J. Colannino: Transformation of the Library and Information Profession – Some Suggestions

Abstract

The library has proven to be a strong and beneficial influence in balancing public and private information needs and rights. However, it is facing competitive pressures and internal turmoil as never before. It must be transformed. Free market principles including the introduction of felt competitive pressure would help to put the library on the right track. A study in free markets would greatly benefit knowledge and information professionals, allow them to properly weigh the pros and cons of central planning and distributed information, and help to shape proper library policy.

Keywords:

public library, relevance, free market, competition, capitalism, knowledge workers,

information professionals

Introduction

The move toward the knowledge economy, the advances in information and communication technologies, and the advent of the Web and Internet have created challenges and opportunities for the library and information profession.[1] Our class assignment was to “write a paper discussing the challenges facing the library and information profession” and “to suggest ways in which information professionals can be trained to take advantage of the new opportunities presented to them.” Specifically we were to include “recommendations on how and what educational institutions must and should do to equip the new generation of information and knowledge management professionals with the survival skills and competencies they need.”

Challenges facing the Library

The assignment listed the following specific challenges (the list was not intended to be complete). The author has grouped them into the four categories shown below.

· Information Management: e.g., reliability of electronic resources, content management, licensing issues.

· Patron concerns: e.g., information overload, privacy and security.

· Employee/employer issues: e.g., an aging workforce, knowledge loss.

· Competitive pressures: e.g., competition from electronic publishing, globalization, and outsourcing.

We shall consider each category in turn.

Information Management

To be useful, information must be available, accurate, and reliable.[2] Of the plethora of available sources for electronic resources, those in the library are rated as reliable[3]. Additionally, the public library sets the standard for content management of archival sources – indeed, the profession is dedicated to it.[4] Libraries also have a longstanding historical concern for licensing issues and have done a very good job leading the debate and balancing public access with intellectual property rights.[5]

This is not to say that all licensing issues have been completely resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. Fees for journals have continually risen[6] and many public libraries have been forced to be judicious in the number of journal titles that they make available in an effort to reduce operating costs. Since the public library relies on taxpayer funding, its budgets are generally set in ways that are beyond the library’s control and that do not necessarily reflect library needs. On the plus side, the library continually addresses these needs with legislators, and it is well-represented in this regard.[7]

Patron Concerns

Privacy and security for patrons are two concerns that the library is keen to protect.[8] There have been abuses in the past. For example, the McCarthyism[9] of the 1950s directly involved secret monitoring of reading materials at libraries.[10] As this was prior to the Miranda Act,[11] many of the accused did not have access to attorneys[12] and were forced to defend themselves. Likewise, the Patriot Act allows secret monitoring of reading materials.[13] Though these issues are beyond the library’s immediate influence, many librarians, information professionals, and library organizations have protested such privacy intrusions.[14]

Employee/Employer Issues

The library is prone to pressures that are familiar to many knowledge workers. Due to a declining birthrate,[15] First World countries employ a workforce whose average age is increasing.[*] This will put pressures on libraries (and other knowledge professions) to delay the retirement of experienced personnel; however, such effects are complex.[16] Enticement of a limited pool of skilled workers and retention of experienced personnel could act to inflate wages because competition for fewer new employees will drive starting wages higher; older employees tend to draw higher salaries, so retaining proportionally more of them will also cost libraries more. Thus, an already money-tight public library system could be strained further. A different problem could arise if the library does not have the wherewithal to offer competitive salaries. In such a case, young employees could exit the profession or refuse to enter it in the first place. Subsequently, the library could experience knowledge loss as older employees retire and insufficient new employees remain or fail to be attracted.

Unlike many information professions, the library is often not a happy workplace; recent surveys have shown many library employees to be disgruntled and the phenomenon is relatively widespread. [17]^,[18] Anecdotally, in our classroom, virtually everyone working in a public library has shared stories of frustration with library management; in other professions knowledge workers have higher job satisfaction.[19]

Competitive Pressures

New competitors have entered the information market: electronic publishing is both a competitor and a cost drain – a competitor, as it offers its wares independent of the library, and a cost drain as electronic library resources increase in price. Globalization of information via electronic media also challenges library and information professionals by making outsourcing easier.

I have argued elsewhere that library woes have been enabled by an insulation from competitive pressure.[20] Since libraries are publicly funded they do not go out of business when their service is poor or as their relevance wanes. Except in the rare case that libraries are de-funded,[21] they continue to exist regardless of their effectiveness or efficiency.

What Needs Improvement?

As we have shown, the library performs some activities very well. Libraries do an excellent job of providing accurate information in a variety of media without charge to patrons. This is the library’s main mission and some safeguards exist to keep things that way, including a high public expectation for information availability, an employee base dedicated and trained in information management, and the fact that information management is an area of continuing research for information professionals in the library sciences.

Additionally, library professionals continue to be strong advocates for public privacy. Although many privacy matters are a matter of law and beyond the library’s direct control, it is also safe to say that where the library can influence public policy, it has made strong attempts to do so in favor of the privacy needs of its patrons. This is not to say that no more needs to be done to strengthen privacy and security concerns, but rather, that most library professionals are sufficiently alert and attentive to this need.

In contrast, employee/employer and provider/patron issues represent two opportunities for the library to improve. Before considering some practical remedies, the author digresses to briefly explore library history and how the library came to its weakness in these areas.

How we got from there to here

Archived collections date back five millennia at least[22]. Although libraries existed before the founding of the republic, the current form – a multi-branched institution with free borrowing privileges – began to flourish in the United States during the nineteenth century.[23] This form of the library coincided with the populist movement which sought to mandate free education to all[24] and to increase the influence of non-secular sources of education. Had library funding remained private there may have been fewer libraries and less public access. Supporting the library with taxes, as opposed to private charity, probably increased the number of libraries and the timeliness of their construction. However, and ironically, it also acted to insulate the library from ­ its mainstream patronage as funding was diffused from patrons in particular to the public at large. Shifting from private to public funding politicized the library[25] and led to decreased efficiencies because publicly-funded charities are less effective at executing their mission than private ones.[26]

Practical Remedies

As the author has already argued, insulation from competitive pressure accounts for much of the existing dysfunction in the library. Any practical remedy would need to be cognizant of this component. Along this line, there are several controversial possibilities.

1. Develop clear benchmarks for walk-in traffic, book circulation, patron satisfaction, and other measures of relevance and utilization, and tie some portion of management salaries and library funding to these benchmarks. In such a system, some portion of library funds is pooled and individual branches are forced to compete for them based on the degree to which the branch serves the public. The key is that the measures must be directly tied to user satisfaction and usage measures; they must not be arbitrary or designed to feign importance for political purposes.

2. Include performance-based salary components for senior management; such components should tie to clear and public metrics of library performance.

3. Include 360 reviews for all employees and base some portion of salary increases on them. A 360 review means that colleagues and subordinates (i.e., everyone who has exposure to the reviewed employee) is able to give anonymous feedback which then comprises an important salary component.

4. Audit public libraries according to published criteria made known well in advance and discipline or terminate library underperforming management.

5. Give individual library managers greater autonomy to make real improvements. Such a policy would allow for the timely diagnosis of problems and implementation of corrective measures. It would remove excuses and make visible distinctions between superior and inferior library managers.

6. Permit the closure of underperforming public libraries and distribution of their collections to better run branches. In the extreme case, allow the de-funding of library systems and sell their assets to the highest bidder for those that prove refractory to improvement. A real threat of extinction is a necessary and important motivator for positive change.

Consideration of Educational Topics for Information Professionals

As a final topic, students were asked to provide recommendations for educational topics that would benefit information professionals. Others have studied this topic in detail.[27] This brief paper cannot examine the topic in depth. Rather, the author seeks to make an incremental recommendation to existing KM curricula, which by now are reasonably well developed.[†] The author’s topical recommendation is a one-semester course comparing and contrasting information exchange in free-market and centrally-planned economies. Capitalism is a socially superior method for communicating market information, distributing goods, and benefiting society. This is true by nearly any economic or market measurement including gross domestic product, per capita income, or disposable income.[28] The study of pricing structure, competition, and collocation of worldwide intelligence in free-market structures would enhance the education for knowledge and information professionals.[29] To make a case for this coursework and to illustrate the enormous information communicated in the free-market price alone, the author digresses to consider Leonard Read’s classical treatise: I, Pencil,[30] retold below.

How Capitalism Motivates, Generates, and Collocates Knowledge

No one knows how to make a pencil. Pencil manufacture requires a wealth of knowledge[31] not resident in any single human being. Beginning with the eraser, [32] most today are made from synthetic elastomers, for example, polyvinyl.[33] To fabricate erasers (known as plugs[34] in the industry) requires a specialized understanding of reactor engineering and chemical kinetics, polymer science, and manufacturing technology. The final form is extruded,[35] colored, shaped and cut to precise specifications. The eraser is fastened on to a wooden base by means of a metal strip known as a ferrule. To generate the metal from the ore requires detailed knowledge in the mining, manufacturing, and metallurgy to form the alloy. This requires controlled chemistry and allows for suitable ductility, corrosion resistance, and other important material properties. Special equipment creates the ferrule, while other equipment places the ferrule and crimps it in place. The body of the pencil is wood. It requires planting, growing, harvesting, and grading; i.e., an understanding of forest biology, dendrology, and timber management. The raw wood must be dried, formed into shape, and grooved to accept the pencil lead. The pencil lead[36] itself is a mixture of graphite and clay controlled to precise properties for hardness and writing properties. Finally, the entire pencil must be painted, stamped, boxed, and shipped.

We have not even begun to consider other subtleties including colored pencils, mechanical pencils, and the complex daily market dynamics, or the requirements in fuel science, truck and rail manufacture, etc. in order to deliver the pencil to its final destination. Truly, no one knows how to make a pencil and deliver it to market. Yet here we have them, a triumph of modern technology and available for a little more than five cents a piece.[37]

How is it possible that scores of manufacturers and producers intimately communicate in order to make a pencil? How does the metal supplier know that it should sell its raw materials for use as pencil ferrules? How does the timber manufacturer know that it should direct its product to make a pencil rather than a floor? How does the chemical manufacturer know that its vinyl belongs in a pencil eraser rather than PVC pipe? How does the graphite producer know when to sell its product to a pencil company or a tire company? How can pencils be produced so cheaply and how can such markets out-compete centralized economies where experts allocate resources?

In a free market, all of this information is codified in the price. The seller aims to sell his wares at the highest possible price, the buyer aims to buy his raw materials at the lowest possible cost. The seller need not know the final destination of his goods. All he knows is that buyers with the greatest need pay the highest price. Once ferrule manufacturers have enough material, they are no longer willing to pay for more and the seller adjusts his inventory to serve other needs. In this way, each entity in the supply chain applies its formidable expertise over its small market segment to create a highly robust system of knowledge sharing. Millions of parallel computations are done every moment. So many, in fact, that despite supercomputer models of free markets, brokerage houses and governments cannot predict human-generated stock market cycles and market behavior. Although markets are not perfectly free or perfectly optimized, they are vastly superior to competing systems.[38] The communication of information and the enabling of market decisions based on managing such knowledge in real time should be of great interest to knowledge professionals.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The public library is declining in relevance and faces competitive pressures as never before. It must be transformed. Free market principles including the reintroduction of felt competitive pressure would help to put the library on the right track. A study in free markets would greatly benefit knowledge and information professionals, allow them to properly weigh the pros and cons of central planning and distributed information, and help to shape proper library policy in the future.

References

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[*] Obviously, all employees grow older. However, the average employee age need not increase and indeed can decrease provided sufficient numbers of new employees join the rank and file.

[†] A Google search for “knowledge management” gave over 66 million results and “knowledge management curricula” gave over 300 results. Although a new discipline, knowledge management programs are now offered by universities worldwide. See for example, the program committee ACM’s 15^th Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, http://sa1.sice.umkc.edu/cikm2006/tpc.htm, last accessed on 15 July 2007, which lists scores of participating universities.

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[1] Class assignment: Short term paper II, topic 2: transformation of the library and information profession, LIS-KM 5033, University of Oklahoma, Summer 2007.

[2] Slawson, D.C. and Shaughnessy, Obtaining useful information from expert-based sources, BMJ 1997;314:947 (29 March), available online at http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/314/7085/947?ijkey=7b29cce2afdfdd04e84543ec9648ee1c32862d85&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha

[3] Newall, M., and Daldy, R., Report on 2001 staff experience, Auckland University of Technology, p 43, 2002. Available on the web at http://intouch.aut.ac.nz/intouch/iru/knowledge_base/docs/Previous_Reports/01STASS.pdf , last accessed 10, July 2007.

[4] Oklahoma University website for the School of Library and Information Studies, http://www.ou.edu/cas/slis/ , last accessed 13 July 2007.

[5] Connecting culture and commerce, National Gallery, London, 26 January 2007, program excerpts available online at http://www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/mcg2007/, last accessed 13 July 2007

[6] Turner, S.J., Libraries see red over rising journal prices, George Street Journal, http://www.brown.edu/Administration/George_Street_Journal/vol24/24GSJ19c.html, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[7] News reports of nationwide library funding impacts, American Library Association, Chicago, available online at http://www.ala.org/ala/news/libraryfunding/libraryfunding.htm, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[8] Molnar D. and Wagner D., Privacy and Security in Library RFID Issues, Practices, and Architectures, 11^th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, October 25-29, 2004, Washington, DC, available online at http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~dmolnar/library.pdf, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[9] Joseph Raymond McCarthy, CNN Perspective Series, CNN Interactive, available online at http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/mccarthy/, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[10] Bowers, S.L., Privacy and library records, The Journal of Academic Librarianship Volume 32, Issue 4, July 2006, Pages 377-383, abstract available online at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W50-4K7169D-2&_user=10&_coverDate=07%2F31%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a1fcf1ab9a8150ec01e368f314644839 , last accessed 13 July 2007.

[11] Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 1966, available online at http://supreme.justia.com/us/384/436/case.html.

[12] Schwartz, M., Adversarial ethics: can another self-interested lawyer really benefit the common good?, 26 April 2007, p 66, Dartmouth Law Journal, available online at http://rockefeller.dartmouth.edu/assets/pdf/dlj_W07_schwartz.pdf, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[13] McCarthy, A.M., The patriot act under siege, National Review Online, 13 November 2003, available online at http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200311130835.asp, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[14] ALA Council: Patriot Act a danger, Library Journal.com, 3 February 2003, available online at http://www.libraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA274528, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[15] Longley, R., U.S. birthrate hits all time low, About.com, available online at http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aabirthrate.htm, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[16] Malmberg, B. et al, Productivity consequences of workforce aging - stagnation or a Horndal effect?, Institute for Future Studies, available online at http://www.framtidsstudier.se/filebank/files/20051201$135140$fil$Z2YlJ37v394UPNoN7AU8.pdf

[17] Thorton, Jane K.; Job Satisfaction of Librarians of African Descent Employed in ARL Academic Libraries, available online at the ALA website: http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crljournal/backissues2000b/may00/thornton.pdf , last accessed 18 June, 2007.

[18] Nader Ahmad Abu Sheikhaa and Abdul Razeq M. Younisb , Administrative factors affecting employees absenteeism in academic and public libraries in Jordan, The International Information & Library Review Volume 38, Issue 2, Pages 64-88, June 2006, Elsevier, Paris, available by web as of 24 April, 2006 at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WGP-4JT38RW-1&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=92dd0fa00528065b7774477f99985064, last accessed 18 June, 2007.

[19] Frankel, S.J. et al, On the front line: organization of work in the information economy, p 61, Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY,1999, available in searchable version online at http://www.amazon.com/Front-Line-Organization-Information-International/dp/0801485673/ref=ed_oe_p/104-4015548-7367903?ie=UTF8&qid=1184347535&sr=1-1, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[20] Colannino, J., NetBooks and its impact on libraries, a class assignment for KM 5033, University of Oklahoma, available online at http://km5433blog.blogspot.com/2007/06/colannino-netbooks-and-its-impact-on.html, last accessed on 13 July 2007.

[21] Rockwell, Lew; Sell the Public Library, http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/libraries.html, last accessed 18 June, 2007.

[22] Krasner-Khait, B., Survivor: history of the library, History Magazine, October/November, 2001, no page number available; available on the web at http://www.history-magazine.com/libraries.html, last accessed 12 July 2007.

[23] Ibid, Ref 23. The first public library opened in 1833; Andrew Carnegie helped fund 1700 such libraries between 1881 and 1919.

[24] Populist movement, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007, available online at http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9060867/Populist-Movement, last accessed 12 July 2007.

[25] Politicization of Public Services, IPES online, Inter-American Development Bank, available online at http://www.iadb.org/res/ipes/2006/chapter9.cfm, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[26] Olasky, M., The tragedy of American compassion, Crossway Books, Wheaton IL, 1992, p 57, available online at http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0891078630/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-8342669-4421539#reader-link, last accessed 12 July 2007.

[27] Loon, L.C. and Suliman A.H., Knowledge Management Education and Curriculum Development, Journal of Information & Knowledge Management, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2002) 99–118.

[28] Bernstein, A., The capitalist manifesto: the historic, economic and philosophic case for laissez-faire, University Press of America, Lanham, MD, 2005.

[29] For an accessible and very brief (though opinionated) history of free-markets see Free market economics, available online at http://www.freemarketnews.com/FMNN-Economics.asp, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[30] Read, L. E., I Pencil, The Freeman, December 1958, available online at http://www.theadvocates.org/freeman/9605read.html, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[31] Online article: How cedar pencils are made, available at http://www.pencils.com/makeit.html, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[32] Pencil eraser, The Free Dictionary, available online at http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/pencil+eraser, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[33] How Vinyl is made, The Vinyl Institute, available online at http://www.vinylinfo.org/materialvinyl/process.html, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[34] The Great eraser caper, available online at http://www.pencils.com/eraser3.html

[35] Ibid Ref 37.

[36] Ritter, S., What’s that stuff? Chemical and Engineering News, Vol 79, No. 42, a publication of the American Chemical Society, Washington D.C., available online at http://pubs.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/stuff/7942sci4.html, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[37] Rapid Supplies, commercial offering of $3.90/72 pencils, Sparco Pencil, available online at http://www.rapidsupplies.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=30264, last accessed 13 July 2007.

[38] Lott, J.R., Freedomnomics – why the free market words and other half-baked theories don’t, pp 43– 47, Regnery Publishing, Inc., Washington, D.C., 2007.