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I have spent a lot of time in university libraries and the disinvestment is often difficult to see unless you are doing deep research or in the weeds. I should
by atrettel 3y ago
I have spent a lot of time in university libraries and the disinvestment is often difficult to see unless you are doing deep research or in the weeds.
I should note that I am writing this response as somebody who is a professional researcher and scientist, not as an undergraduate student who needs to find a few references for a term paper. My needs are quite different than others and the library needs to cater to a wide range of people at all levels of research.
Many universities are in fact repurposing libraries as "study spaces" or as "learning centers". This often means dedicating more space to meeting rooms and desks, etc. To get that space, libraries either put the books in storage or quite frankly sell the books, especially books that are not checked out that often. Many of the technical books that I own are former library books. Moreover, even well-resourced government labs (like DOE national laboratories) are selling their books. I know because I have bought some (albeit through a third party). Putting books in storage is the better option, because at least the books are available, but it removes the ability to browse the shelf for adjacent books (a highly underrated research method) and often requires preparation to request books and then wait for them to arrive in a reading room. That said, it is far better to put the books in storage.
The availability of reference librarians is often greatly overstated. A library like the Library of Congress still has excellent reference librarians who often can perform apparent miracles to find difficult to locate information, but at university libraries, if I ask for a reference librarian, I often end up with an undergraduate assistant who does not really know much and cannot help you if you have a specific question to ask about locating something in a particular collection or how to use certain equipment like microfilm readers. Perhaps the undergrad can help other undergrads out, but when I was in grad school I never found this practice helpful when I needed specific information that I was already having difficulty finding.
To summarize, this trend may benefit some people, but it comes at the expense of in-depth researchers and their needs.
I will end by quibbling with that notion that "most of the information is digitized". The problem is that the Internet is so large that you can easily spend your whole life without ever realizing how shallow it really is in a single subject. Only once you go deep in that subject do you realize how much is not yet digitized in the first place. Yes, much information is digitized, but based on my experience, it is not "most". Some day that may change, but for the time being, physical libraries still play an important role here.
- sheepshear 3y agoWith respect, I think I already addressed your quibble. I acknowledged the backlog of materials yet to be digitized and explained how to expedite it on an as-needed basis. It's no more burdensome than it would be with more library funding. Storage is always necessary because big universities own several times more books than they could ever hope to shelve in their increasingly crowded campuses. Digging deep into a subject's history can require materials that don't exist in sufficient quantities for every interested library to have one, necessitating inter-library loans at a minimum. FYI Every online library catalog I've seen has a "browse shelf" feature. And how many times do you need to be shown how to use the microfilm machine?
- atrettel 3y agoFair points, I was just trying to give an alternative perspective, especially since my needs are likely different than others on here. I appreciate the feedback. I tend to agree that storage is not a bad option, but so many libraries just cannot be bothered and would rather discard or sell materials. Fair point about the "browse shelf" feature of online catalogs, but I was talking about the ability to just open an adjacent book and just browse through the book itself. Instant access in other words. This is much more difficult if requesting things from storage, though the trick is to request several dozen books at once from storage. That is reasonable at some libraries but others will be greatly annoyed if you do that, due to limited shelf space for holds/requests. You are right that I do not need to be shown how to use a microfilm machine, but often different libraries or archives have different practices and conventions about how to use their machines, especially for the purpose of preserving the microfilm. Being shown how to use it is more about learning their conventions and practices so that you can continue to have access to their collections later, and also to learn any issues with the machines themselves. For example, some institutions like the Smithsonian require you to wear special gloves when handling microfilm and limits where you can save any scans. Other places are completely free-form, but different machines have different quirks or could be down at the moment. Quirks include blurry images, need to wind the reels in a certain way, slow fast-forward (problem for longer reels), missing parts, susceptibility to nearby vibration, etc. If the undergrad helping you doesn't even know what a microfilm machine is, I doubt they can truly help you figure out how to get this particular machine working right. I ended up figuring this stuff out myself, but I would have preferred some assistance from a professional to be honest.