What will be happening with library services for off-campus students in the year 2002? My guess is, much the same as is happening now. Students will still need books and journal articles to help complete assignments and will still ask for information from the library. True, we may supply things differently: scanned images to the desktop, for instance (if copyright issues are resolved), and students may well meet more of their requirements independently through the Internet and similar services. In any event, off-campus library services will continue to be needed because the library can still provide the widest range of materials for the greatest diversity of users and courses in a cost-effective manner.

A question is raised in the title of this paper, as to whether off-campus library services have reached a crossroads. On the one hand, there are the seductive promises of the Information Age, including the presumption that 'nearly everything' is available on 'the Net'. On the other hand, many students still do not own (whether by choice or lack of resources) the necessary equipment to participate in the new era of instant information access. There are also questions about the reality of what can be taught satisfactorily by multi-media and how expensive such methods may prove to be.

Librarians who serve distance students will need to seriously consider the impact of two different approaches to the way they provide services: should we just go along the 'electronic' path and virtually do away with conventional library services as we know them, or should we try to hold onto the best of both worlds, retaining conventional delivery of material when appropriate, but also utilizing the best that information technology has to offer for accessing information and supplying materials? Since I presume that most of us would opt for the latter, a major question to be answered is "how do we manage it?"

In considering the future of library services for distance education, I wish to discuss three major issues:

• Who will our users be?

• How do we provide optimal services for them?

• How will better use of information technology change the way we do things?

Who will our users be?

In Australia, major changes are already occurring in postsecondary education. There is a greater emphasis on 'flexible delivery' of course material, more programs are being offered on a fee-paid basis, and more reciprocal borrowing agreements are in place (generally also for a fee). More students than ever before are studying off-campus--85,088 in 1996, compared with 52,712 in 1990 (Dept. of Employment 1996). Institutions are emphasizing 'lifelong learning,' and many older adults are upgrading their skills through training or continuing education and postgraduate programs. More students are also completing research degrees off-campus.

These trends will continue, and because more services will be fee-based, user satisfaction and flexibility of service delivery will become increasingly important. We will need to become more 'client focused,' and prepared to tailor services to various classes of users. But above all, we will need to embrace--more wholeheartedly than is presently the case--a basic tenet of all guidelines for off-campus library services: off-campus students are entitled to the same level of services as on-campus students. Institutions must do more than merely pay lip service to this concept, and accept that off-campus students are indeed THEIR students, and therefore it is their responsibility to provide for or arrange for provision of appropriate library service. Far too often, there has been a tendency to ignore the needs of these students, leaving them to fend for themselves.

How do we provide optimal services for off campus students?

The supplying of library services will become highly competitive, and libraries may choose to outsource the provision of services to other institutions. In Australia, for example, the Open Learning agency has recently contracted with the University of South Australia to provide library services for their 5,000 or so students throughout Australia. In the best tradition of economic rationalism, librarians will need to consider profit margins, performance standards, benchmarking, etc. They also need to acquire a much clearer idea of the true cost of services. I have little doubt that the successful libraries of the future will be the ones that are best able to combine quality with efficiency in delivery of services.

What can we do to ensure that our library falls into this category? First, we must see to it that the off-campus service has an adequate budget and staff, which in turn depends on the recognition and acceptance by the administration that they are obligated to support the library needs of off-campus students. Second, we need to target various categories of users and publicize the services which will most benefit their studies. Third, we need to be proactive in soliciting class reading lists, reserve items, and suggested titles for acquisition from academic staff and faculty. It is of little use to advertise the availability of a library service if the fill rate for requests is, say, only 60%. Furthermore, users should be given a wide variety of convenient and easy methods for requesting services, such as contact by mail, fax, telephone, email, and direct ordering from the catalogue and the World Wide Web. We must be able to offer guaranteed turnaround times for processing requests as stated in performance standards and, ideally, courier delivery of books with a prepaid return envelope provided. Once copyright hurdles have been cleared, we should also be able to supply scanned documents from electronic reserve collection to student desktops. And finally, we need to keep appropriate statistics and cost data so that we know how the budget has been spent.

How will better use of information technology change the way we do things?

There is little doubt that computer technology and the Internet will assume greater importance for education in the next few years. More courses will be taught online and students will have access to a bewildering and overwhelming range of information, independent of libraries. Some publishers are already looking at contracting with institutions to supply customized electronic packages of course material (for a fee, of course) which students can download as required. Despite this, the traditional library will still be the main support for many courses, but we can use a marriage of traditional and electronic resouces to provide better services.

Perhaps two examples will suffice. Our library uses the Innopac Library system in combination with X-terminals (which have multiple desktops, on each of which up to four screens/sessions can be run simultaneously). Using the 'request an item' function of Innopac while both the online public access catalog (OPAC) and Circulation module are open, library staff have virtually eliminated handwriting of telephone requests; by 'cutting and pasting' student name and ID number details from the circulation screen to the item details on the OPAC screen, we can produce a request form containing all necessary information for retrieval and dispatch of an item. Innopac also has an 'export' facility so that library staff (and users) can forward the results of catalogue searches to an email address--a great advantage for remote students. In a similar way, it is often possible to send results from database searches to an email account, a particularly useful feature for assisting students with their information requests.

Conclusions

Despite the hype which surrounds much of the new electronic technology, traditional library service will still be important to students in the foreseeable future. However, economics will play a much more intrusive role in how we offer it. We need to know our users and their needs, be able to target various groups with appropriate information, and use a combination of electronics and tradition to provide optimal services to remote students.

References

Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs. Selected Higher Education Student Statistics. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1996.

Tony Cavanagh
Deakin University
E-mail: tonyc@deakin.edu.au

Tony Cavanagh is Document Delivery Librarian at the Geelong Campus of Deakin University, Victoria, Australia, overseeing the Off Campus, Intercampus and Interlibrary Loans services for the University. He has a long-standing interest in library access issues for distance education students and in the wider use of information technology to support these students.