Transforming research libraries: an introduction

Barbara I. Dewey

Introduction

Transforming Research Libraries for the Global Knowledge Society explores critical aspects of change necessary for successful transition into our vastly different twenty-first-century multicultural environment. Research library leaders from different parts of the globe with real-world experience navigating transformational change discuss key aspects of the evolving future of research libraries, academic librarianship, research collections, scholarly communication, and the changing nature of global scholarship.

Examining research library transformation from a global perspective acknowledges the broad context of scholarship as well as the imperative for international perspectives and connections in the teaching and learning process. Global perspectives take into account the rapidly changing formats of scholarship to digital with increasing accessibility via the web. Research libraries throughout the world are, more and more, managing abundance rather than scarcity of resources. However, this kind of management is different and requires acute comprehension of relevant physical and virtual environments. Effective support for research, teaching, and learning depends on connections, collaborations, and partnerships at levels never seen before.

Why is the study or analysis of transformation so vital? Are we not always in the transformational process, as evidenced throughout history? The difference today is the need, based on technological and societal changes, to reconceptualize the role of the research library and its relationship to the unending renewal and continuity of the human record.

Lougee (2002) noted three themes: growth of distributed technologies, development of open paradigms, and the emergence of the library as a diffuse agent.1 Her analysis of the diffuse library holds true as we make our way deeper into the first quarter of the twenty-first century.

At the same time the research library remains a physical entity placed within the context of a college or university. While we continue to embrace descriptions of the library as the essence, the heart, or the core of the university, it is actually part of the unending continuum consisting of the human intellect including thought and knowledge from the past, and the promise of new discovery and insight into the future. The future of the library is bright primarily because it is such a fundamental part of the continuum and to describe it as a singular or separate entity is virtually impossible. The research library's coreness goes beyond the center. It permeates throughout the world and so must its leadership.

Transformation from different perspectives

The chapters in this book explore key aspects of change in the transformation process. The first section, 'Framing the 21st-century research library,' begins with Jim Neal's groundbreaking discussion on the emergence of radical collaboration as the foundation for redefining research libraries using the example of the Columbia-Cornell 2CUL project. Graham Jefcoate provides provocative views of the future and what it might look like for the research library, especially in terms of our human resources. Jennifer Younger continues this theme through her exploration of the role of leadership in the changes and transformations needed to support the next generations of users as we have served multiple generations in the past. Anthony Ferguson uses the experience of Chinese research libraries to discuss themes of transformation from another cultural lense. Neal, Jefcoate, Younger, and Ferguson provide a context and general overview of directions, issues, and challenges underlying the changes necessary for research libraries to remain relevant and successful.

The second section, 'Organization and the university context,' focuses on the imperative for transformations achieved in concert with institutional goals and priorities. Brinley Franklin provides insight into reorganizing staff and effort aligned with programmatic and strategic direction rather than primarily with function. Jeffrey Trzeciak explores organizational transformation using human performance technology methods as a framework harnessing analytical tools and techniques to implement change. Franklin and Trzeciak articulate the need to transform library organizations based on twenty-first-century campus needs and measured by how well we meet these needs.

Part III, 'Partnerships and collaborative environments,' includes an overview of the expanding partnerships and collaborations reflected throughout the research library. Nancy Noe and Bonnie MacEwan examine partnerships and connections in terms of the library as a crossroads where people not only meet but come together to work and accomplish common goals. Allison Bolorizadeh and Rita Smith use the growing transformations of library space combined with Web 2.0 technologies to describe opportunities to infuse intercultural experiences into the research library, physically in collaborative environments such as learning commons, and virtually throughout the library's web presence. These chapters underscore the importance of collaborations and connections harnessing technology and incorporating the imperative for diversity.

The final section, 'Creating accessible and enduring scholarship,' examines new roles for research libraries in the creation, dissemination, and preservation of knowledge in a networked global environment. Gunilla Widén explores scholarly communication within the context of Web 2.0 and poses questions about the academic library's role in this new environment of scholarship. Linda Phillips explores the new and expanding role of research libraries in publishing scholarship and making it more visible through local initiatives. Fred Heath, Christian Kelleher, T-Kay Sangwand, and Kevin Wood provide a detailed view of the Human Rights Documentation Initiative, a collaborative project to appropriately preserve and disseminate critical aspects of the human record. All of these authors focus on the creation of new knowledge, and the preservation of the often fragile human record within the context of ethics, professional values, and commitment for future generations.

Relevance and effectiveness

Confirmation of research library relevance and effectiveness moving forward depends on our ability to do the following:

 lead and support university/college priorities and initiatives;

 embed scholarly resources, tools, and services from all sources into teaching, learning, and research processes;

 create compelling intellectual, social, and cultural environments for students, faculty, and scholars;

 provide intuitive and enduring access to scholarship;

 embrace multi-institutional approaches;

 harness networked digital content and spark its creation;

 provide leadership for diversity and global connections.

We must, in a global way, create, collaborate, and connect scholarship for and with users at a level never seen before to ensure lifelong learning and the ability to solve the world's continuing challenges inclusive of all cultures, time periods, and approaches.

Who are our twenty-first-century students and scholars? What does it mean to be an educated person on planet Earth as we move into the second decade of the new millennium? The new global scholar is competitive, visible, attuned to excellence and quality, collaborative, high tech, and embracing new modes of communication and commentary in their work. New generations of students are always 'on,' skimmers rather than deep divers, instant communicators, and highly motivated but often lost in the vast networked world of information. The global research library, in order to respond to these new students and scholars, must deeply incorporate faculty and student centered approaches throughout the organization in partnership with others. And, at the same time, address sweeping changes in technology transforming all aspects of creating, disseminating, and accessing scholarship in a multi-cultural world.

Organizing for successful collaboration

How institutions are organized can be a significant barrier to collaborating with twenty-first-century technologies or even nineteenth-century technologies. Hierarchical organizations where information typically flows in one direction run counter to the diffuse nature of collaborative communication. Organizations tend also to be set up to address a workflow based on the organization's success rather than on success from the user or customer point of view. In the case of research universities, the customer is students and faculty. The product is positive teaching and learning as well as productive and meaningful research which advances humanity. Today's organizations are often more concerned about how technology or other forces affect them rather than how these forces change the behaviour of their customers. This is especially true in research universities, where cutting-edge discovery and scholarship is occurring within an organization encrusted in tradition.

Research libraries are beginning to reconsider their organizational structure in terms of shifts in student...