Library technology the Y2K crisis

Citation

Maxymuk, J. (1999), "Library technology the Y2K crisis", The Bottom Line, Vol. 12 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.1999.17012dag.001

Library technology the Y2K crisis

Library technology the Y2K crisis

Keywords: Technological change, Internet, Planning, Technological forecasting

A proposal was made where I work that on January 1, 2000 each library in the university would send in a representative to check if that library's computers were functioning, and while we were at it, whether the power, heat, water, and telephone were running as well. What the scout is supposed to do if none of those systems was working was left undefined. Perhaps there will be training this autumn on alternative mass communication systems, like shouting very loudly or sending smoke signals. Again, procedures for alternatives were not specified.

How the onset of the millennium will affect our contemporary technology-driven society concerns everyone on some level. Some foresee widespread doom, with planes falling out of the sky at midnight and power, communications, and food distribution systems shutting down, to leave the lucky ones who stocked their bomb shelters eating canned food and bottled water by candlelight. Most of us anticipate malfunctions of some sort, but no one knows for sure. Will all of the decommissioned 486 computers be functional in January 2000? Will such a computer be affected at all?

The Michelangelo Virus a few years back was threatening to cause worldwide havoc on March 6. While a few thousand personal computers met with disaster, the overwhelming majority was not affected. Virus protection software was purchased or updated, and the threat itself was overblown. Will Y2K be a similar experience for those of us who have prepared by faithfully checking our hardware and by downloading patches for all our software? Not quite, because of the numerous levels of programming in everything that touches our lives, yet, there are bound to be problems still undetected. But, these should be relatively minor glitches, repaired in short order as they develop.

Things fail around us all the time. In our library, the keyword index for our online catalog was corrupted and the option for keyword searching was inoperative for a couple of days while the index was rebuilt. Situations such as these may become more common as our technology ages. There may be more times in the coming year when our systems are at less than full strength, yet I do not envision widespread failure of our library technology.

Predicting the future is always difficult. We predict the future based on existing conditions and past trends. Conditions change and new trends emerge. IBM's hegemony in the computer industry was thought to be impossible to overcome in the 1970s, but a series of companies emerged with better ideas in the 1980s.

It is a challenging exercise to try to spot new trends, and the American Library Association's Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) has its own Top Technology Trends Committee who have listed seven trends for librarians to watch on their Web site: www.lita.org/committe/toptech/trendsmw99.htm

Judging from what is not there, we can say that the committee does not expect a Library Y2K Armageddon. For libraries, the committee does visualize trends toward more customization, more evaluation, more need for human interaction, more cooperative efforts, a wider audience, greater reliance on authentication, and less interest in non-network technology.

Trend 1: Customization

The LITA group sees library users increasingly as Web surfers who have grown accustomed to personalized services from their experiences with non-library Web sites. As I wrote in my column (The Bottom Line, Vol. 12 No. 3), we may not be directly competing with Amazon. com (www.amazon.com), but we do not want to look like their shoddy cousins from the wrong side of the book stacks either. We want to appear inviting to our virtual users.

Our success can be achieved by tailoring our library Web pages to meet the perceived needs of our target audience rather than just listing what resources the library controls. When I first designed the Web page for our library, I compiled a fundamental list of resources. When we hired a Webmaster, she rightfully redesigned it: www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rulib/abtlib/camlib/index.html The pages are focused on questions posed to us from users. Different questions were provided depending on if the user is a faculty, student, or visitor.

A more ambitious approach is taken by both the University of Washington Libraries (www.lib.washington.edu/) and North Carolina State University library (my.lib.ncsu.edu/). Both offer full customization as a user's portal to the Web for all surfing. UW calls this option "My Gateway" and NCSU calls it "My Library" and both are designed to allow users to create portable Web pages just listing those resources of interest to them. These pages are accessible from anywhere you have access to a browser. Portals are a desired offering by entities like Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) and Microsoft (home.microsoft.com) because they represent increased advertising dollars. No advertising is an attractive feature of a library-based portal and a portal is a very appropriate customizable service for an information institution to offer.

Trend 2: Evaluation

The World Wide Web is the largest vanity press in publishing history. Anyone who is connected to the Internet can publish recipes, ranting, pet trivia, family details, untruths, and tasteless jokes, personal and public history and more complete with inaccuracies, misspellings and grammatical errors. Frighteningly, the Web is also becoming the exclusive research tool. US college students come into our library to write papers and they want to gather their information only from the Internet. Book circulation is dropping. If a journal is only in print, it is usually an unwanted source, seen as an unneeded, extra step for today's student. My middle school daughter expects to find all her research on a computer, preferably on the Web. If it is not online, then it cannot be very valuable or cool.

Librarians need to apply evaluative guidance here. Not all Web sites are valuable or reliable. Librarians need to continue our message out to our users on how to evaluate materials, especially on the Web. We need to teach users the kinds of questions to ask:

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  What is the scope and purpose of the site?

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  Who is the author?

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  What are their credentials?

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  Can they be contacted?

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  What kind of site is this...gov, com, edu?

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  Is the information accurate?

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  Is the information complete?

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  Are details present in full?

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  Is it current?

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  Is it based on facts and clear evidence or merely opinion? Are sources documented?

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  Is it written logically and engagingly?

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  How does it compare to other sites or to print resources? Are there reviews?

Beyond these basic criteria, there are other questions unique to Web source materials.

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  How is the onscreen layout?

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  Is it readable and uncluttered?

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  Are graphics and icons clear and helpful?

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  Is the site easy to navigate?

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  Is it searchable?

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  Do the links work?

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  Does it make full use of Web multimedia capabilities?

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  Is there contact information?

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  When was it last updated?

Library users of today know that the Web is vast and it is easy to find something on any topic. The user needs to know how to tell whether what they find is what will fill their information need.

Trend 3: Human interaction

The LITA committee views library staff as the "crucial factor" in the success of the nonvirtual library. They would like us to "put a human face on the virtual library." OK, how? They talk of identifying the staff at a high level on the Web site, but even if that is done, it does not accomplish everything. Surfing the Web is an impersonal activity. You do not run into other people unless you drop into a chat room, and even then you really do not know to whom you are talking. Cases of Tom Hanks meeting Meg Ryan in such a venue are pretty rare outside of Hollywood.

E-mail is a form of computer communication that does offer some human interaction. We all have e-mail buddies, and that could be incorporated into a library's Web presence. However, inconsistencies often emerge. My Circulation staff's e-mail addresses are posted on the Web page, and they interact with some faculty members when special materials arrive. In addition, overdue and recall notices are sent via e-mail, but unfortunately those notices are sent out as an automated function by a central office. If you respond to one, you are responding only to a machine. Human to human interaction here is still in relation to human computer interaction.

E-mail is often tried as a reference tool as well, but my experience with it has not been positive. Unless you know the user and his needs, the e-mail reference interview is painfully slow, ineffective, and non-interactive. Users who want to e-mail reference questions would do much better with a simple phone call to a reference desk. Perhaps the future holds more changes in store for this proposed trend of human computer interaction.

Trend 4: Cooperative efforts

As the LITA group puts it, "Libraries can afford less and less wasteful inefficiency and duplication of effort." One library will not catalog the Internet and yours should not try. If getting a handle on the resources of the Web is a goal it would probably be better to get involved in an existing initiatives like OCLC's Project CORC ( www.oclc.org/oclc/research/projects/corc/index.htm) or the Scout Project's Isaac Network (scout.cs.wisc.edu/research/ index.html).

A more radical approach is advocated in a fascinating article in the March 1999 issue of Searcher by Steve Coffman of the Los Angeles County Public Library, "Building Earth's largest library: driving into the future" ( www.infotoday.com/searcher/mar/coffman.htm). Coffman takes the Amazon model of Web success and applies its principles as a possible future direction for all libraries. He starts from the Amazon catalog, which is essentially a combination of the 3 million titles listed in Books in Print and Books Out of Print even though Amazon's actual inventory is only about one-tenth of that amount. The remainder they get from wholesalers, other booksellers, or directly from the publishers. The difference in location is noted in the catalog in the differing shipping times (within 24 hours for in-stock items; 24-48 hours from wholesalers; 2-6 weeks from the publishers; hard to find from other booksellers). Coffman points out users do not care that this is not so much a catalog as a special order service. The value of the delivery lies in the elements of being functional, cheap and easy to use.

Coffman sees a future where libraries join together to present one fully automated catalog, of 43 million items, augmented like Amazon's with graphics, additional information, and reviews, whose availability is distinguished by an interlibrary loan delivery time. The idea is to have one automated system for all libraries and for such a system to be able to handle requests and circulation like Amazon handles orders and payments. Initial startup costs would be formidable, but savings are foreseen in automation, staff time/positions, as well as the collection development benefits. A dream, yes, but the article is worth reading and pondering because there is enough logic involved that some of it may come true in some form.

Trend 5: Worldwide audience

Traditionally, libraries have had a good idea of who they were trying to serve. The residents of a town or county, K-12, the faculty and students of a college, the employees of a business are all common user groups of the different types of libraries. Opening the electronic doors though lets in the rest of the world. Public and academic libraries have been addressing this expanded clientele in a variety of ways, while essentially highlighting what the library already offers its known audience, and trying to make that material available to a broader public. This refocus of our user group has taken many forms on the Web. A database formerly only accessible within the library building is now networked. Archival research materials previously only under lock and key in the Special Collections room have been scanned and put on the Web. An exhibit of historic photographs is now viewed digitally. A collection of local data is gathered in electronic form and put online. A list of links of local interest selected by library staff is often included. The possibilities are unlimited, and libraries will continue to add value to their Web sites in these ways. This is an easy trend to spot because it fits in so well with the public service mission of our profession.

Trend 6: Authentication

This is the bookend trend to the last one. To libraries, a worldwide audience is an indication that information must be free. Unfortunately, some databases libraries license for their users carry use and user restrictions and only those specifically affiliated with the institution have a legal right to use these networked resources. Elaborate systems are devised to protect these legal rights. Authentication is the guard at the electronic gateway. We must, as a profession, understand and adhere to these licensure obligations.

Furthermore, maintaining the security of data and documents from alteration and the privacy of individual users are related issues. In the coming years, there will be more use of passwords and PINs to access certain restricted resources. At the same time, libraries must ensure that such access is not providing a back door to private personal data in its online system. And, what about electronic reserves? Are they accessible to a wider audience than intended by the author? Are these systems beyond tampering and hacking? In an increasingly electronic environment, authentication, authorization, and access management will be a key evolving issue for library managers for the foreseeable future.

Trend 7: Sinking ships

With their final trend, the LITA group warns against a reliance on submerging technologies. The example they give is that libraries should be migrating from the submerging technology of CD-ROM to the emergent technology of the Web for indexes, abstracts, and full-text databases. I concur wholeheartedly with this. In 1996, I wrote an article for the Journal of Government Information titled "Riding the technology waves in search of electronic access", Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 327-34. The article focused on how CD-ROM technology was nothing more than an interim technology. While many questions regarding the archiving, storage, permanence, data security, bibliographic control, and accessibility of networked government information needed to be answered, it was the way of the future, and the future started yesterday.

CD-ROM was a wonderful advance for information resources in the 1980s. A user could search full text by keyword for several years of data at a time without incurring online vendor charges. As the Internet began to emerge in the early 1990s, the inherent flaws in CD-ROM technology became more noticeable: the one user-one workstation framework, difficulty in networking and remote usage, and an overwhelming plethora of products and software for any library to manage.

CD-ROMs will continue to be utilized in our libraries. The technology has its own advantages. It is good for storing archival information or data, particularly for an individual researcher. A social scientist crunching Census numbers is happy to have that data on a CD that he can own and manipulate on a home or office personal computer.

One thing is certain – the future is full of surprises. I am sure when Ralph Lee Smith coined the metaphor and model of the information superhighway in a 1970 article in The Nation (5/18/70, pp. 582-606) that he did not envision now Vice President, Albert Gore, Jr, co-opting it and claiming it as his own some 20 years later. He also did not foresee that the term would refer to the Internet rather than the medium of cable television. His main fear was that the "wired nation" would be driven by commercial advertising and not government policy. However, when commercial interests took the reins of the Internet from the hands of government in the early 1990s is when the Web became the omnipresent force in all aspects of modern life. For better or worse, the future means continual progress and growth. Y2K is likely to prove to be a temporary setback that will be overcome. Change does not signal the coming virtual ice age for humanity.

Comments on this column are welcome and can be sent to maxymuk@crab.rutgers.edu or you may visit my Web page ( www.rci.rutgers.edu/~maxymuk/home/home.html). There, links to Web sites referred to in this column can be found.

John Maxymuk is a Reference Librarian at the Paul Robeson Library, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, USA.