremely complex indexing system using controlled vocabulary and comprehensive cross-referencing." That doesn't sound simple to me. How about that "controlled vocabulary"? Maybe a handout about Library of Congress subject headings would be helpful. The current "dialogue" between those who want to get rid of all the computers and those who want to get rid of all the books has become a winner-takes-all battle. What we need is candid assessment that acknowledges the strengths and weaknesses of both kinds of tools. -- Kyle Barger I wonder if Cate Corcoran's article on libraries would have popped up on a "search engine" search. Probably not. I read it because by serendipity I happened to subscribe to Salon. As a librarian in a large county library (the county with the highest family income in the United States), everything she wrote rang true. Our library system is in the midst of an underfunded attempt to provide more and more automation. The reference librarians themselves have a difficult time learning the latest and greatest computer resource. Students and adults alike come in and ask for "the Internet" expecting to find anything from elementary school information on ancient Rome to the latest treatment for a rare disease. Librarians are constantly either teaching people the basics of using the computers or trying to fix them. Unfortunately, all of this is supposed to be provided "free." The library system receives about 1 percent of the county budget compared to the school system's 80 percent. Librarians are REQUIRED to have master's degrees, but are paid the same as clerks in the supermarket down the street. They very often are only given part-time work, and then asked to scour the county for volunteers to help run the library. What's going on here? -- Don Guerriero Thank you for publishing Cate T. Corcoran's wonderful article. I love being a librarian, but the job has changed dramatically in just the few years I have been out of library school. I went into reference so that I could use my expertise to help people with their research, but now I find myself acting as more of a baby sitter for the human-machine interface ("No! Not that button!" "Just sit here and read the screen while I help this other patron ..." "Are you sure this is what your professor had in mind?"). In a former career, I was a computer analyst working in technical support. I find librarianship much more rewarding and interesting, but I'm only making half as much money. I made that choice and am happy with it, but it may give a hint as to why libraries have such a hard time attracting and keeping highly technical librarians. -- Angelynn King University of Redlands Congratulations to Cate Corcoran for daring to expose the sham "convenience" and bogus "progress" of computerized libraries. Anyone familiar with the old system -- called "reading" and "looking it up" -- knows just what a nightmare the new one is. I haven't been to a public or academic library in about five years without wanting to tear my hair out before I was through. In practice, computerization is a huge waste of time, even when you understand the software, know exactly what you're looking for, comprehend the ridiculous techno-language and can type, search, print and wait. And wait. And wait. Provided the terminals aren't occupied or "down." Since computerization is not a scholarly, but a wholly commercial venture, moreover, the system is always reinventing itself. The focus on "funding opportunities" and the rush to win grants, overseen in our libraries by "communications" geeks who wouldn't know the value of a book if it fell off the shelf and slammed them on the head, guarantee that the technology is always being revised, updated and replaced, so that what worked for you last week won't in the next -- you'll have to learn everything all over again. But the worst aspect of library technology is that it completely eliminates the possibility of the chance discovery, the unexpected link, that browsing through a stack of books or flipping manually through a card catalogue always provided. Computers can only respond to what they already know, and only in language they're programmed to understand. Any researcher will tell you that the most interesting and informative discoveries -- the most compelling connections -- are found where you don't expect them. It's what Arthur Koestler called "the Library God," who leads you to the piece you're looking for when you didn't know you were, and when you were looking squarely someplace else. -- Peter Kurth Burlington, Vt. SALON | DEC. 8, 1997

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