Subject: [NGC4LIB] If Academic Libraries Remove Computers, Will Anyone Come?

From: "B.G. Sloan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:17:29 -0700

From today's Chronicle "Wired Campus" blog:
 
http://bit.ly/dcnWwW
 
Article quotes an assistant university librarian at the University of California at Santa Barbara as saying: ""If you take the computers out of the commons, I think you'd see our numbers drop by half." By "numbers", he's talking about people visiting the physical library.
 
Provocative, but I don't know if I agree...
 
Bernie Sloan

---

From: Peter Schlumpf <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:36:37 -0500

I don't agree.  I think this push to have lots of computers in libraries is
a passing phase.  Sure, if one takes computer out of libraries now, the
numbers will indeed drop by half.  But 5 years from now, I don't see that
happening.  More and more, people have their own computers.  And with wifi
and other wireless technology becoming ubiquitous and cheap or free, the
days of rows and rows of public access desktop computers in carrels is
numbered.  The end of that couldn't come soon enough as far as I am
concerned.  Public access computers are a huge resource sink in money and
staff time to support.

Computers will always have a place in libraries, but in 5 or 10 years they
fade into the woodwork just like any other technology where they are
supposed to be.  And then libraries can focus once again on their core
purpose.

Peter Schlumpf
www.avantilibrarysystems.com

On 4/29/10, B.G. Sloan <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Article quotes an assistant university librarian at the University of
> California at Santa Barbara as saying: ""If you take the computers out of
> the commons, I think you'd see our numbers drop by half." By "numbers", he's
> talking about people visiting the physical library.
>

---

From: Jonathan Rochkind <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:39:55 -0400

So what if you take wifi out of the library too?

I don't know why you'd _want_ to take public access worktations OR wifi 
out of the library exactly though.

---

From: Peter Schlumpf <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:59:52 -0500

Two things:

1)  I said _nothing_ about removing wifi from the library!  Wifi is many
many times more economical to support than dozens of workstations that are
subject to the usual problems such as viruses or physical vandalism.  And
let us not forget the headaches of obsolesence and upgrade cycles.

2)  Wifi itself may be a transitory technology that in a few years the
library may not need to support.  That is another middleman that will get
eliminated over time.  What public access computers remain will connect
patrons to the library's local resources as they are appropriate.  Libraries
will no longer be the gateway to the Internet.  Almost everybody has it
now.  Wake up!  it's not 1998 anymore!

Peter

On 4/29/10, Jonathan Rochkind <[email-masked]> wrote:
> I don't know why you'd _want_ to take public access worktations OR wifi out
> of the library exactly though.
>
>
> Peter Schlumpf wrote:
>

---

From: "Walker, David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:16:41 -0700

The original article was about *academic* libraries.

At many institutions, campus IT supports and upgrades the computers in the library.  And those computers are often faster (with a faster Internet connection) and have more applications than what the students may have in their back packs or at home.  That's why they are packed with students.

--Dave

==================
David Walker
Library Web Services Manager
California State University
http://xerxes.calstate.edu
________________________________________
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Peter Schlumpf [[email-masked]]
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 2:59 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] If Academic Libraries Remove Computers, Will Anyone Come?

Two things:

Peter

---

From: Peter Schlumpf <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:38:43 -0500

But it still costs the institution and indirectly the library.  Just because
campus IT supports the infrastructure does not mean that it comes free to
the library, at least in terms of political capital.  I concede that perhaps
now those computers are supported by a faster network infrastructure, but
that will become less and less relevant as time goes on and technology
improves.  Plus the trend is AWAY from locally installed applications.  Get
out of the desktop tarpit, guys!  It's going the way of the standalone
CD-ROM jukeboxes if you remember those days when they were all the rage.
Librarians need to stop defining themselves by computers and the present-day
technology they see around them.  Look ahead!

On 4/29/10, Walker, David <[email-masked]> wrote:
> At many institutions, campus IT supports and upgrades the computers in the
> library.  And those computers are often faster (with a faster Internet
> connection) and have more applications than what the students may have in
> their back packs or at home.  That's why they are packed with students.
>
> --Dave
>
> ==================
> David Walker

---

From: "Walker, David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:27:00 -0700

I don't think anyone is arguing that academic libraries will need to provide desktop computers indefinitely into the future, Peter.

Rather, my comments -- and maybe those of others -- were aimed at your eagerness to get rid of them, and particularly your argument that they are a "huge resource sink" for libraries, and are largely unnecessary even now because "almost everybody has the Internet."

It doesn't bother me at all if, at some point in the future, academic libraries no longer provide the large number of computers we do now.  But I just don't see their current use as being a bad thing either.  The fact that our labs are packed surely suggests our students don't either.

--Dave

==================
David Walker
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 3:38 PM

---

From: Peter Schlumpf <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:36:05 -0500

That "some point in the future" may be much closer than you think -- not
some far off distant abstract point in time.  I would give it a couple of
years and you will see a noticeable trend away from public access desktop
computers in libraries.  Just because your labs are packed now, doesn't mean
that they will remain that way.

And the ARE a huge resource sink!  In an academic library, public library or
any other context.  I know this from experience.  You have to buy the
things.  You have to set them up. You have to maintain them.  You have to
upgrade them.  You have to provide user support.  You have to keep them free
of viruses.  Eventually you have to retire and replace them.  You need
babysitters.  And yes, desktop computers in academic libraries are not
immune to vandalism either.  All this costs the institution money and time,
whether it is the IT department or the library doing it or both.  Resources
that could be put to use elsewhere.

I have to agree with what Tim Spalding suggests: That on a greater timescale
public access computers in libraries are probably a flash-in-the-pan
phenomenon.  Five years from now you may have computers designed for a
particular purpose, and they will be there, but nothing like we see today.

Peter Schlumpf

On 4/29/10, Walker, David <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> I don't think anyone is arguing that academic libraries will need to
> provide desktop computers indefinitely into the future, Peter.
>
> Rather, my comments -- and maybe those of others -- were aimed at your
> eagerness to get rid of them, and particularly your argument that they are a
> "huge resource sink" for libraries, and are largely unnecessary even now
> because "almost everybody has the Internet."
>
> It doesn't bother me at all if, at some point in the future, academic
> libraries no longer provide the large number of computers we do now.  But I
> just don't see their current use as being a bad thing either.  The fact that
> our labs are packed surely suggests our students don't either.
>
>
> --Dave
>
> ==================
> David Walker

---

From: Weinheimer Jim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:12:27 +0200

Unfortunately, I think I have to agree completely with Peter and that assistant university librarian at the U California/Santa Barbara, who think that if you took the computers out of the library, numbers in the library would be cut by half. Computers are a major draw anywhere on campus. Mobile computing is now the big thing, and especially so here in Italy, where it seems that everybody has at least one cell phone. I remember when a student said she was having trouble finding a book, and asked where it was and she showed me the record in our library catalog on her mobile phone. It looked horrible! I confess that I haven't found the energy to attack this problem and have preferred to ignore it... but when I see predictions such as mobile computing in one year, http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2010/chapters/mobile-computing/ while I don't think it's particularly true, it frightens me.

Every student has a laptop, but they don't want to lug them around. A smaller, lighter device would change everything.

Of course, use of the library space has little relation to use of the "library". People may come to the library to study, or check their email, or just hang out, while you can now use the materials available through the library virtually. Still, places to hang out or study do not have to be in the library.

For these reasons, and the eventual approval of the Google-Publisher agreement, I fear that *physical* libraries are doomed to eventual extinction. The idea of "use of the library" must change in relationship to this. Physical libraries will most probably gradually turn into archives that will be consulted rarely, updated and maintained to ensure against protection against some sort of catastrophe.

I've already written of my own experiences and thoughts concerning ebook readers and what it means for libraries. Does all this mean that librarians also have to disappear as well?

I don't think so, because in my experience, information does not organize itself, although it seems some on this list feel that something magical exists: what I call "the Philosopher's Algorithm." They feel that there is "the Perfect Algorithm" out there somewhere and it only needs to be found. Once they have it, they can run this algorithm against vast unorganized masses of information, and "the Algorithm" will organize it. I see this as similar to the alchemists who promised so much and searched so diligently for the Philosopher's Stone. :-) 

But while we lack such a tool, unless we want to put our faith in the Google-type "black box," it will fall to humans to organize information, additionally I think we must assume that finding information that is both relevant and reliable will never be easy and people will need help. Almost all of these tasks will take place in a virtual environment, and the practice of librarianship has always been a personal, social activity. These are some difficult problems to wrestle with.

James Weinheimer  [email-masked]
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
via Pietro Roselli, 4
00153 Rome, Italy
voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258
fax-011 39 06 58330992

---

From: Julie Hankinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:38:06 -0400

Bernie

I would agree, no question. If the computers were to be removed from my library (which would never, ever happen, but we're talking theoretically), the traffic would drop by more than half. Students are clamoring for those computers--for most of them, it's the only reason why they come to the library.

Julie

-----Original Message-----
From: B.G. Sloan <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Sent: Thu, Apr 29, 2010 5:17 pm
Subject: [NGC4LIB] If Academic Libraries Remove Computers, Will Anyone Come?

rom today's Chronicle "Wired Campus" blog:

ttp://bit.ly/dcnWwW

rticle quotes an assistant university librarian at the University of California 
t Santa Barbara as saying: ""If you take the computers out of the commons, I 
hink you'd see our numbers drop by half." By "numbers", he's talking about 
eople visiting the physical library.

rovocative, but I don't know if I agree...

ernie Sloan

---

From: Julie Hankinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:46:05 -0400

Peter

I work at an academic institution that serves a diverse population. A lot of students can afford their own computers, but most of them can't. So access to the computer in the library, academic support center, etc, is the only access they have. Computers in our library are not a "passing phase" but a necessity.

Julie

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Schlumpf <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Sent: Thu, Apr 29, 2010 5:36 pm
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] If Academic Libraries Remove Computers, Will Anyone Come?

I don't agree.  I think this push to have lots of computers in libraries is
 passing phase.  Sure, if one takes computer out of libraries now, the
umbers will indeed drop by half.  But 5 years from now, I don't see that
appening.  More and more, people have their own computers.  And with wifi
nd other wireless technology becoming ubiquitous and cheap or free, the
ays of rows and rows of public access desktop computers in carrels is
umbered.  The end of that couldn't come soon enough as far as I am
oncerned.  Public access computers are a huge resource sink in money and
taff time to support.
Computers will always have a place in libraries, but in 5 or 10 years they
ade into the woodwork just like any other technology where they are
upposed to be.  And then libraries can focus once again on their core
urpose.
Peter Schlumpf
ww.avantilibrarysystems.com

n 4/29/10, B.G. Sloan <[email-masked]> wrote:

 http://bit.ly/dcnWwW

 Bernie Sloan

---

From: Laval Hunsucker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:47:47 -0700

> And then libraries can focus once again
> on their core purpose.

Which is ??

( And if it's so core, why did libraries deliberately 
transfer their focus to something else ( in this case, 
computers ) ? )

( And if it's so core, why don't the library users 
recognize that fact, and act accordingly ?  Or am 
I missing something ? )

Apologies for all the questions, but at least they're 
not rhetorical.

 - Laval Hunsucker
   Breukelen, Nederland

----- Original Message ----
From: Peter Schlumpf <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Sent: Thu, April 29, 2010 11:36:37 PM
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] If Academic Libraries Remove Computers, Will Anyone Come?

Peter Schlumpf

---

From: Laval Hunsucker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:51:30 -0700

> Librarians need to stop defining themselves
> by computers and the present-day technology
> they see around them.  Look ahead!

By what should they be defining themselves ?
And by what, as they "look ahead" ?

- Laval Hunsucker
   Breukelen, Nederland

---

From: Janet Hill <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:51:00 -0600

Is this some kind of red herring?  Public access computers are merely (in a
way) furniture.  We have them now because they are needed now.  Just as we
had oodles of microfilm readers and reader printers at one point; just as we
had what amounted to copier farms; just as we used to have forests of card
catalog cabinets; just as we once had typewriters by the dozens.  As soon as
the need for them diminished and/or disappeared, we divested ourselves of
them with nary a whimper.  We'll do the same with public access computers
when the time comes. 

Janet Swan Hill, Professor
Associate Director for Technical Services
University of Colorado Libraries, CB184
Boulder, CO 80309
[email-masked]
     *****
Tradition is the handing-on of Fire, and not the worship of Ashes.
- Gustav Mahler

-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Peter Schlumpf
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 11:36 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] If Academic Libraries Remove Computers, Will Anyone
Come?

Peter Schlumpf

---

From: "Lundgren,Jimmie Harrell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:59:21 -0400

So, what will come next? Smartphones? 

In my library system we have begun to provide not only desktop computers but also circulating laptops. Students who check them out have and feel comfortable using laptops, but don't want to drag them around campus all day. They are extremely popular with students now, but it would not surprise me if new multipurpose handheld devices that the students bring around with them displace them in the near future. The circulation staff would certainly appreciate that change, as well as the budget officers :) 

Making an alternate online catalog display that works better with cell-phones was recently identified as a high priority development in our system. A version is now in test thanks to the clever folks at FCLA. As a dinosaur lacking such equipment, I have not been able to check it out yet but I hear good things about it. As I understand some of the other features are compromised to allow for better display on the super-small screens of more essential information. 

Thanks and have a great day,
Jimmie

Jimmie Lundgren 
Associate Chair & Contributed Cataloging Unit Head 
Cataloging & Metadata Dept. 
Smathers Library 
PO Box 117004 
University of Florida 
Gainesville, FL 32611-7004 
352-273-2725 
352-392-7365 (fax) 
[email-masked] 

-----Original Message-----

Peter Schlumpf