The authors, who between them have many years of medical librarianship experience, take a look at the current state of library and information provision and predict some of the changes and challenges that the profession will need to address to ensure survival and succes

Law, Derek

Lisgarten, Linda

McSean, Tony

English

Name not available

A backwards look at the future

University of Strathclyde Institutional Repository

Strathprints Institutional RepositoryLaw, Derek and Lisgarten, Linda and McSean, Tony (2008) A backwards look at the future. Journalof the European Association for Health Information and Libraries, 4 (2). pp. 10-13. ISSN 1841-0715Strathprints 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/  Law, Derek and Lisgarten, Linda and McSean, Tony (2008) A Backwards look at the future. Journal of the European Association for Health Information and Libraries, 4 (2). pp. 10-13. ISSN 1841-0715     http://eprints.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/6149/         Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (http://eprints.cdlr.strath.ac.uk) and the content of this paper for research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. You may freely distribute the url (http://eprints.cdlr.strath.ac.uk) of the Strathprints website.  Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to The Strathprints Administrator: eprints@cis.strath.ac.uk  Feature ArticleA backwards look at the future: three librarianstowards the end of their careers look at what librariesand librarians might become1 London, UK2 Strathclyde University, Glasgow, ScotlandContact: t.mcsean@hollar.co.ukExternal Changes ContentScientific and medical publishing in thetraditional print format is now a by-product ofpublishers’ main business. The majorpublishers make more than 50% of theirworldwide income from ejournals. For mostlibraries in the major European Union marketsit is probably only anomalies in the way VAT isapplied that keeps print alive — in the UK the17.50% differential leads at least one majoruniversity keeps its scientific print journals inremote storage without even taking them out ofthe envelopes (or did until recently). And thisdoes not only apply to current subscriptions;the major publishers already have theirbackruns available and we can expect to see thecost of accessing these fall drastically in thenext few years. E-books are not yet so fullyintegrated into our “collections”, but areincreasingly available in worthwhile qualityand quantity and take-up is likely to grow.Within the next six years, Google plans to makeavailable 36,000,000 book titles. The free out-of-copyright books will have limited value forthe health community, but there will also bemore recent material available for sale or loan.Google’s rivals have competing projects. Theopen web is, of course, a huge resource of freeinformation, although much of this carries noquality assurance. We all have our favouriteexamples of ludicrous or dangerous websites-soap that washes away body fats andmiraculous protections against contractingHIV. Institutional, national and subjectrepositories continue to gather strength andfederate, and to include elusive material such asAbstractThe authors, who between them have many years of medical librarianship experience, take a lookat the current state of library and information provision and predict some of the changes andchallenges that the profession will need to address to ensure survival and success.Key words: libraries; medical libraries; open access; publishing industry; future.Journal of  the European Association for Health Information and Libraries 2008, Vol. 4 (2) 10Tony McSeán1 Derek Law2 Linda Lisgarten1theses and grey literature which extends theiruse beyond peer-reviewed papers. And despitethe radically changed information landscape,the print-era publishing industry of commercialcompanies and learned societies retains afinancial and structural grip on thedissemination of the formal literature of health. This brave new world of open-ended anddiverse information resources may,paradoxically, require more rather than lessprofessional intervention and support if thebenefit to our researchers and practitioners is tobe maximised. The more varied the range ofinformation retrieval options available, themore scope there is for sub-optimal (or as wemight say rubbish) search results. User expectationsAs the technology of information deliverychanges, so do the expectations of our users andthe ways in which they will formulate and goabout satisfying their information needs.Prensky’s widely quoted division of the worldinto digital natives (the Facebook generation)and digital immigrants (the authors and 80% ofour profession) mark a fundamental shift inuser expectations. Resources are either on-webor off-web and for most practical purposes off-web might as well not exist for digital natives,particularly in the scientific context. Althoughthe printed word is not in any immediate dangerof extinction, Prensky argues convincingly thatwe are dealing with a far-reaching discontinuityand not just a generational shift. Think, forexample, how much more at ease digital nativesare with collaborative and group working (readPrensky at http://tinyurl.com/ypgvf .)AccessThe library is no longer necessarily a place.Reliable dial-up, broadband, internet cafés,wireless and blackberry-type mobile phoneshave progressively expanded informationaccess to the point where city dwellers arerarely more than five minutes’ walk frommailbox and search engine. As librarians, ourplace at the physical heart of our institutionmay be in terminal decline, but our reach hasexpanded beyond any previous expectation.The resources we manage are already inlaboratories and offices, homes and cafés, parksand gardens. Increasingly they are also to befound in wards and surgeries, pockets andhandbags, corridors and office kitchens.Information access and conversations are nolonger something to be planned for andtimetabled. They are an unremarked utility, asmuch a part of our workaday infrastructure asheat, light, water and shelter.Internal changesEven digital immigrants of mature years, suchas your authors, can internalise the individualimplications of these changes, and adaptaccordingly the way we live our working andsocial lives. The profound structuralimplications will take longer to showthemselves, and as a profession we need tobegin to adapt appropriately or the informationprofession will decline as surely as did thetravelling companies of ventriloquists,magicians, acrobats and singers when cinemaand television became ubiquitous.Many of our traditional skills and activities areno longer relevant in the electronic world. Acouple of examples:  many of the particular skills we haveevolved to search collections of paperdocuments will no longer be needed byany but a small minority of researchers(and those librarians who provide fortheir needs);Journal of  the European Association for Health Information and Libraries 2008, Vol. 4 (2) 11A backwards look at the futureJournal of  the European Association for Health Information and Libraries 2008, Vol. 4 (2) 12Tony McSeán, Derek Law, Linda LisgartenThe electronic revolution will certainly requirea reduction in the number of less expensivestaff for managing stock acquisition, issue,return. We take for granted the Byzantinecomplexity of many of these processes, butoutsiders find our ability to devise andimplement them one of the remarkable (thoughnot necessarily admirable) aspects of what wedo. With this change, we will also have lessneed to develop the special skills needed tomanage significant-sized teams ofparaprofessionals.Many of the general implications of currenttrends for information services have alreadybeen mentioned. But alongside the savings inroutine work it seems very likely that thediversity of information resources and the lossof a corporate centre for informationconsultation will both require more rather thanfewer skilled professional staff. Thesecustomer-facing and alert professionals will beessential to ensure that the informationactivities of researchers, practitioners andstudents are informed and efficient; that wherenecessary specialist information practitionerscan intervene in the process to save time andmoney; and that, above everything, the resultsof information seeking are of high quality andreflect the totality of published knowledge andnot some strange, warped subset.ConclusionMost of our users think that all the web’sinformation resources are free as air, includingthose we provide for them at huge expense toour institutions. Our profession has a very greatdeal of work to do to correct thismisapprehension, and in particular to gain abroad acceptance that information quality hasas much importance to the outcome of researchand clinical practice as other major supportcomponents. Our customers’ personal expe -rience of LIS delivery is important, as is it may well be that the need for collectiondevelopment work will decline drastically.One of the elements still missing from theour brave new world is a business modelfor e-resources that matches the way theyare supplied and used rather than they waythey are packaged and marketed – i.e. asan integrated database rather than as acollection of discrete and distinctproducts. Big Deals were the first falteringstep in this direction but the currentmismatch between space age products andthe stone age business plan is surelyunsustainable – we need a new modelwhich reflects the nature of the web; we have developed processes andprocedures, often of spectacularcomplexity, to ration access to scarceresources fairly. There is no scarcity withejournals and hundreds of students andresearchers can access the same NEJMarticle simultaneously without any civilunrest or danger to the fabric of the library; cataloguing as your authors were taughtit, has surely now passed into history forall but the most specialist applications.The pace and depth of change in libraries andinformation services will accelerate further. Ourrelationship to our premises will adapt astechnology changes the geography of our userbase from homeland to diaspora. The firststirrings of this change are already evident inour evolving attitudes to behaviour and(shudder) catering inside the library. We are alsoseeing the beginning of a systematic embeddingof information professionals in the everydayworking environments of those we serve: withclinical librarians and informationists ourprofession is beginning to follow informationaccess out into the wider world.Journal of  the European Association for Health Information and Libraries 2008, Vol. 4 (2) 13A backwards look at the futuregeneral advocacy, but crucial to this effort willbe the development and maintenance of aneffective evidence base showing the benefitsand cost-effectiveness of good informationmanagement and of the staff who deliver it. We live in an increasingly number-driven world,and one in which intermediaries of all kinds areunder pressure to justify their existence (whenwas the last time you booked a flight through atravel agent?). The danger signs are there to beseen. At least one of the major publishers has aproject group working on ways to developmodels for selling information resources directto researchers and doctors, and there is anincreasing move towards the centralisation andaggregation of licensing for e-resources in a waythat bypasses our profession.The information professional is the veryessence of an intermediary, and if we secure thefuture that our skills deserve, we have to beable to demonstrate to sceptical audiences thatwe add more real, quantifiable value to theprocess than we take out in real, quantifiablecosts. Our users are developing an almostreligious faith in the web, many of them happyto accept it as omni-present, omniscient andinfallible. Omni-present it might be, omniscientit might become in the course of time, butinfallible it will never be — and it is up to us tomake sure that our users never forget it.Welcome to the 2nd conference onScientific Publishing in Biomedicine and MedicineHow to increase the visibility and impactof your researchThe conference addresses two major themes essential to research scientists and academicclinicians: What are the tangible benefits and disadvantages of Open Access publishing? Can bibliometrics be employed to evaluate research at the level of the researcher, thedepartment, the institute and even at the country or federation level?Join the conference from 4th September till 6th September 2008 in Oslo, Norway.Conference fee: Early bird bookings until 30th June 2008: 2000 NOK.The main topics are “all about Open Access” and “scientometrics, bibliometrics & thequantitative evaluation of research: evaluating articles, people & institutes”.The keynote speakers are: Graham V Lees, Sijbolt J Noorda, Alma Swan,Robert Kiley, Stephen Pinfield, Kaitlin Thaney, Håkan Carlsson, Michael Mabe, Anthony vanRaan, Mary Van Allen, Richard Gedye, Howard Browman, Ed Pentz, Rune Nilsen.For more information: http://www.ecspbiomed.net/

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A backwards look at the future

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