An interview with Professor Ken Dowlin

Citation

Calvert, P. (2001), "An interview with Professor Ken Dowlin", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 18 No. 10. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2001.23918jae.002

An interview with Professor Ken Dowlin

Library Hi Tech News co-editor Philip Calvert was privileged to interview Professor Ken Dowlin, the author of a new book, Using New Technology Effectively, which is reviewed elsewhere in this issue. Dowlin has spent 35 years building community support to increase library facilities and services in five different libraries in three different states. His best-known achievements have included the creation of a highly sophisticated automated system called "Maggie's Place" for the Pikes Peak Library District in Colorado Springs, and the impressive home for the San Francisco Public Library in California. Dowlin is widely respected as a pioneer in the use of new technologies such as video and cable communications, he is also an advocate for public libraries in many different professional and community forums. He is currently Professor at the San Jose State University of Library and Information Science, and Director of Distance Education. He is also the Designated Architect of the Virtual School of Library and Information Science. There is a more detailed biography of Ken Dowlin at: http://www.dowlin2000.org/aboutkd.htm

LHTN. In your new book "Using New Technology Effectively", you say that we have entered the communications age. Does that mean that information is now less important than it once was?

Dowlin. Information is still extremely important. I consider information as a descriptive term for content and communication as the act of communicating. What I am trying to get across to people is that if we use Alvin Toffler's concept of waves of global civilization change and extend it forward I see the next "age" as one of communication. That is the time when the act of communication takes on more importance to people than the content. We are inundated with communication now. There are thousands of channels of communication, if not tens of thousands. I see a number of indicators of the shift from the information age to the communication age. Examples are:

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  Satellite video systems and cable televisions distribute many hundreds of channels.

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  Cell phones are ubiquitous. On campus here (and on the roads) I see at least 20 percent of the people I observe casually are talking on cell phones. In Singapore I watched a group of young teenagers at a food court spend most of their time talking on cell phones even though they were in a group. In airports the percentage of people on cell phones rises every day.

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  Radio talk shows rattle on all day and night talking about really unimportant stuff.

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  Television talk shows appear to be the norm for programmes to kill time.

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  E-mail is ubiquitous now as well. I personally see 200-300 messages each day.

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  I watched a mother waiting to go into the doctor's office. She was on the phone when she drove up into the parking lot, made several calls before she got out of the car, and was on the phone walking back through the parking lot. She had a young girl about four to five years old with her. I wondered what is the impact on children when they see mothers on the phone all the time.

My point is that everyone is spending vast amounts of time communicating. But very little of the content I happen to hear or see seems to have social value. I also see that very little of today's communication is actually archived, or aggregated into useful information.

I dream that we might move into the knowledge age – a time when everyone would have access to information that was aggregated, evaluated, and readily available for people to learn and apply.

LHTN. You argue very cogently that libraries need to become communications centres. What, then is the place of the "collection" in the library?

Dowlin. The process of building a collection is still very important. There need to be repositories of information and knowledge as well as access to channels that link to other repositories. If everyone is only doing linking there will not be any creation of knowledge or any place to get the information. This is particularly true for local community information. Organising and archiving local information is an important part of any library's responsibility. Creating the system that integrates collection item access (books, journals) with channels (Internet) is one of our biggest tasks as a profession.

LHTN. As more "virtual" education becomes available, will public libraries be called upon to provide more support for education, or have those days gone?

Dowlin. I feel that the need for public libraries to support formal education programmes will decrease. Some public libraries may provide print materials to support curriculum needs where they have links to local education institutions, but most of their role will be just to provide general books, journals, and electronic sources. I do see that more and more of the resources for virtual education will be online. In fact, in a distance education programme it is impossible to make physical information artifacts (like books) available throughout a multi-site programme or a virtual programme other than where textbooks are used and they can be purchased via Amazon.com or other online vendors. We "teleteach" to 12 different sites in the SJSU SLIS DE program and our Web classes go to the home. Trying to get a reading list worth of materials in every site or home is impossible. Not only is the cost factor for the student high, but also the mechanics just are not developed. It is much more efficient to use an e-library or e-books.

LHTN. Not so long ago, we looked upon technology as a tool to help us do our job. We just needed to learn how to use the technology. Now technology can do almost anything we wish it to do and in the process it is re-defining the job itself. We do not have simple choices any more. What will help us make choices about which technology to select and use in our libraries?

Dowlin. The management of technology is now assuming the importance of managing employees, facilities, and collections. It requires constant attention and funding. This is a major part of my book. There are some keys, however: the technology should be selected to meet specific goals and objectives of the library or community, not just plopped into the library. The hardware and software should be mainstreamed, not customised. It should be ubiquitous in the community or if it is functionally specific to the library's needs it must be effective and efficient. It should meet all capture, organisation, storage, and delivery needs at the same time and on the same system. For example, OPACs have morphed into access systems, not just indexing systems. They should also be effective inventory systems.

LHTN. Public libraries have always had good support from the community. As they come into greater competition with other agencies, how can they retain support from the public?

Dowlin. I feel the key is the community connectivity. There, a number of historic roles that still have validity. Children's story hours, adult programming, and literacy programmes still have positive social value. The library can be an icon for the community. The buildings should have presence in the architecture of the community. People should enjoy them; value them for the community space. But now, the new roles can add value to the community. Training in the use of IT, computer literacy, and basic information access literacy are expanding roles in the library of today.

LHTN. Among many interesting points in your book, one that struck me hard was that information "gatekeepers" such as travel agents, bank tellers, stockbrokers, and reference librarians, are finding their jobs changing dramatically as customers realise they can bypass them. How much are librarians trying to learn from the experience of other professions and industries?

Dowlin. The librarians must understand that they must add value to the process of information-seeking behaviour. The effective ones become facilitators rather than gatekeepers. This is not new, just a different emphasis. They provide training in the technology, integrate the print as well as non-print resources, and help the information seeker shape the question and navigate the tools. They also have to be involved in infrastructure efforts. A good example is the development of the Dublin Core of standards for electronic information identification. Librarians are playing a major role in the new communication and storage standards. These standards are central to the Web world. In many respects the single most important development leading to the Internet was the development of the standards for inter-connectivity. TCP/IP is not a new development, IBM was using it in the 1970s, but once it became an industry standard (with a lot of expanded capacity) it led to the Internet.

LHTN. Some readers of Library Hi Tech News live and work in countries without an adequate telecommunications infrastructure. Do you think they should plan for the communications age?

Dowlin. Yes, leapfrogging technology such as cell phones and wireless networks will bring more and more people into the communication age. The marketplace will drive the development. What the communities have to pay attention to is the importance of social institutions that add value to the communication. They need libraries and educational institutions to provide social, communal structures. I see this in Brazil, for example. The federal government is privatizing utilities such as power companies and telephone companies as a way to raise capital to invest into infrastructure. It is an excellent strategy for development. Unfortunately, they do not understand that they should be putting money into education.

LHTN. Perhaps you have been a risk taker at some times in your career. Not all librarians seem to have the personality to be risk takers, but will that become a part of the job in the future?

Dowlin. I do not know that every librarian will have to be a risk taker. I do believe that we must develop leadership that will take risks. If we work as a profession we can mitigate some of the bad consequences of risk taking. I do believe that every librarian needs to be a manager. It may not be in the traditional mode of supervising large numbers of employee. It may be employees; but it may also be collections, technology, volunteers, students and so on. Management is now a critical skill for librarians. To manage well, they must be communicators. I try to emphasize these two elements in my classes – management and communication.

LHTN. Do you think all librarians have to be technologically savvie? Or, to put it another way, is there a role for the librarian who does not know how to use a computer?

Dowlin. Yes to the first, no to the latter. A librarian who is not computer or Internet savvy has a learning disability that is significant. We are the most networked profession in history. It is part of the environment in libraries.

LHTN. Library educators will be wondering about the implications of your ideas for the curriculum. What changes need to be made to the content of LIS programmes?

Dowlin. A bunch, but where to start, and where to get the resources to retool? Those are the questions. This might be the topic for my next book.

LHTN. And what are the values/ ethics of LIS professionals that you would like to see encouraged?

Dowlin. I believe strongly that values and ethics are at the core of the profession. I believe that librarianship is:

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  mastering the craft skills;

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  professional ethics and values; and

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  advocating subsidised access to information, knowledge and learning for all.

I believe the values and ethics of librarianship are:

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  intellectual freedom for all;

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  subsidized access to information for all;

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  libraries are community assets;

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  advocate for literacy;

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  value diversity, yet create an over-arching sense of community;

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  privacy of the individual;

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  individual-oriented service.

Ken Dowlin (kdowlin@wahoo.sjsu.edu ) is based at San José State University School of Library and Information Science and is also Director of Distance Education, San José, California, USA.

Philip Calvertis based at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.