What librarians (can) do in academic libraries

Before answer the question, let me share some of my recent experiences.

a. Data management 

Data management and data curation are emerging topics in research institutions, especially after NSF announced its requirement of a 2 page data management plan in grant proposals. With a strong belief that data management is very essential to increase research efficiency, save time and resources in the long run and the potential for scholarly communication and collaboration, I talked to some of my friends who are Ph.D students in science and engineering fields to learn how the data management is currently conducted at their research labs. To my astonishment, they told me there is no data management at all. When I asked how their lab data are stored and organized, they said "oh, well, they are in the computers. We cannot tell the exact folder, or how the data is organized, but we can find it anyway".

What librarians (can) do:

There are several data management plan tools, such as DMP tool developed by California Digital Library, that could help faculty members prepare their grant proposals to meet the requirements by the funding organizations. Liaison librarians can populate these tools to faculty and help them with their grant proposals.

Liaison librarians are also responsible for educating researchers about data management and they should work with researchers to develop data management plans, or even a data repository for the research community. Librarians' specialty in information organization will be serving a valuable skill in determining metadata and developing plans for data classification, transformation, data storage, security, long-term preservation, and etc.

b. Digital collection and finding aids

A friend recently read an interesting article about F. Scott Fitzgerald. The article discussed the writer's romantic relationship with Ginevra King and used Ginevra's letters as a reference. As a huge fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald, when she noticed that the letters are part of manuscript collection of Princeton University Library, she said she would love to visit Princeton sometime to see the original typescript letters. 

What librarians do:

I did a search online and locate the finding aid of Ginevra King Collection Relating to F. Scott Fitzgerald as well as other findings aids of collections regarding to the writer himself. The collection and the finding aid certainly help researchers and people who are interested in the writer to learn more about his life and works. Librarians are the people who manage the collection, create the finding aids, and make the resource available so that people with interested will be able to find, locate, and access this valuable information resource.

c. Track citation metrics

One of my friends is a post-doctorate student in Chemistry and she was very concerned about her scholarly publications and their academic impact, i.e., she needs to track her citation metrics. She is now using Google Scholar to track citation metric. Her name is quite unique and she only needs to put her name as the search inquiry and her publications will be listed with number of cited papers.

What librarians (can) do:

Academic librarians, especially subject liaisons, are usually very familiar with research tools, including relevant databases and management tools that could increase work efficiency, such as Refwork, Endnote, Citeulike, etc. Librarians also monitor new trends and emerging technologies that could help researchers. Google Scholar Citation, released earlier this year can be a very useful tool for my friend and other researchers to track their citation metrics. Google Scholar Citation provides an easier way to identify articles, graph citations and compute them overtime. Researcher may be able to find the tool by serendipity, and hopefully that is not the only case. Librarians should make them aware of such useful tool in the first place and encourage them to use it so they can will be able to make the best use of it as soon as possible.

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When I was talking to my friends about data management, I also talked to them about my potential career as a subject/liaison librarian. What is worse than they never heard of "data management" is that, they never heard of the title "subject librarian". They have been studying as Ph.D students in U.S for 2-4 years and they haven't received any help from a subject librarian. They are exactly the people who believe they are smart and professional enough and see there is nothing that a librarian can help them with their research.

Imagine things that a new Ph.D students, esp., foreign students, can learn from a librarian,

• Information of library resources, e.g., research guides, catalog, inter library loan, research databases, top journals of given fields;
• Required information literacy skill, e.g., how to find books, reserves in the library catalog, how to locate articles in databases, how to use citation properly, research process;
• Research tools, e.g., citation management tools;
• Other resources to connect to the research community, e.g., listserv; 

You may argue that Ph.D students are smart enough to learn/know all of the above, they may find them by serendipity, they may be told by their faculty advisors, peer students, etc., but why should we wait for them to discover and learn by themselves? And we should never assume that they have the required research skills. It's our responsibility to prepare them in the first place, to make life easier for them, and to make sure they all know what they should know.  There is no way for us to prove our value to people without showing up, talking to them and understanding their needs.

When we tall about the mission of academic libraries as "facilitate teaching, research, and learning", we are actually talking about "problem solving". Faculty members, researchers, and students are very smart people and they are professional in their fields of study. However, they may be unaware of resources and tools that could help them with their problems or increase their working performances. Here is our opportunity to demonstrate value of librarianship by understanding their problems and show we can help. Assisting with grant proposals and data management, creating finding aids, populating tools are all perfect examples showing what librarians can do to facilitate research, promote resources, and increase information access in the academic environment, to make things easier for researchers and students so they can make greater contributions to the research community or accomplish their personal pursuits. 

I have long been inspired by my faculty advisor, Prof. R. David Lankes. He recently made two presentations, Killing Librarianship, and A New Librarianship for a New Age, in which he argued if librarianship is to be killed, is not because of Google, or Amazon, but due to lack of innovation. When people are questioning the value of academic librarianship, we should realize that there are possibilities and potentials to shape the future of academic librarianship. But first and foremost, we should never stay behind the computer screens, we need to reach out to the community and solve their problems with creation and innovation.

Some random thoughts

I'm currently helping Prof Michael D'Eredita with his undergraduate course "What's the Big Idea". The course encourages students to generate ideas and make it happen by starting their own start-ups. Prof. D'Eredita believes that there is a gap between students and the information they need. So I'm working with faculty, students and subject specialists to identify students' information needs and information seeking behavior and thus develop research guides, reference and instruction support to help students with their pursuits.

In recent class sessions, students were required to draw doodles and the doodles were later scanned and displayed on the screen for the class to identify what each doodle is about. We can imagine (and is exactly what happened) there would be different interpretations to one single doodle. Why? Because people view things differently. It all depends on the person viewing it.

Every individual may have very different information seeking behavior. While we are saying "we are helping students to find information they need" by developing information literacy programs, research guides and instruction sessions, we have to think about their information seeking behavior. How do they search information? How do they keep updated with new technologies and industrial trends? What databases or other information resources that they find helpful and valuable? What potential improvements they see in the current research guides? 

Another thing I want to point out is that, I see a gap between students and librarians. Many students think librarians are the people sitting at the circulation desk and checking out books. They have no idea about subject specialists nor what librarians can do to help them with their assignments and research. One of the librarians I talked to told me that some students were very surprised when she offered them research instructions on business research. In fact, the librarian has a background in marketing and is definitely an information professional in business field. Obviously, those students have no idea about what the librarian can do for them and have never checked research guides listed on the library website.

All I am saying is, we cannot consider ourselves "helpful" unless students agree so. And it will not be helpful creating research guides if no one uses it, or if the research guides don't address their information needs. Campus outreach and support from faculty members are indeed needed to increase awareness and participation.

A big and somewhat related news today is the announcement of  iPhone 4S. I have seen some opposite comments about the product release. Some people believe the not-that-surprise device with limited upgrades is the proof showing the company is going downturn without Steve Jobs as CEO, while there are also people think it is the company's “hunger marketing” strategy to keep users' high expectation for next generation device and the strategy (not releasing iPhone5 today) will also make the company better prepared for competitors such as Android and Windows Phone. Who knows what will happen? Not Steve Jobs, not Tim Cook, not Apple company, only the market will tell.

So again, we are NOT who we think we are. We are NOT helpful unless our patron agree. 

Checking out a kindle book from NYPL

One of the most exciting news in the past week is Library books for Kindle is now available. I wasn't sure what the checking out process will be, but I thought it might be pretty burdensome, additional software such as Adobe Media Console may be required.

And I just decided to give it a try with my NYPL library card. To my surprise, the process is really easy and I believe there will be no burden for anyone who knows how to use library catalog and how to buy Kindle books from Amazon.

NYPL now displays a catalog where you can browse ebooks with Kindle format only, and the search function also allows you to limit format as "Kindle", which is convenient for users to find Kindle books. I think once I saw somewhere that all the ebooks are listed together and it's hard to retrieve Kindle books out of pdfs and epubs. 

So, here is what the catalog looks like. The page shows title, author, brief introduction, number of copies and available electronic formats. The book "Dear John" has 9 available copies out of 15, regardless of format. By clicking on "Add to eList" button of the Kindle version, I'm adding the Kindle book to my list for check out. The following screen appears when I click on "My eList" and I "Proceed to checkout".

The default lending period is 14 days and I can modify it on the checkout page, 7 days, 14 days, or 21 days, note that each user can check out 12 items at one time (not sure if checking out printed items interferes with eAccount).

After I click on "Confirm Checkout", the screen shows the title(s) I'm checking out, check out date, expiration date, and the link "Get for Kindle". The link directs me to an Amazon page entitled "Get Your Public Library Loan".

Since I'm already registered my Kindle with Amazon and I'm logged in to Amazon, the only thing I need to do is to click "Get library book" and the confirmation page appears. Hooray! I can now turn Kindle wifi on, have the book delivered to my Kindle and read the Kindle book!

 

I need to admit I'm pretty satisfied with the process, and glad I don't need to install any addition software  or create accounts on Overdrive or other third-parties. At this moment, I just have one question, I mistakenly checked out a pdf version of "John Lennon" and I don't want to install Adobe Digital Editions to read it. Can I return the book before it expires automatically since there might be someone else wants to read the book?

I searched a book which has been on my reading list for a very long time, "You Are Not a Gadget", by Jaron Lanier. NYPL has three digital copies and all checked out at this moment. I clicked on "Request Item" and was required to provide an email address to put my name on the waiting list.

After I submitted, it tells me "You have successfully placed a hold on the selected title. You will receive an email when the selected title becomes available for checkout. Once you receive the email, you will have 3 days to check out the selected title." Thank you NYPL, OverDrive and Amazon, I can now read more books on my Kindle for FREE!

Update:
Annotations are not synced with my Amazon account but saved in My clippings.txt file.

The Role of Academic Libraries

The development of information technology in the past few decades has changed the way people interact with information and created a very different information environment for libraries and librarians. While academic libraries continue to support research and learning, it’s critical to examine the changing information needs to define roles of academic libraries in such information era.

Academic libraries should help students to reach their full potential. Students may need assistance with their research, prepare for job market, or simply complete a course assignment. In addition to offer information resources, more importantly, librarians should provide instruction sessions to improve students’ information literacy. For example, students today are very familiar with information technology. They may use Internet and web tools, such as Google on daily basis and believe “I can find what I need”. However, that is not always the case.  Librarians could teach students how to conduct search more efficiently and how to retrieve and evaluate information resources, including scholarly information and Internet resources.  Librarians should also help students to better utilize technology to empower them to increase work performance and competencies.

Libraries are sometimes overlooked by faculty members because they see little value in library services. Academic libraries need to prove its value by facilitating faculty’s teaching and research needs. Librarians should collaborate with faculty members to understand expected learning outcomes for students and develop collections and other resources, instruction sessions for individual courses or course assignments. Libraries also need to support faculty’s research needs by providing resources and help them with their promotion process. Librarians can assist them with scholarly publication process, increase visibility of their scholarly output, provide citation statistics and monitor trends in subject fields.

Academic libraries today also serve as an active participant in collecting, preserving and disseminating scholarly, historically and culturally records of the parent institution. Digital repositories increase the visibility of the institution, facilitate scholarly communication and also provide valuable information for the local community.

Neil Gaiman, the famous science fiction writer once said “Google can bring you 100,000 answers, a librarian can bring you back the right one”. The true value of libraries and librarians lies in the ability to bridge the gap between people and information. Information technology hasn’t really changed the role of academic libraries, but offers new tools and approaches to facilitate patrons’ changing information needs in a very different information environment. Academic libraries should understand both opportunities and challenges to better serve the community and facilitate knowledge creation.

Amazon will offer kindle books for libraries

Amazon announced yesterday that it will offer kindle books for libraries later this year. Library patrons will be able to borrow kindle books from their local library and access them from any Kindle device or Kindle app for mobile and desktop devices, including Android, Apple devices, Windows Phone, Blackberry, PC and Mac.

Yet there are a lot of details haven't been revealed, 

• Lending policy/check out model; 
• Partnership publishers;
• License agreement;
• Will books be expired after a certain number of checkouts? (HarperCollins Puts 26 Loan Cap on Ebook Circulations) 
• Will libraries have to buy new e-book copies in order to have files available in a Kindle-compatible format? 

According to Karen Estrovich, Manager of content for sales for OverDrive,

Your existing collection of downloadable eBooks will be available to Kindle customers. As you add new eBooks to your collection, those titles will also be available in Kindle format for lending to Kindle and Kindle reading apps. Your library will not need to purchase any additional units to have Kindle compatibility. This will work for your existing copies and units.

A user will be able to browse for titles on any desktop or mobile operating system, check out a title with a library card, and then select Kindle as the delivery destination. The borrowed title will then be able to be enjoyed using any Kindle device and all of Amazon’s free Kindle Reading Apps.

The Kindle eBook titles borrowed from a library will carry the same rules and policies as all our other eBooks.

It seems that libraries don't need to pay any additional costs for kindle compatible formats for existing ebook collections. And I hope it also means libraries will only need to pay once to obtain copy in both ePub and Kindle format. 

The most exciting feature I found about Kindle is annotation. Kindle allows user to take notes, highlights, add bookmarks on Kindle books and personal documents. Users can view annotations within the book/document by browsing "view notes/highlights", can share annotation via Facebook/Twitter. The annotations are saved in a txt file called "My Clippings" and users can export the annotations to their computers. 

It's even more exciting to learn that users will be able to make annotations on library kindle books. According to Jay Marine, director of Amazon Kindle, the notes will be "perfectly Whispersynced", the next library patron won't see them. But you'll be able to access them again if you check the book out again or purchase it. Does it mean users will not be able to export notes as a separate file? (or maybe I'm asking too much? Taking notes on library books is good enough?)

Bobbi Newman (Twitter @librarianbyday) also raised some questions regarding privacy issues,

• While I love the notes option I am NOT ok with linking my Kindle to my library account, can I opt out of this?
• When you say “Your users’ confidential information will be protected.” What exactly does that mean? Exactly how much of my check out information will Amazon have access to? How will that change if/when I choose to purchase a title I’d borrowed?

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The more I think about how it will impact libraries, librarians and general public, the more complicated it looks to me. I'll just leave it here and discuss more later hopefully.