Creating a Culture of Security in the University of Maryland Libraries

Citation: Lowry, Charles B. and Lori A. Goetsch, “Creating a Culture of Security in the University of Maryland Libraries,” portal: Libraries and the Academy, 1(4):455-464, October 2001.A critical part of building a shared culture of mutual responsibility for security and safety is a thorough understanding of all the elements of a library’s security environment. To address the need for a more coherent approach to library safety and security that reinforces a philosophy of shared responsibility among all staff, the University of Maryland Libraries embarked upon an assessment of policies, procedures, and facilities in partnership with the Association of Research Libraries. Begun in the fall of 1997, the security study and subsequent development of practice and policy were implemented over a two-year period and serve as a model comprehensive approach for a large academic library system

When’s this Paradigm Shift Ending?

Editorial FeatureSince 1962, when Thomas S. Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, one of the century's milestone works in the history of philosophy and science, his notion of the paradigm shift has been interpreted broadly as a model, and applied not only to scientific thinking but also to social phenomenon. The term has been applied increasingly and loosely to a transformation of libraries. As a general rubric, this does no great damage, but as a rigorous explanation, it is wide of the mark. It is past time to examine what we mean in using it in this way and begin to assess more thoroughly the pace and meaning of this change. In this brief essay I cannot provide a very thorough examination of the complex transformation, but it is possible to capture the gestalt. The starting point of this discussion is to distinguish between cause and effect and not to make the error of reversing them

Passing the Baton

Editorial FeatureWhenever there is a change of editors at a scholarly journal, one expects to see the ritual "thank you," and it may seem pro forma. However, for portal: Libraries and the Academy this is a significant milestone, and I want to attach special meaning to my first editorial statement--not because it is mine, but because our young journal has become such a success so quickly and many are due a sincere thanks

The More Things Change…

Editorial FeatureDo you need to read another column about change in academic libraries? Can one be written that is not a hackneyed cliché-ridden rehash? You are forewarned that the answer to both questions is a resounding "maybe!" I want to establish a premise that reverses an old aphorism, arguing that "the more things change, the less they are the same" for our libraries. When I began studies at the School of Information and Library Science in Chapel Hill nearly three decades ago, the kind of library organization I prepared to work in was fundamentally different from the one I find myself in today. This is because the external environment has stimulated change, not because we have actively sought it--the change has been largely reactive. The primary forces of change are easy to recognize and they are not of our making--shifts in pedagogy and research; the transformational impact of networked information technology; a revolution in scholarly information and in the intellectual property regime; and the ever-present restraint of budget, both inputs and outputs

Re-Positioning Libraries: A Consideration of the Obstacles

Editorial FeatureI consider it a "given" that the contribution of academic and research libraries was a central element in the success of the mission of higher education in the twentieth century. That premise leads to a difficult question—does it matter if libraries continue to be central in the century just beginning? Here I will make a second assumption—that it really does matter a great deal. At the risk of sounding pessimistic, it helps to understand the obstacles to re-positioning libraries successfully so that they may continue their vital contribution of providing access to scholarly information. These are largely beyond our immediate ability to remedy. That does not mean we should not try to understand them and to find the allies who can help us do the work of shaping the future of libraries—and there are many such allies. During the last two years, I have written closely allied pieces that have appeared in these pages exploring several topics that in my view are critical to the question of the future of libraries—on change, on the so-called "paradigm shift" and on intellectual property. In large measure, this essay is a capstone for all of them

ETDs and Digital Repositories--a Disciplinary Challenge to Open Access?

The University of Maryland Libraries have managed a repository using D-Space software for over two years, providing faculty a service for posting their research work and a foundation for moving the labor intensive management of paper dissertations and theses to the digital environment. Close cooperation with the Graduate School has been an essential feature of moving to a uniform requirement that theses and dissertations be presented in PDF format and posted in the Digital Repository at University of Maryland (DRUM). At an early stage, intellectual property issues began to emerge as an important policy dimension of managing DRUM—as they have for virtually any institution that gets into the digital repository business

Let's Call It the "Ubiquitous Library" Instead...

Editorial FeatureFraming an argument with the right terminology is critical to making any case effectively. Sometimes such framing is to clarify understanding, while in others it is rhetorical and persuasive. Politics is a particular example of the latter. Since at least 1984 when Duane Webster first developed and wrote "Organizational Projections for Envisioning Research Library Futures," we have been struggling as much with the terminology as with the work of transforming libraries. "The intent of these organizational projections is to suggest alternative library futures in order to assess competing possibilities for research libraries in the next decade.

Research and Scholarship Defined for portal: Libraries and the Academy

Editorial FeatureThis essay serves to explain in some detail the definition of scholarship that the editorial board of portal: Libraries and the Academy applies when evaluating articles and assessing whether they are worthy of publication in our pages. It should be read in the larger context of the mission and purpose of portal that is defined in our front matter. I want to thank the board for its comments and formal adoption of this statement at our meeting during the 2004 annual conference of the American Library Association. At the same time, any failings of this essay are my own

Scholarly Communication: a Lament and a Call for Change

This editorial is based on a paper delivered at the University of Oklahoma Libraries Conference “Incredible Transformations for Research Libraries: Back to the Future,” Oklahoma City, March 1-2, 2012