Journal Entry 8

Assigned Readings

The Institutional Setting

What distinguishes one type of library form another?

The goal of the public library is “to meet the informational, recreational, educational and cultural needs of the community it serves” (Rubin, 2004). A school library’s goal has a slightly narrower focus; the goal is to support the curriculum of the school. Recreational reading materials are often included in the collection as outside reading is strongly encouraged. An academic library is any library that supports the informational and educational needs of the post secondary institution it is affiliated with. In the text, special libraries are defined as “information organizations sponsored by private companies, government agencies, or professional organization” (Rubin, 2004). There is no one size fits all definition for special libraries. Special libraries can trace their lineage back to “ancient and medieval periods since libraries in those times tended to have focus on a particular mission” (Rubin, 2004). Special libraries can be a multitude of things: law, medical, music, genealogical, etc.

Not counting the special libraries, the differences between the public, school and academic libraries are less glaring than on initial thought. All three libraries support the educational needs of the community they serve. Public libraries are the jack-of-all trades library serving a vast and diverse community; the school media center supports the curriculum of the school and serves as parentis loci’s; and academic libraries not only support the educational needs of the student, but the professional development of the faculty.

What are the major challenges/opportunities facing different types of libraries?

In the discussion group I focused on the some of the challenges facing public libraries, here I will look at the challenges that are facing the academic library. As stated above, an academic library supports the educational and research needs of students and faculty in the post secondary setting.

Collection Preservation

One of the major challenges facing academic libraries is the ageing and deterioration of collections. Collections in an academic library are held for a very long time. Unlike popular paperbacks in a public library, weeding (reducing the collection) criteria is much more stringent. Factors involve not only the condition of the book, but the relevance to the overall collection, the uniqueness of the material. Conservation and preservation are issues facing the library today. Books printed after 1860 are on acid treated paper. Over time this acid causes the pages to become brittle. According to the text, over 75 million books in academic libraries are endangered (Rubin, 2004). Also contributing to problems are environmental conditions such as poor handling of materials by patrons and staff, insects, and improper temperature control. One possible way of preserving these deteriorating materials is digitalization. Digitalization would allow books and other materials to be available on-line; however, there are many problems with this plan. The greater availability to view materials on line could lead to greater demand to see the hardcopy of the material thus leading to further deterioration. Digital media formats are also unstable and costly. Floppy disks have fallen away, CDROMs get scratched, and pen drivers are convenient but easy to lose. The Internet is also unstable; data is vulnerable to corruption by virus, hacker and incompetence.

Staffing

Rubin states that there will be an “insufficient supply of librarians in the near future” (Rubin, 2004). He goes on to explain that the reason for the decline is the graying of the workforce, the low status, image problems, and low wages. He also states that application to library programs are “flat or declining numbers of master’s graduates.” I find this interesting in regards to our instructor experience when he applied for his current position. There were over a hundred applicants for a single academic librarian position. Was his experience unique or have things changed since Rubin collected his data?

Journals and Periodicals

Rubin discussed the issues of databases accessibility (such as EBSCO and Wilson) and the crisis in scholarly publishing separately. These two issues seemed to be linked. With the advent of the full text database, more periodicals were available to a larger audience. The distance learning student could access materials within minutes. The on campus student could access the library periodical holdings in the middle of the night. These are both positives. The library could reduce the number of periodical subscription and no longer need to catalog and store them. As libraries reduced the number of hardcopy subscription, the number of journals for scholarly publication has also reduced. Rubin notes that the academic community is working on rectifying the situation. The “Principles for Emerging System of Scholarly Publishing” address not only the fiscal burden but “the entire process of evaluating and refereeing works, the preservation of materials, the assignment of publishing rights and privacy rights in the digital environment are all of concern to scholars and academic institutions” (Rubin, 2004).

Rubin, R.E. (2004). Foundations of library and information science (2nd ed.). New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc.