The organisation of libraries and their suppliers fails to recognize the cross-sectoral and regional approaches to information provision by many of their users. Co-operation between sectors is the inescapable way forward

Law, Derek

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Regional and cross-sectoral approaches to library provision

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Strathprints Institutional RepositoryLaw, Derek (2000) Regional and cross-sectoral approaches to library provision. Serials, 13 (3). pp.157-160. ISSN 0953-0460Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde.Copyright c© and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authorsand/or other copyright owners. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for anyprofitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/) and the content of this paper for research or study, educational, ornot-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge.Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to Strathprints administrator:mailto:strathprints@strath.ac.ukhttp://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/Serials - Vol.13, no.3, November 2000 Derek Law     Regional and cross-sectoral approaches to library provision157IntroductionThe libraries of the public sector are both caste conscious andhierarchical in their view of each other. This consciousness bearslittle relationship to the reality of how users manage their libraryaffairs and is inimical to developing truly cross-sectoral andregional approaches to information provision. Regrettably thispigeon-holing of users and their habits has spread to suppliersand reinforces the difficulty in moving to new models. Vaguenotions of charging, or knock for knock arrangements are bandiedabout, when all too little seems to be known about reciprocalusage of libraries. In recent years only the People-flows1 projectbased at the University of Central England seems to haveexplored this issue. By categorising users into exclusive sectoralgroups we over-simplify and underestimate the complexity oftheir information seeking behaviour.The cross-sectoral nature of usersTo illustrate the point, one might consider the mythical characterof Sheila, the Staff Nurse from Sheffield. Sheila uses the nursinglibrary in her own Hallamshire Hospital. However as nursingmoves to become a graduate profession, she acts as a tutor toundergraduate nursing students; this requires her to use SheffieldUniversity Medical Library. She is also a user of her local branchof the city’s public library service and an avid reader of historicalfiction. A tireless and ambitious worker she is studying for adistance MBA and makes use of the Strathclyde Business SchoolLibrary. Even with these resources she cannot always find whatshe needs and so uses the Document Supply Centre and the RoyalCollege of Nursing Library to fulfil her inter-library lendingREGIONAL AND CROSS-SECTORALAPPROACHES TO LIBRARY PROVISIONDerek LawPaper presented at the UKSG 23rd Annual Conference, Keele, April 2000Derek Law is Director ofInformation Strategy, Universityof StrathclydeThe organisation of libraries andtheir suppliers fails to recognize thecross-sectoral and regionalapproaches to information provisionby many of their users. Co-operation between sectors is theinescapable way forward.needs. And finally she has an AOL account tokeep in touch with colleagues, students andfriends and to gain access to relevant medicalinformation.Sheila illustrates the point that library userstend to be serial library users. If someone usesone library they are liable to use other libraries.Users act cross-sectorally (horizontally) and usedifferent libraries and resources as they go aboutdifferent parts of their lives.  A postgraduatestudent studying for an NVQ in order to improvethe hourly pay rate of a part-time job; a schoollibrarian who is an avid movie buff; an estateagent fascinated by Egyptology who uses theBritish Library. All of these are recognisableexamples of people who have multiple, legitimateand ª normalº  information needs. It is librarianswho act sectorally (vertically) and whocompartmentalise users into single and non-overlapping groups. It is librarians who worryabout issues such as reciprocal access withoutconsidering how many of their users alreadyenjoy reciprocal access as of right. This understanding is about to become evenmore complicated as lifelong learning, continuousprofessional development and learning citiesmove up the political agenda. Higher education ismoving to the point where half the populationwill expect to undertake university level studies.Learn direct (aka the University for Industry)claims to offer half a million courses. There is agrowing assumption that one’s expectationshould be to move through several careers in aprofessional lifetime. Government has promisedbroadband to the home. Despite this there remainhuge pockets of social deprivation where learningremains an abnormal activity and we have as yetlittle idea of how the learning agenda will affectlearning cities, or even learning villages. The Myths of Library UseThe reality of cross-sectoral use is furtherobscured to we professionals by a set of dearlyheld professional myths owned by each librarysector. There is a widely held view that universitylibraries see themselves as exclusive organisationswhich keep the public out. While it might be truethat universities do not encourage public use, ithas long been the general rule that anyone with aspecific need to use university library collections(as opposed to a general need to use a library) iswelcomed. Again it is generally true thatuniversity alumni may use their libraries fairlyreadily and as the general population becomesincreasingly a graduate one, those who can useuniversity libraries as of right will grow steadily.It is also often felt that even where access ispermitted borrowing rights are denied. Whilethere is some element of truth in this, so muchlibrary stock is held for reference only that inpractice this is not a huge penalty.Conversely there is a myth that public librariesare open and welcoming places where studentsform a significant and increasing group of userswhich public libraries welcome out of thegoodness of their hearts. The fact that a growingportion of these students are local residentsand/or ratepayers entitled to use the library isoften neglected. Equally the newcomer to a citymay find that the requirement for appropriatepaperwork makes joining the library moredifficult than opening a bank account. Suchnewcomers will not possess the utility bills, rentbooks or other identification which offers thebureaucratic proof of residence required to join.And anyone who thinks public libraries are freehas clearly not tried to use the whole range ofservices offered.Further Education Colleges are popularlysupposed not to have libraries worth the name, tobe tiny one man bands, closed more often thanopen. Yet surprisingly these institutions manageto turn out literate and effective students.Nor is the British Library exempt from suchmyths. One strong body of opinion holds that theBL should not have moved from the RoundReading Room. A single visit to the magnificentnew St Pancras site will dispel that viewimmediately. But, sadly, we prefer our myths andprejudices to be untainted by facts. Co-operation, Funding and ChargingAll of this leads to the very obvious conclusionthat co-operation between sectors is theinescapable way forward. Such working is not, ofcourse new. For many years Local InformationPlans (LIPs)2 have played a much neglected partin trying to foster co-operation. But they haveperhaps proved rather static and needincreasingly to look at much deeper levels of158Serials - Vol.13, no.3, November 2000Regional and cross-sectoral approaches to library provision     Derek Lawresource sharing as well as sharing informationabout resources. Yet over much of the country,shared and publicised access at least for referenceuse would represent a significant step forward inlocal co-operation. New technologies have madesome ambitions simpler and more accessible thanhitherto. For example local websites linkingOPACs are now a realistic possibility. This canoperate either at the simple but effective level ofthe M25 Consortium3 linking higher educationlibraries in the London area, or at the deeper levelof the CAIRNS Project4 in Scotland, which allowscross-platform searching.Co-operative acquisition and shared purchaseare two other somewhat traditional and perhapsneglected activities to be considered. In highereducation the practice for a decade now has beento seek national site licence deals, a practice begunby CHEST on behalf of the Funding Councils andlatterly carried out by NESLI5 (National ElectronicSite Licence Initiative). At the same time as NESLIdeals have become less and less attractive - for avariety of reasons - there has been a separategrowth of interest in regional cross-sectoral dealsbased on the MAN (Metropolitan Area Network)structure. Areas as disparate as the West ofScotland and the West Midlands have begundiscussions with publishers on deals of thisnature. Most of the agreements to purchasespecialised material, whether organised by subjector date, seem to have fallen into desuetude.However projects such as the Glasgow Universitybased GAELS6 project seem to imply a renewedinterest in deep resource sharing.National deals have been characteristic of the1990’ s, but their acceptability appears to bediminishing. In essence they offered publisherslittle but reduced income in return for reducedsales and administrative overheads. Majorpublishers are beginning to approach regionaldeals rather more eagerly, since these open up thepossibility of increasing income by adding newgroups, such as schools, to a consortium, thusgetting at least some income from sectors wherefull price sales would prove impossible.Perhaps one desirable funding model fornational negotiating agencies would be to providenational templates for regional deals. There seemslittle merit in each region of the UK spendinglarge amounts of time negotiating individualcontracts given that information on terms andconditions will quickly spread round the system.It seems at least theoretically possible that pricingbased on a formulaic model could be negotiatednationally, allowing regional consortia todetermine which constituent groups will accept adeal and using the formula to calculate the costwithout the need of protracted and expensivenegotiations. ICOLC7 ±  the International Coalitionof Library Consortia ±  has emerged as a forcewhich offers the sort of information exchangeforum and body to tackle publishers whichencourages the belief that a regional approach in anational context could flourish.Regional trading companies and consortia arebeginning to emerge based on the MetropolitanArea Networks. Hitherto the MAN structure hasbeen dominated by technical considerations.However as they become settled structures thereis much more interest in how they can be usedeffectively. The cross-sectoral state-wide consortiacommon in the United States is beginning to belooked at with interest. Local digital libraries are the most interestingway of bringing together a range of cross-sectoralresources. The Glasgow Digital Library8 is onesuch model. Although funded by the ResearchSupport Libraries Programme of the FundingCouncils, it is a cross-sectoral project which has setout to create a completely new library in Glasgowwith access to new resources of relevance to theentire local population. Other such libraries arebeing planned and there is as yet no singlestandard model which is emerging - although theconcept of collections free at the point of use doesappear to be an important basic requirement.The nature of what to include may be eased bythe more relaxed attitude of publishers tointellectual property rights. Organisations asvaried as the British Medical Journal, Elsevierand the Association of Learned and ProfessionalSociety Publishers9 have all eased restrictions onauthors, broadly allowing them to post individualarticles on local websites. It does not take muchthought to see the output of local authors as a keybuilding block of local digital libraries. ConclusionManaging the solutions which will allow us tooperate cross-sectorally then requires us toaddress three separate areas.159Serials - Vol.13, no.3, November 2000 Derek Law     Regional and cross-sectoral approaches to library provision160Firstly we need to consider the management ofthings. We need to build coherent access to ourcollections so that the user can seamlessly accessmultiple collections with a single search, identifyappropriate resources and then acquire themeither on screen or through an electronic orderingor reservation process.We need to manage the relationships ofgroups not used to working together at anydeep level. This will rest on creating trustbetween sectors, a trust that will dispel thedamaging myths of the past and show a moresophisticated understanding of how users really behave.This will not be a cheap or easy process soperhaps most of all we need to undertake themanagement of perceptions. We have todemonstrate that libraries continue to be relevantin an information society and that the whole isgreater than the sum of the parts. We need todemonstrate that properly managed, filtered andquality assured information is superior to thechaos of unfettered access to the Internet. Aboveall we need to demonstrate that our possessionof information management skills providesaccess to and unlocks all of the resources which a user wants at the time and place convenient to them and not the time and place convenient to us.References1. http://www.cie.uce.ac.uk/Faculty/Research/cirt/im_theme.htm#flows2. For example the British Library Research andDevelopment Department Research Bulletin, No 8Autumn 1992 reports on several of these3. http://www.m25lib.ac.uk/M25/4. http://cairns.lib.gla.ac.uk/5. http://www.nesli.ac.uk/6. http://gaels.lib.strath.ac.uk/project_info/index.html7. http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/8. Nicholson, D. & Law, D. The Glasgow DigitalLibrary and National Information Policy Program(2000) [in press]9. The new license may be found athttp://www.alpsp.org.uk/grantli.pdfSerials - Vol.13, no.3, November 2000Regional and cross-sectoral approaches to library provision     Derek Law

reports on several of these

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Regional and cross-sectoral approaches to library provision

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