Improved Access to Information: Portals, Content Selection, and Digital Information

Citation

Webster, B.M. (2005), "Improved Access to Information: Portals, Content Selection, and Digital Information", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 61 No. 3, pp. 452-454. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410510598634

This little book (barely 150 pages) comprises nine papers by distinguished library‐world leaders and is aimed at those responsible for the development of research libraries in an increasingly multi‐format environment. In these papers they wrestle with the issues of improving access to digital information and the steps academic libraries take in this process through the use of evermore sophisticated portals and careful content selection. James Michalko and Lizabeth A. Wilson focus on information needs and the changing ways in which scholars search for and use electronic information. They underline that only by careful analyses of these can libraries successfully create access points and build their user base. Michalko suggests looking at practices within the commercial sector (which teach us that time is of the essence) and research on information behaviour of teenagers (our future users) in determining what future services and tools libraries should aim to provide. Wilson describes the findings of three recent studies into user behaviour (of college students, faculty and graduate students). Mary E. Jackson gives an overview of a survey of current ARL‐related portal activities (including the Scholars Portal project ‐ a collaboration between several US research libraries to develop a “library.org web presence”).

Barbara I. Dewey provides a vision of what a scholarly portal should be, if it is to “aid the user or traveller not only to go through successfully but also to locate and apply its content to scholarship and learning, or the life of the mind”. She singles out support for teaching and learning activities, publishing activities (e.g. through institutional repository), communication between different user groups, interactive services to facilitate scholarship (e.g. peer review systems, dynamic discussions and publishing) and true cross‐searching.

Lorcan Dempsey argues that what we understand as a portal today (a small set of services over a range of well understood resources) does not address emerging issues such as location, collections and services and how these are affected by user behaviour. These include the use of the physical library as a social space, integrated management of diverse content or provision of new, flexible services.

Content development and collection management policies are the focus of papers by Bernard F. Reilly and Edward Shreeves. Reilly points to the importance of robust organisational structures, the culture of accountability and control in the preservation of scholarly content. He describes several governance and financial models used by depositories of print materials and reports on the efforts to produce frameworks for preservation of electronic content (web‐based). Shreeves’ paper compares and contrasts activities, skills and expertise associated with traditional collection development and those in the digital age.

Joseph J. Branin focuses in his paper on the management of and access to materials traditionally not associated with digital libraries – unpublished, unstructured and often unique information within an organisation (intellectual assets of an institution). His paper, describing the efforts of the Ohio State University in creating their “knowledge bank” or institutional repository managed together (seamlessly and by librarians) with traditional digital library content, signals a new and exciting development in content management in university libraries and poses new challenges to the idea of portals.

Alice Prochaska tackles issues of providing global access to local collections. She begins by defining the communities that research libraries serve (in relation to special collections) and continues by citing examples of such communities for special collection projects in the British Library and North Carolina and Yale universities. She also points to and describes four aspects of digitisation projects which have to be considered if the projects are to be successful. These are: clear statement and consistency of use of technical and descriptive standards, availability of a feedback mechanism, intelligent navigation through the use of harvesting and linking technologies and strategic partnerships with other organisations. Interestingly, she points to the maintenance of viable partnerships as being the most challenging aspect.

This book touches on a series of very important issues facing library managers today. It makes it very clear that libraries cannot ignore providing access to electronic information and that an immediate challenge is how to improve access to that information and how to manage successfully the content. This task will have profound implications for the management and provision of library services – from collection development, to reference and user instruction, to cataloguing and classification. New types of information will have to be managed by libraries – those relating to the support of teaching and learning, publishing and related activities of scholars as well as institutional records and documents. Providing electronic access to institutions’ unique and rare holdings will not only aid the work of researchers seeking access but help establish or further develop the reputations of institutions allowing them to build new communities of users. Both new types of users and those whose information behaviour is constantly evolving will have to be catered for. Carefully constructed user studies will inform the best‐run services and collaboration between institutions will become paramount in developing future services.

Improved access… is definitely a worthwhile read, although the papers sometimes appear like a straight transcript of a presentation – the papers were presented at a conference – and would have benefited from more careful editing. It focuses on the very important issues of improving access to information through the development of information portals and better content selection. Although it focuses on research and academic libraries, many of the points made and the lessons learned can readily apply to other sectors. The book is targeted at those responsible for the strategic development of research libraries. As such, it does not delve into technical detail, but concentrates on the overall trends and future developments. Anyone engaged in environmental scanning or strategies planning would find this a useful reference point and stimulus for their work.