ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries Septem ber 1989 / 713 T he environmental scan By Ann E. Prentice Associate Vice-President f o r Library and Inform ation Resources University o f South Florida Reality testing f o r the A C R L strategic plan. S trategic planning has becom e the hallmark of the aggressive, future-oriented organiza­ tion, be it an association, a business, or a not-for- profit organization such as the university or the library. The internal aspects of strategic planning from identifying mission to determ in in g goals, objectives, and tim elines receive considerable at­ tention. W orkshops are designed to acquaint plan­ ners and staff with the nuts and bolts of the process. Articles are w ritten outlining th e process. Case studies are available to lead us step by step from initiation of th e process to success. All of these internal steps are based on th e prem ise th a t the organization and its planning process are designed to position th e organization within the larger soci­ ety. Less attention has been paid to th e process of identifying trends in society that affect the position­ ing of th e organization. The environm ental scan, a product of the collection of relevant data on social, economic, technological, and oth er developm ents over an extended p eriod of tim e, connects the organization with th e larger w orld and is used to identify tren d s and forecast th e ir possible im pact on the organization. Inform ation is obtained from general sources such as new spapers and weekly news magazines, specialized publications relevant to the organization conductingthe scan, reviews of research proposals, recently funded research, and publications of futures organizations. A m ethodol­ ogy for identifying sources, analyzing th e ir con­ tents, and prep arin g reports has been developed but has only occasionally been used by those focus­ ing on internal strategic plans. Many organizations bring to g eth e r a group of individuals who are re ­ sp ected in th e ir field who, through th e D elphi technique, identify those elem ents in th e larger society th a t they expect will im pact on th e organi­ zation. Although this activity may be helpful in identifying trends, it is lim ited by th e expertise of those present and can be m ore easily skewed than can a b ro ad e r study of dem ographics, a carefully d e te rm in e d representative sample of th e media, and o th er sources of inform ation th at can be used to determ ine trends and identify im portant innova­ tions. The following statem ents rep re sen t an analysis and summary of environmental scans conducted by o th e r organizations, think papers pro d u ced by groups recognized by th e ir peers as leaders in the inform ation world, and a variety o f o th er sources (Appendix). Economics • a relatively stable dollar in th e international market; • increasing cost of information resources above th e low -to-m oderate rate of inflation; • cost of telecommunications will increase and th en decrease gradually; • an increasing percentage of budgets will be spent on com puting power; • inform ation resources will be taxed in nu- 714 / C&R L News merous ways and at all levels, e.g., Supreme Court ruling that information resources delivered by phone lines m aybe subject to state taxes; • efforts by government to tax not-for-profit associations; • there will be a change in percentages of the components of funding for information resources. Publicly funded organizations will have to obtain a greater share of their budget from the private sector (donations, fees for services, etc.) or from contracts with otherpublic organizations. Privately funded organizations, similarly, will broaden the range of their sources of revenue. • limited resources will continue to ham per growth; • leveling off in num ber of educational institu­ tions and amount o f government support. Politics • continued pressure to regulate access to in­ formation and debate over public access to infor­ mation; • more special-interest lobbies; special groups such as business interests will demand specialized services and will lobby in support of their specific interests; • questions of ownership of information will increase; • increase in management of information sys­ tems on a national and international level; • more transborder data regulation; informa­ tion continues to be seen as power and its ow ner­ ship as an economic good; • increased government demand for research that results in information with commercial and military applications. Society and people • increase in international research coopera­ tion; • increase in interdisciplinary research; • increase in large research projects involving several universities; • more scholarly work will be reported; • curriculum reform will continue to be a pri­ ority; • more emphasis on information services; • increased birthrate; • continuing growth in percentage of total birth­ rate of minorities and students (by 2000, one-third of our nation will be non-white); • impact of minority populations will vary de­ pending on state and region; • slightly increased graduate and undergradu­ ate enrollment; • half of the current faculty in higher education will retire betw een 1988 and 1992; • new faculty will be more demanding in tech­ nological expectations for teaching and research; • continuing moderate interest in literacy with an emphasis on new technological tools; • libraries will continue to provide social space for inquiry and analysis; • aging population with greater demands to m eet opportunities of increased leisure; • influx of new immigrants in the workforce; • continuing increase of women in the workforce; • reshaping of the workforce as a result oftech- nology; • elimination of many middle m anagement and clerical jobs; • greater reliance on part-time and temporary jobs; • greater flexibility in work assignments and work hours; • redefining of who we are as information pro­ fessionals in our individual work roles, our profes­ sional affiliation and our public posture. Technology • publishing will continue to becom e more high tech; • intellectual property rights will become in­ creasingly confused by opportunities afforded by computing and telecommunications technology; • computing will become increasingly diversi­ fied and no longer as dependent on the mainframe, which will become but one of several levels of computing access and use; • more availability and flexibility of com put­ ing; • more software with more user friendly access features; • greater emphasis on graphics software and on electronic storage and access of graphic re p re­ sentations; • local area networks will grow and serve as one end of a network hierarchy with the other end being international networks; • increased use of online communication by and with faculty, students, and information special­ ists; • growth of expert systems for access to infor­ mation resources; • technology will continue to drive change and to advance faster than human patterns of informa­ tion exchange can accommodate; • rising expectations by researchers of the ca­ pabilities of computing; • demand for more access to more information faster; • technology will result in more efficient man­ agement of organizations and resources; • research on how to build the usable and S e p te m b e r 1 9 8 9 / 715 useful electronic library will accelerate; • research will focus on how individuals use information and how this is related to technological opportunities for inform ation storage, retrieval, andtransmission. Education for the information professions • dram atic changes in education for th e infor­ mation professions will continue; will include greater emphasis on interdisciplinarity; • reductions in traditional program s will con­ tinue while at th e same tim e program s that prepare inform ation professionals m ore broadly defined will grow; • business and industiy, com puting, libraries, etc. will h ire from th e sam e pool o f inform ation professionals. Libraries • increased em phasis on collection analysis; • cooperative collection developm ent will ac­ celerate; • refin em en t of databases for easier access; • faculty dem and for ow nership in conflict with library move to access; • research on output m easures and qualitative measures of th e value of inform ation; • emphasis on research and im plem entation of findings to preservation of m aterials; • developm ent o f useful and usable m anage­ ment inform ation criteria; • space will becom e a critical issue and will lead to various m eans o f storing m aterials in a lte r­ native form ats and at alternative sites; • in creased co m petition for resources within the institution. Environm ental scanning is a continuous process that requires regular review and updating. Some of the elem ents id en tified are o f sh o rt-term signifi­ cance and may drop from th e list w hile oth ers are long-term concerns th at require m onitoring. G en­ eral scans n e e d to be tailored to fit the niche which University library issues “Serving Secondary Clientele: Beyond the Ivory Tow er” was th e th e m e of a sp irited discussion sponsored by th e U niversity L ibraiy Section C u r­ rent Topics D iscussion G roup at ALA Annual C onference in Dallas .F o r m any university librar­ ies, th e d em an d for refe re n c e , circulation, and other services from non-cam pus-affiliated users cannot be satisfied without shortchanging the needs an organization has identified in its strategic plan as its own. T h e viability o f th e strategic plan and th e re fo re of th e organization is directly rela te d to th e care w ith which th e environm ental scanning process is kept c u rr e n t. Appendix M ajor sources o f inform ation consulted: R esponses to lette rs sent to 27 universities r e ­ p o rte d to be involved in strategic planning. M ajor docum ents consulted: 1. A m erican Society for Inform ation Science. “ASIS 2000 T hink G roup P a p e rs.” U npublished, 1989. 2. A ngiletta, A nthony M. Access Survey o f L i­ braries and Com puters at Stanford: Questionnaire Phase Results. Stanford, Calif.: T h e University, 1987.26p. 3. B ureau of E conom ic and Business Research, College of Business A dm inistration, University of F lo rid a . Florida E stim a te s o f P opulation. Gainesville, Fla.: The University, 1989. 4. C ondren, Cline P. P rep a rin g fo rth e Tw enty- First C entury: A R eport on H igher E ducation in C a lifo rn ia . S a c ra m e n to , C alif.: C a lifo rn ia Postsecondary E ducation Commission, 1988. 5. Jacob, M. E. L., ed. Planning in OCLC Member Libraries. D ublin, Ohio: O C LC O nline C om puter Library C enter, 1988. 6. M edical L ibrary Association. “Shaping th e F u tu re: T he Strategic Plan of th e M edical Library Association, 1989 Revision,” M L A N ew s, April, 1987. Insert. 7. Senior Fellows. O ptionsforthe Future: Senior Fellows Conference, UCLA, A u g u st 20-23,1988. Los Angeles, Calif.: UCLA G rad u ate School of Library and Inform ation Science, 1988. 8. United States D epartm ent of Education, Office o f Library Programs. R ethinkingthe Library in the In form ation Age. Vol. II. W ashington, D .C.: U.S. Govt. P rinting Office. 1987. 9. U niversity o f C alifornia, Berkeley, Library. L ibrary Services in a Changing C am pus E nviro n ­ m ent. Berkeley, Calif.: T he Library, 1988. ■ ■ of th e university’s faculty, students, and staff, i.e., the prim aiy clientele. But most libraries, especially those at publicly su p p o rte d institutions, w ant to maintain some restricted com m unity access for the public relations. In opening th e discussion, Jay Poole, assistant university librarian for public services at th e U ni­ versity of California, Irvine, ad d ressed this very 716 / C&R L News problem . At Irvine, 50% of the clientele represent off-campus users— elementary and secondary stu­ dents, a wide range o f professionals from the community, students from other colleges, etc. He proposed a variety of ways to deal with this dilemma including the possibility o f providing a special ref­ erence desk within the university library, staffed by librarians from the local public library, to provide service to the secondary clientele. Helen Josephine, information manager of FIRST, a fee-based information service at Arizona State University, described how th e needs of the busi­ ness community can be effectively served on a cost recovery basis. Among the services provided by FIRST are online searching, data analysis, transla­ tions, and docum ent delivery. In addition to the increased revenue, the benefits for a university library of such a service are an increased corporate donor program resulting from greater community awareness of library services and resources. John Abbott, head of the N atural Resources Library at North Carolina State University, spoke on rem ote access to online catalogs and databases by secondary clientele. As th e author of th e ARL SPEC kit on this topic, Abbott shared some o f the experiences with this ever-growing service that he discovered in the process of preparing the kit. Most libraries he surveyed felt it was too early to know the exact im pact on collections and services that will result from th e ability to consult these online cata­ logs from a distance. The needs o f these “invisible” users can be difficult to assess. He advocated a close partnership between the campus com puter center and the library in servicing these users since the various configurations o f hardw are and software one can use to tap into these databases can create a trem endous num ber o f technical unpredictabili­ ties simply in the logging-on process. The ideas posed by the th ree speakers resulted in a lively exchange on the philosophies, attitudes, policies and practices toward serving secondary clientele in the university libraries of those attend­ ing the discussion. The University Library Section C urrent Topics Discussion G roup was form ed in 1986 to respond to the n eed for a small group environm ent w here university librarians can discuss “hot topics” of cu rren t concern. The them e o f th e m idw inter meeting, tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Janu­ ary 6, is “Walking on Thin Ice: University Libraries and the Politics of C urricular Review.” More d e ­ tails will be available in the D ecem ber issue of C&RL News.— Nancy L. Baker, Associate Director o f Libraries, University o f Washington. ■ ■ RLG completes first phase of Chinese rare book project The Research Libraries Group, Inc. (RLG) has successfully com pleted the first phase o f a project to create an International Union Catalog of C hi­ nese Rare Books in RLIN (the Research Libraries Inform ation Network), thanks to a grant from the National E ndow m ent for the H um anities. W hen completed, the project will provide an impressive new resource for East Asian scholars by offering online accessibility to Chinese rare book inform a­ tion all over the world. In the first step, com pleted in April, RLG successfully converted and loaded into the RLIN database records from the National C entral Library in Taiwan o f rare books in the Chinese classics division of the traditional S SU K’U Chinese subject classification. The conversion of the records—which contain Chinese characters as well as rom anizations— marks the first tim e that non-Roman MARC (machine-readable cataloging) records produced overseas have been made avail­ able on a national bibliographic netw ork such as RLIN. In the project’s second phase, five librarians from Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences are assisting Princeton’s Gest Oriental Library and Columbia University’s C .V. Starr East Asian Library to e n te r RLIN records for their Chinese rare book holdings. During this pilot phase, librarians at both RLG collections will be testing the draft cataloging guidelines established by the international advisory committee. ■ ■ Orientation materials The ACRLTask Force on Faculty Advisory Com mittee Orientation Materials is seeking in­ formation and ideas from ACRL members about the use o f orientation materials for faculty serv­ ing on library advisory com m ittees. The Task Force has been charged with developing ge­ neric materials that can be used to orient faculty m em bers to th e roles and responsibilities of library faculty advisory com m ittees. If you or your library has experience with th e develop­ m ent or use o f such materials, contact before D ecem ber 1,1989: T ask F orce Chair, Florence K. Doksansky, AUL for Public Services and Collection Development, Brown University, Box I, Providence, R I 09212; (401) 863-4205.