Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

October 2006 Volume 4(5)

Branches and Groups: Aiming Higher

Fitter and financially beneficial

Jill Evans considers a thought-provoking CILIPS Branch and Group Day and a report from the Executive on the economic value of Scotland’s colleges.

The Scottish Executive launched a review of Scotland’s colleges this month. Unlocking Opportunity examined ‘The Difference Scotland’s Colleges Make to Learners, the Economy and Wider Society.’ At the launch, the Deputy First Minister, Nicol Stephen, commended the document, and noted that a financial figure had been identified to place an economic value on Scotland’s colleges. The figure is based on increases in qualifications gained by students – for every GBP 1.00 invested in Scotland’s colleges the economy of Scotland benefits by at least GBP 3.20.

Some of the Syndicate Work at the launch event gave us the opportunity to learn first-hand of the difference made to some students. One example of a refugee who studied at Langside College on an English for Speakers of Other Languages course left me completely in awe of the college’s staff who supported, educated, nurtured and returned self-respect to a gentleman – who is now in employment. I am sure such examples are replicated throughout our Scottish colleges. Perhaps we need to place a financial value on each of the other library sectors in Scotland – before the next parliamentary election?

The recent CILIPS Branch and Groups Day event in Dundee brought librarians and information professionals together for an exciting blend of papers on current issues and future scenarios. The buzz of conversation and discussions, amidst a well-organised choice of papers, contributed to a thought-provoking day. Recently I have been working with FE college librarians and HE librarians and they appear to share the same sentiments about Google’s penetration of their users’ psyche – enforced by librarians and ICT staff adding Google to the search tools of intranets and reference resources.

Sheila Cannell of Edinburgh University Library left her audience absolutely silent as we struggled to absorb the implications of her presentation, ‘Adapt or Die: Darwin and librarians’. Sheila suggested that we, as the library profession, could redefine or reposition ourselves and promote our strengths with a unique selling point. We were asked to consider if we thought our users were ahead of us and that we had failed to manage resources on the internet.
The conclusion was that we had to:

>>collaborate with our users and other professionals such as archivists;
>>offer leadership by nurturing and listening to the leaders of tomorrow;
>>rebrand ourselves by emphasising the trusted digital library environment.

The message was clear – our users trust us as librarians, and now the terminology surrounding this has transferred to digital activities, such as the ‘Trusted Digital Repository’.

John MacColl, also of Edinburgh University (Digital Library Division), talked about Google and its profound implications for the library profession. One Google partnership involves six libraries with major collections including the Bodleian in Oxford. Mass digitisation of out-of-copyright books is in progress. In Michigan University, this has meant disposal to a store of some of the bookstock, encouraging users to access the digitised version through Mbooks. Read John MacColl’s article.

If Scotland’s libraries collaborated as a consortium, and embraced Collaborative Collection Management policies, could we as librarians relegate the out-of-copyright material to a USP (Uniquely Scottish Property) and encourage our users to access the books’ content electronically? The legacy of Darwin’s print work is still current with many libraries owning artefacts, drawings, and letters and the knowledge that librarians are preserving, conserving, and making available the original to interested users is surely the reward of our profession?

I issue a challenge! Darwin’s theory of evolution related to the survival of the fittest. Is it possible to ‘hide’ the Google search interface on our desktops for one week and survive using the information packages and electronic resources for which we have financially invested from our library budgets to provide information for our users? We might emerge fitter, more adept at exploring our purchased resources, and yet continue to be perceived as the trusted profession.

Jill Evans is Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL) Service Development Manager.

Information Scotland Vol. 4(5) October 2006

Information Scotland is delivered online by the SAPIENS electronic publishing service based at the Centre for Digital Library Research. SLAINTE (Scottish libraries across the Internet) offers further information about librarianship and information management in Scotland.

Last updated: 08-Dec-2006