Transcript Are Librarians still under pressure? How to deal with it

Law, D. (2003) Are Librarians still under pressure? How to deal with it? Policies at national,
institutional and individual level. In: Knowing to decide: Scientific and technical information for
health decisions - 6th Regional Conference for Information in Health Sciences, 06 - 09 May 2003,
Puebla Mexico.
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Are Librarians still under
pressure? How to deal with it?
Policies at national, institutional
and individual level
Professor Derek Law,
Centre for Digital Library Research,
University of Strathclyde
The University of Strathclyde
18c > James Watt > Steam Engine > Industrial
Revolution > Environmental Pollution
19c > David Livingstone > African explorer >
British Empire
20c > John Logie Baird > Television > Baywatch
and Big Brother
21c > Arthur Van Hoff > Javascript > pop-up
windows
Peeping into Utopia
Relevance and co-operation
Professional self-confidence
The Library as place
Data Management
Training
Preservation
The global village in 2003 Malawi
$30 annual income
90% unemployment
18hr a day powercuts
60% HIV positive
Unlimited access to ejournals
10 x 286 computers in
the medical school
20% of under 5’s die
Life expectancy 43>38
Why bother getting involved?
Leave it to the market?
But we want to change society
Leave it to big countries?
But one size doesn’t fit all
And Sandra Braman scared me!
Small is beautiful?
Finland, Latvia, Singapore
Leave it to publishers?
But they have no grandmothers
We are producers not just consumers
Librarians with attitude
Trust Me I’m a Librarian
“People become librarians because they know too much.
Their knowledge extends beyond mere categories.
They cannot be confined to disciplines. Librarians are
all-knowing and all-seeing. They bring order to chaos.
They bring wisdom and culture to the masses. They
preserve every aspect of human knowledge.
Librarians rule. And they will kick the crap out of
anyone who says otherwise.”
(Olson, 2000)
Old Wine in New Bottles
The future lies in the past
The International Library Movement
Co-operation, co-operation, co-operation
UAP and UBC
Document Supply
Selection, storage and support
So you think you know more than
the Internet?
“It is not the strongest, the fastest or even the
most intelligent species that survive. It is always
the most adaptable”
Charles Darwin
User not technology driven
The Library as place
Second most used public service
In the USA there are more libraries than Macdonald’s
Staff and students are library conservatives
Images are available to all
A picture is worth a thousand words – unless it’s a .jpeg
Communities share a history as well as a present
Librarians can collect and interpret that
Information arbitrage
Identifying products
Identifying value for money
Is the Pareto Principle relevant?
Independent, authoritative and right
Law’s Laws
Law’s First Law:
“Good information
systems will drive
out bad” ©
URL’s survive 75 days
on average
404 messages
No quality control on
the Internet
No version control
7x24 access is a myth
A rose by any other name
Taxonomy
Ontology
Semantic web
Metadata
The organisation of
knowledge
Producers not mouse potatoes
OAI
SPARC
BIOMED Central
The end of big deals?
The failure of the STM model
Scientific learned societies are more rapacious than
publishers
Publishing supports research NOT THE OTHER WAY
ROUND
Law’s Laws
Law’s First Law:
Law’s Second Law:
“Good information
systems will drive
out bad” ©
“User friendly systems
aren’t” ©
Training and Library as Place
The satisfied inept – staff as well as
students
13% get information from the Library
But it’s also a:
cybersandpit
dating agency
learning space
7x24 chatroom
Training ground
Data preservation and trusted
repositories
Clearing the study
Building research collections for the
future
Digital Asset Management
Repository standards
Trusted repositories: the five
Maori tests
Receive the information with accuracy
Store the information with integrity
beyond doubt
Retrieve the information without
amendment
Apply appropriate judgement in the use
of the information
Pass the information on appropriately
Seek forgiveness not permission
Go to new places
Investigate, report, plan and IMPLEMENT
Let the organisation know you are doing this
Lights are hidden under bushels for a reason
It is better to be approximately right than precisely
wrong
He who pays the piper may call the tune – but
that doesn’t guarantee an audience