Public universities and their libraries are facing massive changes in the way they do business, driven by the dual forces of technological opportunity and rising public expectations. This transition has been fueled by the rapid growth and widespread acceptance of the Internet, as it has matured from a limited telecommunications tool for the military and academia, to an entirely new global information infrastructure during the 1990s. This evolution has produced a new electronic avenue for both personal interaction and information resource access. Millions of people have been empowered by this information technology, and its accelerating pace continually raises the standards of public anticipation and expectation of new services.
Prior to these developments, students accepted the fact that they needed to travel to an academic or public library to fulfill most of their course-related information needs. These students are now coming to expect remote access to information for a variety of reasons. Older students returning to campus now find that card catalogs and print literature indexes have been replaced by online public access catalogs and electronic databases. A new assumption, arising among many current students--whether correct or not--is that they can obtain most or all of what they need through the Internet.
Because of technological advancements, academic libraries have seen a distinct shift in the way that much of their information has been made available over the past few years. Journal indexes, encyclopedias, and many other databases have become virtually extinct in print form with the proliferation of digital resources. Even these digital media have quickly moved from stand-alone CD-ROMs to local area networks within libraries, then to campus-wide area networks, and finally to World Wide Web sites on the Internet. With the advent of these information media has come the ability to provide more library services to distant students, while minimizing the need for travel to a campus library.
Virtual Universities and Demands for Library and Information Resources
The developing Western Governor's University (WGU) provides an example of how existing public universities and other state entities are working to pool their assets and utilize the potential of communications technology. WGU is being implemented to "broaden access to higher education by fostering the use of advanced technology for the delivery of educational services, and provide mechanisms for the formal recognition or certification of learning achieved, regardless of the source" (Western Governor's Association, Implementation Plan). The original WGU proposal document spells out eleven criteria the institution must meet. The planners agreed that the developing organization must be:
A similar model has already successfully been used in a limited way by the National Technological University (NTU). NTU is a cooperative effort of 46 universities to provide graduate and continuing education courses primarily for engineers. These schools include such well-known engineering departments as Purdue, Carnegie-Mellon, Rensselaer, Georgia Tech and the University of Michigan. Several members (Alaska, Arizona State, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, New Mexico State, and Washington) are also current or potential members of the WGU consortium, enabling them to bring their expertise and experience from being part of NTU to the new enterprise.
The member universities use satellite television and compressed digital video technology to deliver classes at over 1,000 job sites. Students can choose from among more than 500 academic courses, plus another 3,000 hours of continuing education opportunities. NTU offers only master's degrees in engineering and related fields. All academic courses offered are delivered on NTU's satellite television network (National Technological University, 1998). Since it has no resident campus, NTU students must use instructional services provided by sponsoring organizations. Institutional and organizational libraries, combined with public and academic libraries in areas where students are located, provide information resources needed for their studies.
Western Governor's University plans call for creating new resources by not only using and developing existing public university courses but also by opening the development of instructional modules and assessment tools to private vendors if it is cost-effective. Public universities in the western United States are taking current courses offered through a variety of media (such as cable television, CD-ROM, and World Wide Web) and packaging them into complete programs for WGU. Corporations such as IBM have become involved with the creation of the WGU Smart Catalog/Adviser that potential students will use to investigate educational options, assess their academic skills, and enroll in courses.
WGU also appears ready to open library and other student services to private competition as well. The implementation plan calls for the development of "standards and implementation strategies for the provision of student services, including financial assistance, library/information services access and utilization, technical support, counseling and advising." The document also mentions a plan to "select providers for student services. In all likelihood, services such as student financial aid and access to library resources will be provided through vendors with established track records" (WGU: A Proposed Implementation Plan). This leaves the door open to both academic and commercial services, or a hybrid of both.
Another example of this type of consortium is the California Virtual University (CVU). This organization offers distance course and degree programs from five University of California campuses, 13 California State University branches, 48 California community colleges, and 16 independent California colleges and universities. The state of California has chosen to remain out of the Western Governor's University since, being the largest state, it has sufficient resources to create and control its own virtual university. Unlike the other virtual university arrangements, CVU itself confers no degrees or certificates, but instead, serves as a gateway to technology-mediated distance learning courses and programs from the California institutions.
A librarian at one of the CVU member schools, California State University at Dominguez Hills, has created a Cyberspace Reference Library (Moy, http://library.csudh.edu/cyberlib/). From a single page the library has compiled links to dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks, directories, business information, as well as resources for education, government, humanities, and science. Journal indexes and other research resources are also available.
Current and emerging versions of virtual universities are providing two different models of library services. The schools created by consortia such as the National Technological University and the California Virtual University leave the provision of services to their individual member institutions. Since most of theses libraries are involved in developing web-accessible databases for their traditional students it is, in most cases, easy enough to extend the services to all students regardless of location. The only drawback in attempting to provide this access is the need to create a method of user verification, because some commercial databases require access through a campus Internet account.
Another model is similar to the one offered by the University of Phoenix. This publicly held, for-profit company, has an enrollment of approximately 55,000 students who are nearly all working adults (Stallings, 278). They have no physical library collection, so all of their library services are offered online or through document delivery. The University claims that its online library collection provides access to millions of articles from thousands of business and professional journals. It also permits users to request and receive articles from nearly 4,000 journals; in addition, a free bibliographical search service is available, although there is a charge for delivery. Students are required to use a password to log in.
Design and Implementation Issues of a Virtual Library
The interface is the gateway connecting the user and the information being sought. Over the past five years libraries have accepted a de facto universal interface: the World Wide Web browser. Most academic libraries have already developed some form of a virtual library, which adds a home-grown Web interface/gateway to information services, to database access purchased from commercial vendors. The Internet directory "Yahoo" currently lists approximately 400 academic libraries with a web presence: this number has nearly doubled in just the past two years.
In some aspects, interface design needs are the same for both physical and virtual libraries, because their purposes are the same: to lead users to the information needed with as little outside intervention (in other words, assistance from a librarian) as possible. There are, however, some very important differences between traditional and virtual libraries. As Lynch and Horton (1997) observe in their "Introduction / Interface Design:"
Users of Web documents don't just look at information, they interact with it in novel ways that have no precedents in paper document design. The graphic user interface (GUI) of a computer system includes the interaction metaphors, images and concepts used to convey function and meaning on the computer screen, the detailed visual characteristics of every component of the graphic interface, and functional sequence of interactions over time that produce the characteristic "look and feel" of Web pages and hypertext linked relationships.
There is no physical print collection in the virtual library. Although the users cannot browse stacks of books in a subject area or flip through journals with adjacent call numbers to see if they might come across relevant material, they can still browse lists or directories of electronic information resources. For example, one of the features of some automated public access catalog systems (e.g. Innovative Interfaces, SIRSI/UNICORN), is the ability to display a list of titles which includes several titles both before and after the call number selected by the patron. For remote users, this at least approximates the ability to browse a bookshelf. Another primary difference between traditional and virtual libraries is access to a librarian when the user needs help. Most university virtual libraries will have some sort of "help desk" accessible through e-mail, telephone or a web-based form. What the user gains in the convenience of not having to travel to a physical library may be offset by the lack of face-to-face professional guidance, although many libraries are creating electronic guides and e-mail access to librarians.
Electronic databases which can replace print indexes and are accessible on the web, are increasingly being offered by vendors. The Arizona State University (ASU) Libraries, for example, currently have over 100 journal indexes and databases available through their web pages. These include the Project MUSE electronic journals collection, Literature Online, Books on the Internet, Books in Print, Encyclopedia Britannica Online, Dissertation Abstracts International, ERIC, Medline, PsycInfo, UnCover, Mental Measurements Yearbook, Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, and International Periodicals. Many of these resources are still maintained in the ASU Libraries in print form, but that format is beginning to wither away as more and more users demand the benefits of digital resources: the ability to do keyword searches, availability of more frequent updates, and--most critical for virtual university students--access to all of this information from their homes and offices through the Internet.
As the World Wide Web has evolved, a number of critical design elements and concerns have been identified by web developers (Sun Microsystems, 1996; Lynch and Horton, 1997). Such topics as identifying web page purposes and audience, page length, use of links and graphics, ease of navigation, and quality of content must be considered during the design formulation phase.
The goals and objectives of the web site need to be carefully defined. The first thing any web site developer needs to understand is his or her intended audience. Who are the potential users? What do they need? The interface designers for the Library of Congress (Plaisant, Marchionini, Bruns, Komlodi & Campbell, 1997) created a "virtual information desk" as the first link at which users are strongly encouraged to begin their visit. The designers identified five classifications of searchers: (1) Tourist/surfer; (2) Novice researcher; (3) Casual researcher; (4) Expert researcher; and (5) Teacher. They further categorized their information needs into three types: (1) Specific item; (2) General information on a topic; and (3) Comprehensive information on a topic. The intention of this design is to provide customized help by asking users to classify their roles and information needs. Interface designers must constantly be aware of their users' needs and interact with them to the degree needed. Shortcomings of many designs are a lack of understanding of the users' needs and insufficient consideration of design alternatives (Howard, 1997). Visual design considerations need to be addressed. The primary purpose of graphics for a virtual library interface should be to guide the users to the information they seek, not simply to make the web page more attractive. The graphics need to serve a semiotic purpose of conveying meaning in order to help users find the information they seek. There is evidence that many of the icons used on library web pages are difficult for users to interpret and actually hinder rather than assist users (Ma, 38-39). In addition, the size of graphic files have to be considered: remote users who may have low speed Internet connections don't want to be burdened with excessive download times for images which are not really necessary.
Some form of library instruction needs to be built into the interface, since many users need guidance regarding selection of databases appropriate to their purposes, and once they get there, help in locating the information needed. All librarians are familiar with patrons who insist that they "need a book" when their assignment clearly calls for journal articles--or those who "want to find it on the Internet," even though the librarian realizes that one of the library's CD-ROM databases would provide the appropriate material much more quickly. The situation is changing rapidly, however: particularly in academic settings, more and more librarians are sharing their expertise with users by developing interfaces and online resources to help guide library users in their searches through electronic databases.
These web guides can take the form of a series of questions that are essentially flow charts that, through the patrons' "yes" and "no" answers, lead them to the appropriate resource. Another approach often used is the "help" page, which gives the user basic information on search strategies for different types of course work. The Arizona State University Libraries' page for example, is organized into seven sections:
Guides for Doing Term Papers
How to Find:
How to Use:
How to Evaluate Different Types of Documents (Books, Articles, Web Pages, etc.) (Platoff, et. al. : ASU Libraries: Help Using the Library)
It is important to note the difference between design metaphor and instructional or interface metaphor. The design metaphor deals with how the designers organize the learning domain during the creation of the learning environment; interface metaphor deals with how the learner accesses knowledge within the environment. One of the assumptions behind the model is that the role of the guide will be taken by the instructional medium rather than by a teacher in a classroom situation. Another important aspect of this model is that it differentiates between design goals and learner objectives. Design goals are that knowledge which the designers hope that the learner will construct from the environment. Learner objectives are what the learner actually comes to the environment wanting to learn.
A model of a web-based library resources program can initially be divided into three areas: the information resources themselves, the means of delivering them to the users and--often neglected in discussions of digital libraries--some method of interacting with a real, live information professional. In a wide ranging review of digital library developments Sloan (1997) suggests that access to human assistance, such as a reference librarian, although sometimes overlooked, is important. Information seeking is a social process and students often need direction in formulating their searches. Although one goal of the virtual library interface is to allow students as much independence as possible in seeking information, there will still be times when help is required.
Course reserve material is a necessity for many classes, and has great potential for being moved to online access. Original print material owned by faculty which is already in electronic form can easily be converted to hypertext mark-up language (HTML), or it may be scanned and converted to text by optical character recognition software, or saved as an image file. Any of these conversion methods can provide direct web accessibility. The Contec company provides one example of a commercially-produced system developed specifically to enable libraries to create and make available their own, locally controlled and managed, digital collections. This system allows the library to convert paper holdings to digital form, store content for delivery over networks and, through web access, provide patrons with the option to create print or digital copies, as well as manage the intellectual property requirements related to this activity. This results in a virtual version of the traditional reserve book room facility. The Web interface provides searching by course name, instructor name, document author, and document.
The main barrier to wider use of web-based information resources is not technological but financial. Virtually all journals published today exist first in digital formats. Initially they are created in the author's word processing file then, ultimately, converted to the publisher's desktop publishing software file before being sent to the printer. These files can be converted to HTML or Portable Document Files (PDF) for World Wide Web-based access. The problem for the copyright holder at this point is not the technology, it is "how can I get paid for information I make accessible over the Web"?
There are a variety of electronic commerce schemes now being developed that will affect online publication. The most common current method used by academic journal publishers for placing their serials online is a licensing agreement through a university library. These agreements typically restrict use to on-campus library workstations or Internet users originating from that institution's domain. Other schemes use password access, which has obvious drawbacks (such as users posting the passwords on public newsgroups and listservs). Software is also being developed (such as Contec's) that will track the use of digitized journals by individuals and make it possible for the student or university to pay a per-page fee.
Conclusions It is difficult to stand in the midst of rapid change and develop a clear perspective on where technology will take us in the coming decades. Librarians providing digital access need to understand that information resources are not just text. Web interfaces in the near future will have to be able to deliver streaming video, audio and video-on-demand, as well as multimedia modules. There is little doubt that the structure of universities and their libraries will change. Greater demand for educational opportunities and information services that are no longer place-based will challenge institutions to evolve and redirect resources to serve a growing non-traditional student population, a population that will increasingly expect university and library services delivered to their desktops.
References
Howard, S. (1997). "Trade-off decision making in user interface design." Behaviour and Information Technology 16 (1997): 98-109.
Lynch, P. J. & Horton, S. Yale C/AIM Web Guide, 1997. http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/index.html
Ma, Y. A Semiotic Analysis of Icons on the World Wide Web. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the International Visual Literacy Association, Chicago, 1995. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service, ED 391481).
McManus, T. F. Delivering Instruction on the World Wide Web, 1996. http://www.csuhayward.edu/ics/htmls/Inst.html
Moy, Naomi. CyberSpace Reference Library: the Virtual Reference Collection. Carson, CA: CA State University at Dominguez Hills, 1997. http://library.csudh.edu/cyberlib/
National Technological University, 1998. http://www.ntu.edu
Plaisant, C., Marchionini, G., Bruns, T., Komlodi, A. & Campbell, L. Bringing Treasures to the Surface: Iterative Design for the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program, 1997. http://www1.acm.org:82/sigchi/chi97/proceedings/briefing/cp.htm
Platoff, A., Shackle, L. and Mazurkiewicz, O. (1998). Arizona State University Libraries: Help Using the Library, 1998. http://www.asu.edu/lib/help/help.htm
Sloan, B. Service Perspectives for the Digital Library, 1997. http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/~sloan/e-ref.html
Stallings, D. "The Virtual University is Inevitable: But Will the Model Be Non-profit or Profit? A Speculative Commentary on the Emerging Education Environment." Journal of Academic Librarianship 23 (1997): 271-280.
Sun Microsystems. Guide to Web Style, 1997. http://www.sun.com/styleguide/
Western Governor's Association. Western Governors University: A Proposed Implementation Plan, June 7, 1996. http://www.wgu.edu/wgu/about/imp_plan.html#intro
John Barnard
Library Instruction, Systems, and Technology
Arizona State University
E-mail: johnb@asu.edu
Phone : (602)965-9428
John Barnard is a learning resource specialist with Library Instruction, Systems and Technology at Arizona State University. During his career in educational media he has, at various times, been responsible for photography, video production, teleconferencing, media collection development and web site creation at ASU. He has had several articles published in educational technology journals. Barnard holds a master's in educational media and is currently a doctoral candidate in that department at ASU researching the effects of the Internet on academic library use by adult distance learners.
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State University of West Georgia - Carrollton, Georgia Vol. II, No. 1 - July 1999 - ISSN: 1096-2123 |