Internet

Citation

Maxymuk, J. (2003), "Internet", The Bottom Line, Vol. 16 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.2003.17016bag.001

Internet

Shrinking budgets: viable options

Keywords: Libraries, Library services; Internet, Finance, Online retrieval, Projects

In difficult financial times, it has long been the experience of library managers that their budgets will be seen by upper management as a good place to start making cuts for the organization as a whole. It does not matter whether your library is part of a public or private academic institution, a municipal or county government, a law firm, a business, or anything else, information resources are placed on the chopping block early when funding dries up. How do we cope? How do we show that we are vital, necessary and perhaps even indispensable in this technological age?

Web presence

Take a critical view of your library's Web site. This might be the place where you are most likely to encounter your users so examine it with these questions in mind:

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  Is it inviting?

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  Is it useful?

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  Is it easy to navigate?

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  Does it appeal to your target audience?

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  Does it address what they are likely to need and want?

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  How does it appeal to the administrators who control your budget?

If your users do not find things that meet their needs, they will not bother coming back. If administrators do not see evidence that you are serving the needs of the institution, then you are not worth very much to the organization. Today, your Web site is an essential place to make a good impression.

Electronic resources: viable financial options?

What users in all environments look to libraries for most of all are electronic resources – journals, indexes, and full-text databases. For most institutions there is no actual cost-saving involved here; these resources are expensive and use such an array of complicated and nonsensical pricing schemes that at times you might wonder why you are supplying these products at all. The American Medical Association recently offered unlimited access to JAMA and a few other archived titles to one large academic system for $126,000 for one year. The only lower cost options involved either a dedicated workstation or password access – both of which are unworkable in a library setting. The American Chemical Society has offered to lease annually its journal package in two parts, the most recent five years in one and the archives in the other. Presumably, year five would move to the archive the next year. Some journals require that you maintain a print subscription to get the electronic version. And then, there are increased computer infrastructure costs to provide high-speed access. This is not to mention the substantial printing costs often borne by the institution for local printing of articles. Money is not being saved here.

Of course, there are good reasons for getting the electronic, and they are twofold. First is the increase in access. Users are able to access a journal from home, office, or the library at virtually any time of day and that should make their work easier and more productive. Second is the decreasing need for journal shelf space, presuming a print subscription is not required. The libraries who have made out best in this era are those who were previously the poor step-children in multi-site library systems. With no budget increase, an undergraduate branch campus of a large state university now can offer research-library-level resources by tapping into the library system's resources. That branch library can boast not only increased access, but increased resources as well. There is one other negative to all of this, however, in that with the expanded access to electronic comes a decreased need to actually come to the library itself. So why do we need a library if everything is online?

The library itself

Just as the library Web site needs to be inviting and useful, so does the actual physical library space. In terms of technology, this means that there are ample network ports and workstations available for users to take advantage of the electronic resources that the library and its parent institution have made available. In addition, the furniture housing these workstations should be comfortable and spacious so that a user can spread out and complete what he/she needs to accomplish. The layout and lighting also should be taken into account so that users are not cramped and strained.

In addition, facilities should be made available for laptop users to tap into the network in the library. Free network ports should be coupled with power outlets in a variety of areas to enable laptop users to utilize resources fully. If your institution has a wireless network setup, then the library will want to become part of that to offer one more access point. All of these infrastructure types of considerations may need to be accomplished using outside funding and grants, but that is a concession to reality in establishing the vitality of your operation during tight times.

Digital projects

In the twenty-first century, the best way to show your library is vital is through digital library projects. Many great electronic initiatives are being accomplished by libraries, and a number of Web pages detail such activity. The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) maintains a page on Digital Libraries: Resources and Projects (www.ifla.org/II/diglib.htm). The National Science Foundation established a Digital Libraries Initiative to advance the means to collect, store, and organize information in digital forms, and make it available for searching, retrieval, and processing via communication networks. The Initiative is now on Phase II (www.dli2.nsf.gov/). Linkoping University, in Sweden, has undertaken Project Runeberg, a center for Nordic Literature on the Internet, and includes an extensive page of links to Other Digital Library Projects (www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/admin/foreign.html).

Individual libraries have begun creating many electronic resources. Columbia University (www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/digital/) is involved in such projects as the Papers of John Jay, a database with digitized images of ancient papyrus, and a collection of Medieval and Renaissance literature. Similarly, the University of Pennsylvania's Digital Library Projects (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/) includes the Online Books Page that provides access to books that are freely readable over the Internet and the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image that publishes on the Net, virtual facsimiles of rare books and manuscripts in the Penn Library's collections.

Projects do not need to be so esoteric and scholarly to be worthwhile, though. At the Camden campus of Rutgers University, the library created and maintains an online database of Camden-related articles from the local newspaper which historically has had no index. A colleague uncovered a series of local nineteenth-century bicycle trails in the microfilmed backfile of a venerable area publication and is in the process of digitizing that collection of trails for the library Web page. Another option is to take readily available government information such as census data and massage it so that figures of local interest are made available online. For the more ambitious, the library could construct a digital development lab to create and help others at the institution to design digital learning resources. Such a lab would include tools such as scanners, digital cameras and camcorders, and the requisite software to produce multimedia products in a variety of formats. This is another area where outside funding probably would be necessary to obtain the necessary equipment.

Measures of use

By most traditional measures, library use is declining. Fewer people come into the library, fewer books are checked out, fewer reference questions are answered, librarians need to be proactive in substantiating the urgency of their functions. New measuring statistics need to be brought to bear:

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  How many hits is your Web page receiving?

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  How many e-mail reference questions are you handling?

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  How many online queries?

Above all, we need to use any technological means at our disposal to make the ongoing case that in an increasingly electronic environment, a librarian is increasingly useful, beneficial and essential.

Comments on this column are welcome and can be sent to maxymuk@crab.rutgers.edu Or visit my Web page (www.rci.rutgers.edu/~maxymuk/home/home.html).

John MaxymukReference Librarian at the Paul Robeson Library, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, USA