Reference Services and Media

Linda S Katz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317789673
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Get the most out of your reference information systems and technology!Reference Services and Media meets the information challenges that overwhelm and assist us today with computerization, electronics, and telecommunications changes in the reference services of our libraries. As a professional in the library science field, you will discover innovative theories and researched solutions on many technology problems and challenges such as formatting and compatibility, training of reference professionals and library users, costs, and information have and have nots.
With the year 2000 and beyond upon us, emerging technologies afford tremendous opportunities for reference librarians and for improved and enhanced public access to information. In Reference Services and Media you will learn about planning for staffing, troubleshooting fund-raising, and budget developing to support the use of information technologies. You will also examine the impact new media has on academic libraries, specifically video and movie clips that are transferred over intranets and internets and their opportunities and legal implications. In Reference Services and Media you will also explore:

• desktop conferencing and web access for reference services versus personalized contact
  
• desktop conferencing with personal computers in remote areas for reference service assistance
  
• positive and negative aspects of using each technology in reference use instruction
  
• creative methods for procuring funding for an electronic information literary instruction classroom
  
• providing a digital library for a state library network
  
• raising confidence levels of public service librarians in using electronic resources to answer reference questions Reference Services and Media includes case studies, tables, and an annotated bibliography that serves as a librarian's media reference toolkit, making it essential for effective media reference work. An excellent source for the reference librarian, Reference Services and Media will assist you in adopting and incorporating new information technologies for the present and future.

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MEDIA ISSUES

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Information Services in the Year 2000 and Beyond

T. Harmon Straiton, Jr.

SUMMARY. Today's libraries-academic, research, public, and elementary and secondary schools-are in the midst of an extended period of unprecedented change and adjustment. Having never been static organizations, they have existed within and responded to changes in the communities they exist to serve. Computerization, electronics, and telecommunications have resulted in the alteration of almost every function performed in libraries today. The reference services extended by these libraries are no different. In keeping with their missions and goals, they must adopt and incorporate the new information technology now as well as the year 2000 and beyond. Problems and challenges which must be solved and met are discussed. There is no doubt that the library user will benefit as services are expanded to include among other innovations: services expanded beyond the walls of the library and its physical collection, interactive face-to-face teleconferencing with information specialists, and machines utilizing artificial intelligence which assist in identifying and locating information. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: [email protected]]

KEYWORDS: Reference services, information technology, electronic resources

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and that people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or tragedy or perhaps both.”¹ Reference librarians as well as other information professionals have long respected these words of James Madison and continue to acknowledge the importance of his message. Nowhere could this be truer than in the provision of access to information resources.

Libraries are in the midst of a period of unprecedented change and adjustment. Having never been static organizations, they have existed within and responded to changes in the communities they exist to serve. Computerization, electronics, and telecommunications have resulted in the alteration of almost every function performed in libraries today. The reference services extended by these libraries are no different.

It used to be referred to as reference. Then it became reference and information service. Now it is information systems and technology. The changes in the terminology are a strong indication that there is an evolution occurring in the delivery of information services and that this evolution will continue at a rapid pace well into the 21st Century. In fact with the “ … exponential growth of new and emerging technologies, these can no longer be considered simple evolutionary changes. Continual technological advances are changing public demand for goods and services worldwide, and libraries, like other institutions, appear to be grappling with how to successfully manage this change.”²

In order to meet this information challenge, there are several considerations which have to be resolved. The litany is long and complicated and includes, but is not limited to: (a) formats and their compatibility, (b) archiving of data and bibliographic information for historical purposes, (c) the training of reference professionals and library users, (d) costs, and (e) the information haves and have nots.

“A new technology is composed of two parts: a new kind of physical device and a new philosophy or method for using it. One generally cannot be used without the other.”³ While somewhat dated, this observation is no less true in the age of changing information delivery. Information resources are being distributed in a variety of formats. There are the traditional physical formats of paper and microforms with their documented and discussed advantages and disadvantages. While some reference librarians and users still feel more comfortable with these formats, more resources are being distributed electronically only with no real physical equivalent.

There are the electronic formats including diskettes, CD-ROMs, DVDs, and the various Internet or Web-based versions. Not so long ago, the distribution of data sets in the form of diskettes was thought to be a wave of the future but technological changes brought problems. The standard size diskette or “floppy” was 5 1/4-inch square which then became the current 3 1/2-inch diskette. Although smaller in size, the second diskette could be manufactured as high density resulting in a capability of storing a great deal more data. For obvious reasons, the two are not compatible.

The Library Programs Service (LPS) of the U.S. Government Printing Office recognized this problem when it issued its minimum technical standards for a work station or PCs to be used in member libraries of the Federal Depository Library Program.⁴ These standards recommended that each computer include means for using both types of diskettes. The specifications for computer equipment are to insure that the equipment is sufficient to allow timely and equitable public access to Government electronic information products.

Librarians were encouraged to “… consider such local factors as the amount of information provided by the government over the Internet as compared with the amount from CD-ROM, whether and how the work stations are networked, to what extent users are permitted to perform additional information processing at public access work stations, whether users are experiencing extended waiting times at the library peak service hours, etc.”⁵ LPS suggested that the specifications were not representative of the best possible work station rather that they are the minimum, or baseline, specifications to be considered.

In fact, what was classified as a simple basic workstation continues to become more complicated. In his discussion of electronic workstations, van Brakel⁶ describes four different types: the academic workstation, the reference workstation (i.e., for library users), the information specialist workstation, and the management information workstation.

As with the dissimilar diskettes, a parallel is presently occurring in the diameter and amount of information contained on compact disks. In the not so distant past, the Data User Services Division of the U.S. Bureau of the Census broke new ground in the delivery of vast amounts of data with its Test Disk No. 1⁷ in the format of a CD-ROM sent to selected libraries and other information agencies. The traditional CD-ROM is quickly being replaced by the digital versatile disk (DVD)-a fact not even considered several years ago.

DVD is a new optical disk technology that is expected to rapidly replace the CD-ROM disk as well as the audio compact disc over the next few years. Fortunately, most DVD players can also read CD-ROMs. The DVD holds approximately 4.7 gigabytes of information on one of its two sides, or enough for a 133-minute movie. With two layers on each of its two sides, it will hold up to 17 gigabytes of video, audio, or other information while the current CD-ROM disk of the same physical size holds only 600 megabytes. Expressed more simply, the DVD can hold more than 28 times as much information in the same amount of space. Imagine several encyclopedias and dictionaries with all the possible audio, video, text, and data files as well as the software to retrieve, display, manipulate, and even analyze all contained on a single DVD.

Remember Telnet, file transfer protocol (FTP) and GOPHER and all the benefits that reference librarians and other users derived from these computer programs and their abilities to manipulated and display data? In only the last few years, these have been replaced by the more intuitive Web and the accompanying browsers which promote the use of graphics and provide access to a wealth of knowledge as well as misinformation being mounted on this vast network of computers. Interesting enough, most Web browsers can use these same computer programs but in an almost seamless manner for the user.

“Publishers of electronic databases, however, do not usually sell their product, but instead they license it to libraries (or sites) for specific uses. They usually charge libraries a per-user fee or a per-unit fee for the specific amount of information the library uses. When libraries do not own these resources, they have less control over whether older information is saved for future use-another important cultural function of libraries. In the electronic age, questions of copyright, intellectual property rights, and the economics of information have become increasingly important to the future of library service.”⁸

As there is no physical or hardcopy equivalent of the data and text contained in these various formats, it becomes even more important that the data be archived for historical and research purposes. While this preservation activity remains uneven at its best, attempts are being made to maintain and warehouse data. In the current environment, even if data are archived for later use, there is little or no true guarantee as to whether its integrity or accuracy can or will be maintained. It must be protected from censorship with its validity and reliability ensured. Federal documents librarians have been concerned as to which agency or organization will be willing to assume this daunting task. It is to be sure that similar concerns are reflected in non-Federal databases.

Meyers states in her article on reference services in a virtual library that “We've quit thinking of ‘our collection.’ Many computers … are hosts for electronic articles and preprints. Information is distributed from small computers everywhere. We find it on the Net. Our library archives material from the campus sites and many others. We cooperate with other libraries to replicate archives at multiple sites to reduce the risk of loss. Digital information is archived on discs that look very much like your CD-ROM's, but they are made of glass.”⁹

Although the archiving of electronic resources has the potential of be a serious problem, the very fact that it is essential reinforces the fact that electronic resources are generally the most current or up-to-date version. This has a beneficial effect on the maintenance of reference collections and the services that they support.

As the technology changes, it will be necessary to migrate electronic resources which will involve the periodic refreshing or transfer of government information products from one medium to another in order to minimize loss of information due to physical deterioration of storage media and the reformatting of information to avoid technological obsolescence due to software or platform dependence. Some remember the punch cards used to write computer programs and to transmit data to be manipulated by those programs. In today's electronic environment, it would be difficult to find a machine that could process these individual cards. Surely the same fate should not fall to data and text simply stored in the wrong format.

The delivery of information electronically has implications both for the level of staffing at the reference desk and for the training and development of reference librarians. Staff development should include the obvious areas and some of the not so obvious (e.g., technostress). Technostress ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Editor
• Introduction
• Media Issues
• Index