Abstract
Divided Libraries is the provocative title of a book written by a retired long-time expert practitioner in the field of academic libraries. It identifies and defines the cause of the difficulties in which libraries and librarians find themselves today. This he sees as the division between libraries and ordinary citizens and their institutions. Although the author is well qualified (35 years of experience) to provide advice and guidance on the matter, it is a demanding task that he sets himself. His solution is to embrace the educational mission that he argues constitutes a proper context in which to guide the development of librarianship in the future.
The book can be described as the result of the practical experiences of the author, as he often refers to these. Further, in some chapters he decides on a balance between theoretical reflection and a more practical approach in relation to the issues.
The book is organized into eight rather lightly connected chapters: ‘Librarians as educators’; ‘The 2004 library self-study at CSUS’; ‘Meaningful library assessment’; ‘A librarian education’; The reformation of scholarly communication’; ‘DAPS: opening a second form’; ‘Open access, modernity and culture change’ and ‘Library management’. It is not a coherent monograph but rather a collection of essays and practical examples.
The book opens with a chapter on librarians’ educator role as the most obvious choice, the point being made that this is most likely going to be the most important activity for the future. At first glimpse, this does not sound anything special, as (teaching) information literacy has been a buzz-word for quite a while in library and information science. The author makes an important remark in this chapter. He does not see the library’s educational mission exclusively as information literacy, as this would only limit librarians to its current state. ‘Our approach to the future means radical expansion of library education along with subject awareness, if not discipline specialization’ (p. 13). Teaching is seen as the basic business of librarianship.
This intrigues the reader and he understandably wants to read more.
Then, in my opinion, there follows a poorly chosen chapter: rather a long one (56 pages, more than a quarter of the book) on a California State University Sacramento ‘Library state study’. It is very thorough, precise and specific. But there is too much raw data, and it would be much better if a large part of this was in an Appendix.
The third chapter is an essay on library assessment and a strong critique of some methods and American Library Association (ALA) standards. LiibQUAL, which libraries use to solicit, track, understand, and act upon users’ opinions of service quality is mocked as LIbQUACK. The author also sees that comparison through benchmarking ‘with those of its peer institutions can tell us something about the organizations themselves, but says little about product quality’ (p. 91). He also makes a plea for meaningful new library assessment methods to measure the real effect of libraries and librarians. His example is a correlation between library usage by students and their academic performance, empirical data rather than ‘emotions’. If librarians are doing their jobs as educators correctly, the results of their work would be reflected one way or another in the grades of the students. ‘If we cannot link student library usage to overall student academic performance, librarianship will remain an act of faith not a science of teaching’ (p. 101).
The fourth chapter ‘A librarian’s education’ is also rather critical of the present situation in library and information education and especially critical of ALA perceptions and deeds in this area. The fifth chapter presents the author’s views and experiences regarding the reformation of scholarly communication.
The sixth, rather short, chapter presents an initiative of the Digital Academic Press, which is connected to the next chapter dealing with Open Access. The author sees the Open Access movement as a possible great cultural change and an important part of globalization, although both these chapters are only tenuously connected to libraries and librarians. The last chapter is entitled ‘Library management’, and it includes quite a lot of practical experience and stories from the author’s working career.
The style of the work is vivid and often informal, which makes the book easy to read, although this is intercut with too many formal documents, project presentations and programmes, which readers might find distracting. Readers should be aware that the work is not the usual monograph, but rather a collection of essays and case studies, which make interesting points from which to begin to look at a wide range of issues of modern academic librarianship.
On the current moves towards modernization in library services, this work develops a specific viewpoint. It argues that libraries around the world are under the burden of shrinking budgets, inadequate staffing, and deteriorating facilities. The emergence of revolutionary information technologies should result in an appropriate response by the library profession: the provision of services which adapt rapidly to the wishes and needs of the users. Academic libraries have a highly skilled workforce, and today when there is a large and growing set of information and knowledge, the only way forward is to become/remain the place of learning, research and teaching.