ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries Septem ber 1 9 9 2 / 5 1 3 With that general framew ork, let’s exam ine a few specific values an d h o w w e might add that value in the m aterials an d services w e p ro ­ vide. My idea h ere is to present a few ideas w ith the intention o f getting you thinking cre­ atively— rem em ber that w hack o n the side o f the head— about adding value: 1) d o rem ote reference for docum ents CDs; 2) chapter/sec- tion analytics; 3) “reference n o te b o o k ” field, for reference staff to ad d notes; 4) local title field, for distinctly local titles; 5) C enter for Re­ search Libraries records; 6) o n lin e journals project; 7) p ointer in UTCAT from journals w e o w n to relevant indexing tools; 8) reader lev­ els: basic, u n d erg rad u ate, advanced, p rofes­ sional; 9) treatm ent codes: popular, scholarly, a p p li e d , th e o r e tic a l, p ic to ria l, la b o r a to r y m anual; 10) better options for downgrading from UTCAT; 11) function to identify new ly acquired materials in UTCAT. T h e se are a few id e a s fo r v a lu e - a d d e d services an d options building o n th e existing infrastructure. As electronic delivery m oves into the reference room , w h eth er slowly o r quickly, directly or indirectly, there will still b e a sig­ n ifican t ro le fo r th e lib rarian . As a service organization our role will evolve farther away from w arehousing to a higher, m ore professional level of adding value to materials and services. Let m e leave you w ith an idea I discovered in a bo o k on telecom m unication systems. While th e phrases runaw ay costs an d cost overm ans are familiar, think about runaw ay benefits or benefit overrruns.3 P erhaps w e can challenge ourselves for the “future o f reference” to p ro ­ d u ce a benefit overrun by value a d d ed to our services an d materials. Notes 1Roger V on O ech, A W hack on the Side o f the Head: H ow to Unlock Your M in d f o r In n o ­ vation (N ew York: W arner Books, 1983). 2R obert S. Taylor, V alue-A dded Processes in Infortnation Systems (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Pub­ lishing Corp., 1986), p. 203. 3J. L. King, J. L. and K. L. Kraemer, “Cost As a Social Im pact of Information Technology” in N. L. Moss ed., Telecom m unications a n d Pro­ d u c tiv ity (R eading, Mass.: A ddison-W esley, 1978), p. 112. The future of reference IV: A response b y D e n n is D illo n N ancy E aton has given u s o n e version o f the future. H ere is another. In 1998, resp o n d in g to pressure from librar­ ians, academ ics, publishers, an d th e general public, Congress approves a one-line change to the tax code. Publishers will n o w be able to take substantial write-offs for every subscrip­ tion and b o o k sold to libraries. A $1,000 jour­ nal n o w costs libraries $29-95. Publishers hail the m ove as revitalizing th e industry, universi­ ties praise it as saving scholarly com m unica­ tion, librarians rejoice because it m eans con­ tinued free access to information. W hy did this happen? Because libraries, like schools, hospitals, an d roads are w h at e co n o ­ mists refer to as social capital. T hey are all es­ sential to th e functioning o f a m o d e m dem oc­ racy. If citizens w an t their schools, libraries, an d roads im proved, politicians will find the m oney o r they w o n ’t get reelected. If there are b etter w ays to get inform ation th an from li­ braries, th en libraries will get their budgets cut. If publishers, academ ics, and librarians truly b e ­ lieve that th e scholarly com m unication process is breaking d o w n th en this is a societal p ro b ­ lem requiring political attention. Will eco n o m ­ ics b e the m ajor determ in ate o f th e future li­ brary? O f course. W h en have th ey not? B ut it is librarians w h o will determ in e w h at th e fu ­ tu re library is like. Ju st as w e have in the past, w e will m ake th e d ecisio n o n th e inform ation mix an d th e inform ation services th at w e will offer. Will electronic publishing help us p u t the u ser an d inform ation together? Som eday yes. Right n o w there are a few obstacles, b u t as R obert W eber has noted, “ the chief problem s are n o t technical but political. W hat is lacking at th e m om ent is a bro ad consensus that this is the kind of technology infrastructure that w ould D e n n is D illon is assistant f o r reference services operations, the University o f Texas a t A u stin 5 1 4 / C&RL N e w s substantially enhance education, research, and America’s position in the global econom y.”1 But, what if w e spend the necessary several billion dollars to rewire the country with optical cable, what if appropriate full-text handling tech­ nology is invented, what if human nature suddenly does an about-face on the copyright and royalty problems, and what if all the companies and insti­ tutions of the world suddenly decide to cooperate on standards? Where are w e then? T hen w e are in a w orld w here IBM and AT&T will have four-color glossy ads in every m agazine prom ising to p u t the inform ation w orld at your fingertips. Endearing 30-second ads o n television will show little Johnny strug­ gling to get information from the local library w here librarians w ith their hair in buns will give him nothing but excuses and hassles. Ev­ ery boo k he needs will be off the shelf. In des­ peration Johnny will run hom e in the rain, go to his com puter, dial up IBM, and helpful con­ sultants will give him everything he wants in­ stantly. Half an hour later Johnny will be out­ side p lay in g b all in th e su n s h in e an d his unenlightened friend Rodney will still be at the library struggling w ith the catalog an d the CD- ROMs, and trying to find a copier that works. If electronic publishing truly comes o f age, li­ braries are going to find them selves in direct com petition w ith billion-dollar multinational corporations intent on wringing every possible dim e from every conceivable segm ent of the information market. This isn’t the first time hum an beings have dealt w ith many of these sam e issues and pro b ­ lems. In 1852 the sevèn major New York new s­ papers paid over $9,000 each for full-text elec­ tronic information services. Bankers and brokers along Wall Street w ere paying betw een $500 and $1,000 a year for the delivery o f ele ctronic information.2 Within 15 years there w as a hand­ ful of electronic inform ation vendors. There w ere the usual problem s w ith differing stan­ dards, protocols, and terminals, but these w ere eventually resolved. The only thing holding back information nirvana w as the design o f a user-friendly telegraph terminal and the p ro b ­ lem o f getting a machine into every household. This dream , how ever, w as interrupted by a more user-friendly technology, the telephone. A m ericans have alw ays b eliev ed in th e sm ooth an d steady m arch o f technological progress. However, the history o f technology tells us it isn’t always so. Technology progresses in much the sam e way that a w ounded, con­ fused, an d o n e-leg g ed chicken crosses the road—in fits a nd starts with lots o f w rong turns, m eanderings, and flying feathers. In the long view, yes there is progress, but the short view is dom inated by confusion, disorganization, and false starts. That is w here the library w orld is now in regard to coping w ith online informa­ tion systems—preparing in confusion to make som e false starts and w rong turns. But just because a technology exists and sounds like a good idea is no guarantee that anyone is going to use it. In 1947 RCA was m arketing a fax machine called the Ultrafax that could fax an entire boo k across country in less than a m inute.3 However, they soon dis­ covered that no one w anted to send books across country in less than a minute, and the Ultrafax died a quick and unm ourned death. 1947 was also the year the FCC had to choose w hether the country w ould have a black-and- white or a color television system. Both sys­ tems had b een around for years. The FCC chose RCA’s black-and-white system, and a couple of m onths later the chairman o f the FCC left to take a lucrative job w ith RCA. This is how tech­ nology progresses, through political and social filters, and that is w hy w e still have slow fax machines and w hy it took 20 years for color TV to claw its w ay back into American living rooms. Eric Sevareid put this all in a nutshell w hen he said, “Devices change w ith the times, politics changes with devices; men do n ’t change m uch w ith either, b u t they g et tem porarily w arped out of shape by bo th .”4 Libraries could easily be the centerpiece of a future information society, but only if w e have the courage to listen to our users and act upon their advice, only if w e are willing to lead rather than take the easy w ay out, only if w e experi­ m ent and approach every problem with an open mind, and only if w e take risks and aren’t afraid o f making an occasional mistake. Notes 1Robert Weber, “The Clouded Future o f Elec­ tronic Publishing,"Publishers Weekly (June 29, 1990), p. 80. 2Robert Luther Thom pson, Wiring a Conti­ nent: The History o f the Telegraph Industry in the United States, 1 8 3 2 -1 8 6 6 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1947), pp. 217-42. 3Maurice Fabre, The History o f C om m unica­ tions (New York: Hawthorne Books, 1963), p. 97. 4Eric Sevareid, This Is Eric Sevareid (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), p. 100. ■ We’ll give you a spectacular view o f the science world. NEW IN 1992: Science Citation Index® Compact Disc Edition with ABSTRACTS The best thing is, you need go no farther than your computer terminal — where you’ll see it all in the Science Citation Index® Compact Disc Edition. W ith simple keystrokes, you’re viewing the bibliographic records o f 3,100 leading science jour­ nals...and running lightning-fast searches to retrieve data on thousands o f research topics. 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