Interconnected and innovative libraries: factors tying libraries more closely together.

ABSTRACT

This article considers the many developments in technology and practice that are making libraries more connected and interdependent. It looks at new integrated online services and reviews the increasing importance of both formal and informal standards. Global centralized Web services are discussed. The relationships between information industry companies and libraries are considered. Virtual reference services and far-reaching digitization projects are explored. The article concludes that close cooperation is allowing libraries to take their services to new levels and is key to the continued innovation of those services.

INTRODUCTION

Library consortia, organized at the local, state, national, and international levels, are what we most commonly think of when we discuss library resource-sharing networks. Library consortia--for shared catalog services, interlibrary lending, document delivery, and shared electronic licensing--are growing in influence and importance. However, library communities also work together in a variety of ways, both formal and informal, that go beyond, or underpin, consortium activities. What follows is a consideration of the many different ways in which library communities are becoming more closely interconnected.

The inherent capabilities of networked technology have presented libraries with opportunities to take their services to new levels. Libraries have been affected by general trends in computer technology. Libraries also share the enormous challenges of integrating new skills and methods, facing new sources of competition, and adapting to the rapid pace of technological change. The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition (Wilson, 2003) provides a useful consideration of the changing landscape and technology-related challenges facing libraries. Library Networks in the New Millennium: Top Ten Trends (Laughlin, 2000) is another valuable work that looks at the forces affecting the development of library networks. In that volume of essays Hyman (2000) addresses the rapid growth in library user expectations in a world where instant communication and high-speed mobile access to worldwide information is the norm. Both Pattern Recognition and Hyman (2000, p. 97) conclude that cooperation and collaboration provide libraries with essential tools for meeting the challenges of the future. Pattern Recognition quotes Reg Carr: "If the last few decades of library and information developments have taught us anything, then it's surely that the really significant advances, and the meaningful and lasting solutions, are cooperative ones" (Wilson, 2003, p. 83).

As technology presents libraries with many new challenges, it also provides collaborative tools to address these challenges. Shared online services in libraries have grown in step with increases in bandwidth and network reliability. We now take for granted network communication, universally available e-mail, listservs, RSS news feeds, blogs, and wikis. The use of these communication tools to focus the efforts of diverse groups is a central feature of the current advancement of library services through shared technology.

NEW SHARED TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

Integrated Library Systems (ILS) continue to be a key part of library consortium activity. New library online services are also becoming the focus of library sharing. In his article "Re-Integrating the 'Integrated' Library System" (Breeding, 2005), ILS watcher Marshal Breeding outlines the growing range of online services libraries are able to offer. Important new technologies like virtual reference, Open URL link resolving, federated searching, content management systems, and user direct document delivery services are good candidates for shared and cooperative delivery. There are important economic benefits to sharing the costs of computer infrastructure needed for such services and spreading the workload among many libraries. There is also the considerable added benefit of providing a more common experience to users from groups of libraries.

As new services are being added to the offerings of ILS vendors, existing library consortia are sharing a wider range of services. New services are also an incentive for new libraries to join consortia. For services such as user direct document delivery or virtual reference, there are great benefits to having very large groups of libraries participating. Sharing services among many libraries makes possible a level of service that could not be achievable by any single library. It is not surprising that Marshal Breeding also suggests that he is seeing renewed consolidation taking place in the ILS environment, as larger groups of libraries share centralized resources for a growing array of online services (Breeding, 2004).

STANDARDS AS A KEY TO RESOURCE SHARING

Development and use of common standards is one of the most important tasks that libraries perform collectively. Libraries have a long history of standards development previous to the development of the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classification systems (Straw, 2003).

Through adherence to standards, worldwide networks are created that successfully share resources, with little need for discussion among the participating agencies. Libraries exchanging materials via interlibrary loan need only follow agreed protocols to do so without the need for…