A Bridge to the Future: Observations on Building a Digital Library
Over the past few years, academic libraries
throughout the world have been in a state of transformation as a result of the
impact of information technology. No area of the library has remained untouched.
The impact on collections, services, staff, and facilities has had major
ramifications on budgets, planning, and training. The experience of Rutgers
University Libraries illustrates the extensive planning, work effort,
possibilities, and investment required to develop the digital library.
In the fall of 1997, the Rutgers
University Libraries embarked on a strategic planning process to define how the
libraries would operate in the subsequent five years, the length of time
participants in the process could describe a future impacted by rapidly changing
digital technologies. A steering committee was formed, composed of faculty from
a variety of disciplines, undergraduate and graduate students, several key
administrators, and librarians. The committee spent nearly a year examining the
ways that the library system could best serve its users: 48,000 students and
2,600 faculty across three major campuses, along with a growing complement of
offcampus educational sites and remote users.
Planning with the
Community
The result of
the committee’s work was a planning document (www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/about/long_range_plan.shtml) describing how
the Rutgers Digital Library Initiative will preserve and build on the traditional
strengths of the library—its scholarly resources and services— while developing the
digital library of the future. The process of developing the plan was critical for
university understanding and buy-in to a new sustainable library model.
In 1997, electronic journals were just
beginning to take hold and information technology was being incorporated into
the classroom. Many faculty, especially in the humanities and social sciences,
were wary of the library’s reducing the monograph budget significantly, dropping
print journals, and spending time on dubious digital projects with teaching
faculty. The ability to discuss the changing information environment, its
potential for positive impact on teaching, learning, and research, and the
greatly enhanced services that it might facilitate was necessary to building
consensus on how to move ahead.
The plan, widely distributed to the
community and referred to as we build the future, was also the basis for a
university-wide budget advisory committee to recommend a funding model for
university contributions, library re-allocation, and external fund raising to
support the DLI.
In each of the years since the plan’s
inception, the libraries have re-allocated funds to collection development, in
particular, and raised nearly $2 million in external funds, while the university
has contributed $16.6 million over that same time period for collections,
equipment, and capital renovations. Having a rational plan that is widely known
and accepted, and by which impact and success can be measured, is a very
powerful tool.
Goals and Considerations
While our libraries will have both print and
digital resources, the DLI’s goals focus on developing a user-centered
information technology infrastructure across all university libraries (currently 14
physical buildings on 3 campuses). This includes designing more effective services
that capitalize on technology; acquiring, organizing, and disseminating highquality digital content; creating
new multimedia content with other faculty colleagues; experimenting with digital preservation;
and continually assessing and evaluating the impact of information technology, making appropriate changes in
the provision of services and information resources.
In the first years of the DLI, the
libraries have made much progress in implementing more effective user services
with technology. There is a strong Web presence, online forms for requesting
library materials and recalling books, circulation notices sent via e-mail,
online reserves, and e-mail reference services. The libraries acquire and
license excellent digital content (more than 6,000 full-text journals, 100
databases, and 96,000 monographs) and partner with faculty in creating databases
and new instructional materials. (A few examples of the digital library
resources that can be accessed on the Web are: Learning Links for Spanish
Language Acquisition, the Eagleton Public Opinion Poll, Medieval and Early
Modern Databank, New Jersey Environmental Digital Library, Electronic New
Jersey, and the Women in Leadership Database.)
The processes of acquiring and creating
digital content and services as we develop the DLI have highlighted both
practical and theoretical considerations that are not unique to Rutgers, nor to
any library that is re-creating itself in the digital environment. A few of the
key areas are examined below.
Organizational Structure. The Rutgers model for an organizational structure to support
digital library development reflects both the institutional and library
culture.While geographically dispersed across the state in three major campuses,
the libraries and the university work closely as one system. All committees and
efforts are composed of librarians and staff in many units. As a result, we have
avoided limiting expertise to a designated few while the rest remain in the
print environment.
There are leader groups, in the Scholarly
Communications Center in New Brunswick, in the newly developing Margery Somers
Foster Center on the Douglass Campus, and in the Center for Instructional
Information Technologies on the Newark campus. But all librarians are engaged in
some form of digital library development—Web page development, databasecreation,
liaison with faculty on the design of new curricular materials, metadata
standards implementation, electronic information acquisition, or improvement of
access tools.
We have also seen a tremendous blurring
of the lines between and among traditional library units.
The acquisition of a
new electronic resource requires the collection development, public services,
cataloging, and systems staff to collaborate on bringing this resource to the
community. Flexible groups and new workflow strategies are constantly being
developed. Our partnerships with the university’s faculty, Teaching Excellence
Centers, and computing services have expanded, and our statewide and regional
partnerships have grown in importance.
Staff Development Needs. Because our future is working with digital technologies, ongoing
skills development for every staff member is critical. We realized early on that
the libraries would need to focus on training and development more closely. As a
result, a library committee developed a report
(www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/staff/staff.shtml) that recommended the new
position of training and development coordinator. While technical skills
training is important, soft skills for working in teams and project management
expertise are becoming increasingly important as we work collaboratively to
design and implement new services and content.
Hiring and retaining good staff have
become more competitive. As the level of sophistication of our services and
collections rise, our ability to maintain and improve on them requires a growing
number of staff with an increasing level of expertise. We have used student
assistants very successfully, but a core infrastructure is essential to manage a
sophisticated operation.
While we attempt to maintain a good level
of technical expertise for all staff, we have converted some positions to higher
level technical support to maintain the infrastructure and support database
creation and management. Re-allocation of staff to the systems support area may
come from areas where certain functions are declining, such as circulation and
serials check-in. This area will continue to require constant monitoring and
budget support.
Facilities and the New Digital
Infrastructure. The digital infrastructure has had a major impact on the
physical environment of libraries. Many libraries have seen both the monograph
circulation and physical use of their library buildings decline. This is due, in
part, to the successful delivery of services and collection content over the
Internet.What we are now seeing is a different need and use of the facilities.
To a certain extent, open access computing labs remain necessary for those
students who wish to do their work near related print resources and competent
information staff. As students work more collaboratively, group study/work
spaces and rooms equipped with technology are being requested.
Staff space has been impacted equally.
Digital project and consultation space is essential. Where grant funds bring
temporary assistance, unassigned workstations are necessary. Flexibility in
network wiring and wireless technology must be incorporated into the design of
all libraries. The costs of maintaining and upgrading the technology
infrastructure, including equipment, has risen dramatically in the last several
years. Electronic databases cannot be accessed on ancient equipment; staff
cannot work effectively without the proper tools.
Metadata Standards/Interoperability. As the amount of digital information
grows exponentially, it becomes increasingly apparent that our users will need
to search across multiple databases and drill down into needed content. The
development of such projects as the Open Archives Initiative
(www.openarchives.org), which is developing a metadata protocol "to supply and
promote an application-independent interoperability framework that can be used
by a variety of communities who are engaged in publishing content on the Web" is
a critical contribution to digital libraries. The developers of digital content
must have core standards that include preservation and digital rights associated
with them. As libraries develop digital content, these standards must be firmly
in place and built upon.
Digital Collection
Development.When most libraries began to create digital content, the impetus
came from a number of areas: a desire not to be left behind, opportunities
presented by funding sources and/or faculty interest, a need to develop local
expertise, the desire tobring special collections to a broader community, or the
hope of preserving the physical artifact.While all these interests are worthy,
the long-term implications of the costs/benefits of creating and maintaining
digital collections now must be seriously reviewed.
The Commission on Library and Information
Resources (CLIR) has provided some guidance to digital project
developers(www.clir.org/pubs/cliringhouse/house02.html). The document asks for
specificity of purpose and the identificationof those who will benefit; the
determination of all costs at the outset; a description of the value added by
digitization; and how the materials will be selected and the project maintained
over the long term. Because digital projects require a significant investment of
resources, CLIR recommends that libraries consider collaborations with other
libraries, archives, and centers in the development of new digital
collections.
Copyright and
Intellectual Property. Often a digital project is chosen or rejected because of copyright issues
surrounding the use of the materials. This area is still in flux as new
legislation that extends copyright ownership and interpretations of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act are argued before the courts. Many libraries engage in
useful projects based on their special collections, or try to negotiate with
copyright owners, or create entirely new digital content.While there is limited
flexibility in this area, it is important to support initiatives, such as the
open archives movement in order to make more information freely available; to be
diligent in monitoring new legislation that impedes open access to information;
and to educate the user community to fair use.
Assessment in a
Changing Environment
As
we venture into a more digital environment,many of the traditional
measures of an excellent library have become eroded. How will we know that we
have been successful and what benchmarks might we use to compare ourselves with peer institutions
and against ourselves? The Association of Research Libraries has developed a New Measures
Initiative (www.arl.org/stats/newmeas/newmeas.html) that is testing new measures of effectiveness.
The Rutgers University Libraries have
created an assessment committee to continuously evaluate what we are doing. The
committee has conducted user surveys about general satisfaction, electronic
reserves, and electronic collections. These surveys are just the beginning of a
broadbased assessment of how the digital environment created by our libraries is
affecting the research, instructional, and learning functions of our university.
If it is to be sustainable over time,
strategies used to support a digital library need to be adjusted from time to
time.We need to continue to weigh how we can best respond to the changing
information needs of our user communities and refine attributes of our digital
services and resources.
