Librarians in the Digital Library
Mark England and Melissa Shaffer
North Dakota State University Libraries, P.0. Box 5599, Fargo, ND 58105-5599,
england@vm1.nodak.edu, shaffer@badlands.nodak.edu
The
physical "library" has always defined the "librarian": librarians are
associated with library buildings and have served society in acquiring,
organizing, and preserving collections of information. Now, with the
establishment of virtual digital libraries, librarians have the opportunity to
break away from the stereotypes of the past and define themselves in the
information environments and services of the future. In the future, the
librarian's roles will shift from an emphasis on acquisition, preservation and
storage to an emphasis on teaching, consulting, researching, preserving
democratic access to information, and collaborating with computer and
information scientists in the design and maintenance of information access
systems.
The Librarian as Researcher
Librarians
are highly skilled in the research process and possess a unique knowledge of
the breadth and depth of information resources in various subject specialties.
We believe that librarians will increasingly become members of research and
development teams. By facilitating access to information -- finding it,
delivering, summarizing it -- librarians will move to the beginning of the
information production cycle, playing a more substantial role in the
information creation process.
The Librarian as Organizer and Publisher
In
the digital library environment, the traditional roles of publishers as
information packagers and information distribution facilitators and the
traditional role of libraries as storehouses of information will be
de-emphasized. As universities, regional research centers, laboratories,
corporations, and professional societies develop their own depositories of
information and make them available to the world's networks, they take on the
publisher's and the library's traditional roles. These entities, in this
function, have the potential of diminishing the role of traditional libraries
and commercial publishers if: (1) faculty tenure guidelines more solidly
support publications through these entities in electronic format, returning
intellectual ownership of research output to their faculty members; (2)
university and scholarly presses become activists in the electronic publishing
revolution; (3) everything possible is done to support fairly-priced democratic
access to information while supporting intellectual copyright; and, most
importantly, (4) information access and delivery systems are designed to meet
the consumers' needs. To meet the consumers' needs, digital library systems
must be dependable; must be reasonably priced; must have powerful, easy-to-use,
intelligent search engines; must have attractive user interfaces; must allow
the consumer to inspect the "product" before buying; and must allow access
from, and delivery to, the consumer's workstation.
Editors, faculty, and librarians will have important roles as organizers,
reviewers, and guardians of intellectual property in the digital libraries of
the future. Copyright is a major issue for the digital library and will be
until new copyright law adequately addresses various information formats.
Librarians will take part in the formation of new copyright law and in the
application of the law in the digital library.
The Librarian As a Member of the Digital Library Design Team
We
believe that librarians must become more involved in the design and application
of information technology initiatives. Librarians must collaborate with
computer and information scientists in the design, organization, development,
and maintenance of digital library repositories, interfaces, and networks.
To provide the scholars of the future efficient and intelligent access to the
world's knowledge is a formidable task. Librarians must be active participants
in this process because they are experts at accessing the world's information
resources today. Their areas of expertise are different than the computer and
information scientists. The librarian's knowledge of the world's information
resources and their knowledge and experience in directing users to information
will be essential in the development and maintenance of the digital library's
information access and delivery systems. The librarian can contribute to
information selection, acquisition, and organization as well as the design of
the search engine and user interface, for example.
The Librarian as Teacher and Consultant
Technology
is far ahead of information literacy education. Few users of today's libraries
are effective and efficient users, and no matter how sophisticated interfaces
and search engines become in future information access systems, people will
still need to be educated regarding their use. Users will need to possess an
understanding of essential information gathering skills and tools. Systems of
information production and distribution will need to be taught. Users will
need to possess an understanding of the organization of information resources,
of research strategies, of basic reference works, and of information access and
delivery tools. They must understand how to define and refine a research
topic, how to analyze an information need, and how to critically interpret and
evaluate information resulting from research. The librarian, therefore, has a
critical role in the digital library of the future as educator and consultant.
Conclusion
In
the future, the librarian's duties will see a shift from a primary emphasis on
acquisition, preservation and storage to an emphasis on teaching, consulting,
researching, preserving intellectual and access freedom, and collaborating in
the design, application, and maintenance of information access systems.
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