Editorial

Citation

Ashcroft, L. (2007), "Editorial", New Library World, Vol. 108 No. 9/10. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.2007.072108iaa.001

Editorial

Kirklees, UK, has been celebrating its 24 hour library online service. This is a free service which joins similar services across the UK and allows users to access dictionaries, encyclopaedias, newspapers and information on music, bibliographies and the arts from any location and at any time of the day or night. The article by Hoivik compares Norway's national virtual reference service Biblioteksvar with its commercial and non-commercial competitors. In this article, reference is treated as a market, and Hoivik considers capacity and marketing, arguing that libraries need to refine their business strategies if they want to prosper in the digital environment.

The theme of the International Scholarly Communications Conference was “the transformation of research communication”. According to a new RIN/Consortium of Research Libraries (Curl) report (RIN, 2007), the number of researchers visiting their library weekly has fallen roughly by half in the past five years, and this fall is most prominent in the sciences as researchers access information via their desktops. However, it emerged at the conference that 75 per cent of librarians believe they will be major drivers of change in the emerging virtual research environments and virtual research communities, while 51 per cent of researchers have never heard of these. This suggests a significant difference in views between librarians and researchers on how library services may develop in the future. This is interesting in the context of Mansourian and Madden's article, which reports selective findings from a wider study of web-based information seeking behaviour among biologists. Participants in this study typically categorised their web searches as either work-related or everyday life searches. Their work-related search strategies were generally well-defined and specific, but common problems in everyday life searches included the selection of apposite search terms and uncertainty in selecting the most suitable database.

Logan and Starr (2005) suggested the following attributes and concepts associated with the new physical library:

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  browsing;

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  symbolic significance to scholars;

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  repositories of the physical;

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  amenities and presence becoming more important;

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  hi-tech facilities;

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  information arcades;

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  faculty support centres;

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  library cafes;

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  portable and ubiquitous computing;

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  ample access to public computing; and

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  places for people and their activities.

This growing interest in the development of learning spaces is reflected in the Saltire Centre, a social, cultural, study, research and support hub for Glasgow Caledonian University. The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) developed the phrase “technology-rich open access learning spaces” as a useful definition of new-build or refurbishment library/learning centre projects in the UK, and the Jiscinfokit (JISC, 2007) considers the design of learning spaces in detail. The Saltire Centre is an example of such a space. It provides a social learning space, used in a multitude of ways by different people at different times. The article by Waxman et al. reports findings of a study in which students documented the location and physical characteristics of the “third place”. The majority of these students reported that their favourite “third place” was off campus – overwhelmingly coffee shops and restaurants, with the major functions of socialization and relaxation. Waxman et al. provide practical information that can help libraries to renovate and design spaces to meet the needs of students and encourage students to come to the library to study as well as to socialize.

Research by the Reading Agency shows that the popular UK television book club Richard & Judy is a powerful promotional tool for public libraries. There was huge interest after the books were seen on the show, and, nationwide, the ten books featured in 2006 were borrowed 304,548 times in just the first-half of the year. The figures also show that Richard & Judy had a lasting effect. The ten books featured were borrowed 101,794 times in May and June, long after the show finished in March. In their article, Vrana and Barbaric report on research into public library promotional efforts, which was conducted in five public libraries in Zagreb, Croatia, which act as centres in their respective library networks. Participants in the study confirmed good visibility of libraries in their local community, but also suggested that public library services could be promoted further, especially in the public media. Results of the study suggest the need for better use of communication channels such as television.

The Tel-Me-More project added 1 million digitised items to the European Library from the collections of the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland and Slovakia. These countries found themselves able to bypass legacy non-web technologies and to digitise proportionately more material than other countries. The project has reached a successful conclusion. The purpose of the article by Ballard and Donnald is to encourage libraries to provide access to their own original content via the web. They present a case study of the digitization project at Quinnipiac University, USA, demonstrating that a library does not necessarily need to obtain funding to begin a successful and effective digitization program, which, in their case, has received favourable attention from researchers and a greater selection of source materials for their institutional community.

The Diversity Group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals has shortlisted for the categories for the Diversity Awards 2007. The Diversity Group Chair commented that our profession has a crucial role to play in breaking down the barriers that prevent all citizens from accessing the information and the resources they need. Abdullahi, in his article, takes a different angle on diversity by considering diversity and intercultural issues in library and information science education. He argues that, in order to prepare future library professionals for a multicultural society, educators in library schools must articulate a vision of teaching and learning in a diverse society. He presents four salient characteristics that define the culturally responsive LIS educator, and recommends that LIS educators examine the curriculum critically and revise it so as to make issues of diversity central rather than peripheral.

Linda Ashcroft