Digital Materials and Library Access

Tim Miller

Digital Materials and Library Access

Working in an academic library at a rural two-year college, I am confronted with the question of the accessibility of the emerging technological advances in information- namely, electronic or digital formats. There are various factors involved in trying to answer this question, but I will focus on access available to the patronage and effect of library budget reductions.

Cuts to the library budget have resulted in the purchase of NetLibrary Ebooks in lieu of print materials. Advantages include the low initial cost of obtaining such a large amount of titles, greatly reduced processing and cataloging requirements,no impact on physical storage, and greatly reduced preservation measures to maintain the collection (the storage demands and preservation measures required by electronic books are provided by the vendor). However, the decision to purchase Ebooks when there is no money to increase the print collection means that the most current acquisitions are only available to those patrons who have the skills, equipment, and internet service necessary to access these materials. For patrons with no internet access at home, these books are largely unavailable (the Ebooks cannot be saved, only accessed online). For many students who do not take classes at one of the branches that has a library, this can mean that they have absolutely no access to these resources.Statistically, as the collection grows in size (number of titles), the access to the collection shrinks- 3,000 electronic titles are purchased annually and it is extremely unlikely that a proportional number of patrons gain the necessary skills and equipment each year. This is juxtaposed with the budgetary problem of the increase in costs for periodicals and other tangible materials (Rubin p. 206). With the rising cost of periodical subscriptions, isn’t it more economical to have subscriptions to electronic databases (and formats) that give access to numerous titles, despite the effect it has on some patrons?

The point outlined above exposes the weakness of simply assuming that because the introduction of technologies to enhance the availability of library (and information) materials is advancing, that the materials are becoming more accessible to the population. It is clear that these advances in technology increase the potential for access to information- Google and other commercial search engines that are available for free to the public are an excellent example of this (Tenopir, 2005). The danger is in confusing access and availability. An item can be available (it may be held on a University’s department web page) but can it be found? The internet and world wide web have enabled researchers to post and share information (e.g. refereed journal articles) in unprecedented quantities availability, compared to library print collections (Rubin p. 236).Finding the article in question is another problem, however. As Rubin points out, search engines like Google and Bing only search portions of the web and do not search every document stored within the internet (p. 235). This creates a problem for students who are unaware or otherwise insensitive to this fact, as stated in Katie Hafner’s New York Times article, students are prone to determine that no information is available if it is not found during a search of electronic sources. This fallacy – that the internet makes all information readily available and thus readily found – is well described by DeRosa, Dempsey, and Wilson (2004) the student, “searches alone without expert help and, not knowing what is undiscovered, is satisfied.” This is coupled with what Rutenbeck (2000) defines as superficiality- the great amount of information does not imply that it is “substantive or reliable” and that students need to be aware that they should not, “make judgments quickly, less reflectively, and superficially.” The student who is unaware of these issues is effectively cut off to access for the substantive and scholarly articles because she is wearing blinders.

Another issue at hand is the ability of a student to be able to access a full text copy of the article in question. Google or Bing may reveal that the article exists, offer a citation, or even reveal libraries that hold the publication, but is the student able to access the article for a fee or through obtaining a library card? CR has access to numerous online journals through EBSCO and other vendors, but someone without a CR student ID number cannot get past the log-in page to view the full text article. Many students who have the technological skills to find the article do not understand how to log-in or how to tell the difference between links to abstracts and links to full text articles. The growth of Open Access databases has helped to make scholarly articles available free of cost, but the technological skills and the understanding that registering for an account is free may still be a hurdle for many people inexperienced in this type of research (Rubin, p. 210).

The other main issue affecting the accessibility of electronic formats is the preservation of the information, including what Rutenbeck (2000) referred to as malleability and vulnerability, the evolving formats (Rubin’s CD-ROM example), and simple degradation (i.e. magnetic tape). Malleability and vulnerability are arguably problems that can be improved upon in many cases or at least print or otherwise tangible originals can be archived, but this cannot always be the case. With the short life-spans of web pages, there is a large amount of data that is ever-changing and therefore cannot be given the same credibility as a print source (Botenbal lecture notes). Viruses and other malware can also damage webpages and computer systems, making it at the very least difficult to obtain an accurate copy of an item. CR is another case in point for the evolution of electronic formats affecting access- our collection once included thousands of periodicals on both microfiche and microfilm, but when the readers were damaged and the budget did not allow for repair or replacement, we were left with the only option of withdrawing all of those volumes from our collection (also due to budgetary constraints, we were unable to digitize any of the microphotographic copies). Currently, we are facing a similar crisis with our CD-ROM collection of periodicals. The CD-ROMs create a different problem, because we still have the means to read the discs but with the readily available copies available through subscription databases, students do not choose to use the CD-ROMs, which must be riffled through and are kept in filing cabinets rather than on a virtual catalog in virtual files. Degradation is also a problem for all formats of a document, however it seems that with many electronic formats, the life-span is far less than that of acid-free paper documents and digital copies are also often more fragile- magnetic, heat and solar damage (Rubin, p. 260).

Finally, if database subscriptions are discontinued (again, a real danger with the current vast budget cuts to libraries), the library will lose all of the volumes, whereas a loss of a print subscription would still leave the back issues on a library shelf. Clearly, there are disadvantages to print volumes (damage or loss to one issue requiring replacement to maintain a complete collection) but when a library collection is completely held in a subscription (CR has cut its print periodical and book collection entirely, while maintaining subscriptions to journal databases and Ebooks) the loss of the subscription would entail the loss of the entire collection.

References

DeRosa, C., Dempsey, L.,Wilson, A. 2004. The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition: A Report to the OCLC Membership. Dublin, OH: OCLC.

Hafner, K. (2004, June 21). Old Search Engine, the Library, Tries to Fit Into a Google World. New York Times. p. 1. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Retrieved from

Rubin, R. E. Foundations of Library and Information Science. 3rd ed.New York: Neal-Schuman, 2010.

Rutenbeck, J. (2000). The 5 Great Challenges of the Digital Age. Library Journal, 125(14), 30. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Retrieved from

Tenopir, C. (2005). Google in the Academic Library. Library Journal, 130(2), 32. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.Retrieved from