Spring event

The academic library – a 21st century mission

Mary Joan Crowley, DiSG Library, Sapienza University of Rome. Member of CASPUR-CIBER.

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

When we lived in modern times

• Changing scholarship and education in 21st century

• Be both behind and ahead of our times

• Ensure continuity with previous generations and needs of a modern academic library

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

• University libraries a late developer

• Most emerged in the late 1600’s early 1700’s

• Have acquired a vital and unique institution in the university

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Academic library – mission to date

• Guarantee the organized collection, delivery and preservation of printed and other content

• Provide a staff trained to support the learning, teaching and research needs and output of the university and community

• Offer an agreed schedule in which services are available

• Ensure the physical facilities necessary to support this

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Whatever affects higher education affects academic libraries

Advent of the web

• In 1990 the web was just getting started

• In 2000 our consortiums were grappling with the first online journals and how to deliver them to our users’ pcs

• In 2010, content, only a fraction of which libraries handle, can be delivered literally into the palm of their hand

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Transition: the diffuse library

• Information everywhere by everybody• Desktop access often unmediated by the

library• Diminished need to visit the library as place• Downward trend in on-site usage• Our added value no longer valued• Empty stacks/paperless library

Changed perspectives of library as place

• Blogs, wikis, podcasts, vidcasts, webinars, RSS, share, Flickr, Picassa, YouTube, Facebook, Google Books, Amazon, social bookmarking, tagging, user-driven content, rating and recommenders, digitised content, Open Access, “wisdom of crowds”, different user behaviours, want it now/want it free, mobile devices…and much more…..

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Loss of direction

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/faculty-surveys-2000-2009/faculty-survey-2009

FACULTY SURVEY 2009

• Discovery and the Evolving Role of the Library

• The Format Transition for Scholarly Works

• Scholarly Communications

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

“Unfortunately, when it comes time to cut budgets, often libraries are first to be cut.”

http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/mediapresscenter/americaslibraries/index.cfm

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Using the crisis as opportunity

Not by reinventing the wheel, but by inheriting a great “brand” and making

it relevant for the 21st century user

Libraries can lead the way

• Must address barriers to change

• Can conquer technical deficiencies

• Cannot go it alone

• Need for a collaborative approach and more liaison with all the players

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Librarians must become more 2.0 literate

• Sadly, but true, the library is mostly used as a place of study and Google is used to search

• Must learn to connect with the 21st century user

• Put the library where they are

• How?

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Social technology for librarians

• http://plcmcl2-things.blogspot.com

• www.sociallibraries.com/course/

• http://www.slideshare.net/CIBER23librarythings/ciber-23-library-things

• http://cab.unime.it/cibernewsletter/

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

23 library things: collaborate, communicate, converse and share

Not be afraid to experiment !

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Engage with the growing social media

Facilitate 21st century literacies

• Our users are great on downloading from YouTube, Facebook and Google, but they are not naturally born researchers

• Need our expertise to know when good enough really is good enough !

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Get out from behind the desk

• Join the Youtube conversation

• Podcasts for info on the go

• Assistance and answers available using sms and IM

• Intensive face-to-face sessions wherever suits best

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Plan for a handheld world

• Phones now used as web browsers, databases, retrieval interface, storage, readers…

• Our users consume content while on the move, at dinner, or in bed

• Will want to use some of our services in this way

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

http://images.google.it/imgres?imgurl=http://ebling.library.wisc.edu/images/pho

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Q. Losing users in the Catalogues ?A. Try the Sopac !

• From static to more interactive systems• For end users delivery more important than

discovery • Software to overlay or replace traditional

Opacs• Easier filter information from all forms of

content• Enhanced content - faceted searching,

relevancy searching, did you mean, recommenders, reviews, book jackets, tags…..

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Embed library resources

Expand our core business

• Provide a supportive environment for geographically distributed researchers working in collaboratory interdisciplinary environments

• Metadata creation enabling better discoverability

• Have a role in the research assessment process

• Monitor usage and user behaviour

• Old books and e-books09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Rethinking the library role in scholarly communication

• Support shift from purchased content to Open Access

• Facilitate e-scholarly publishing • Liaise between Faculty and the Institutional

Repository • Receive, Describe, Preserve and Curate

informal communications, data sharing, classroom presentations, preprints, technical reports, working papers, disserations, articles, books …

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

“To every cow belongs her calf, therefore to every book belongs its copy”

Develop leadership in standing up for legal rights

regarding ownership and sources of scholarship

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Share resources and be resourceful

• Encourage different uses of our spaces

• Use freed up spaces as a bargaining tool

• Collaborate with other institutions on resource sharing – collections, digitisation, off-site storage…

• When money is tight, everything is negotiable !

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Pursue a market culture

• Define and Divulge our core services in a combination of virtual and physical spaces – Facebook event, YouTube tour, Cafeteria…

• Facilitate use of discovery and visualisation tools

for exposing data

• Branding and Networking

• Fund-raising, philanthropy….

The Continuing Metamorphosis of the Library

At the heart of the research and education workflow, organising the community’s knowledge, through an integrated system of networked and traditional resources, and making it accessible and useful to a democratic society throughout a process of lifelong learning.

set 99999 services that allow the end-user to discover,

access, use and publish digit

09/04/2023Spring Event Mary Joan Crowley

Grazie !*

Mary Joan CrowleyDiSG Biblioteca, Sapienza Università di Roma

Member of Caspur-Ciber

maryjoan.crowley@uniroma1.it

*all images uploaded for educational purposes