Career Librarian.com

Tips and Advice on Becoming a Librarian Today

Andrew

Media Consolidation and Conglomeration: The LIS Consequences

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Over recent decades, consolidation has been a consistent theme in mass media and other types of information providers, with the emergence of large information empires which continuously acquire new subsidiaries. This conglomeration is a challenge to LIS because the values of these companies are directly contrary to many of the core values of librarianship. First, Nichols and McChesney recount that when media companies stepped up their consolidation back in the 1970s, they began to behave no differently than any other corporation, focusing on investors and profit margins instead of balanced, quality reporting. Alternative and minority viewpoints as well as international coverage were soon considered too expensive to produce, and newspapers and broadcasts watered down their coverage.

Consolidated media companies also strove to be the first to break a sensational headline at the expense of journalistic principles, and consequently “blew the coverage of the Iraq invasion, spoon-feeding us lies masquerading as fact-checked verities” (Nichols and McChesney). Also, their corporate ownership lead the mass media to ignore major scandals and misrepresent important economic and financial issues. Schiller adds to this by placing these trends into a broader framework, one in which the entire domains of communication and information have come to be dominated by corporations; an overall “shift from state to private power,” which has potent consequences. Of particular interest to the LIS field is his point that information “that had been in large measure a social good has been transformed into a commodity for sale,” (46) a point which is exemplified by the profit-driven priorities of the mass media and the subsequent declining quality of journalism.

These trends along with the shifting priorities of conglomerated media is a stark contrast to the core values governing libraries, which are key in a democratic information society by providing the public with “all points of view on current and historical issues” for the “interest, information, and enlightenment” of the citizenry, as outlined in the Library Bill of Rights. Librarians go to great lengths to protect intellectual freedom and provide free and equal access to ideas across the political and social spectrum, and they actively assist patrons in the use of those resources so that they can make informed decisions.

When the media of a society share some of these ideals and provide objective coverage and a multiplicity of viewpoints, the public benefits and can form well-informed opinions much easier on their own. As we have seen, however, the current state of mega conglomeration in the United States is quite the opposite. Thus, libraries must take on a much larger information literacy role to combat these strong forces.

Libraries provide access to news in both print and online formats, but they must strive to be an active educator in lieu of a passive provider to ensure that their democratic mission is served in today’s environment. For examples, libraries can highlight alternative media such as independent news organizations, local broadcasting networks and international sources available online that will expose patrons to novel ideas and diverse viewpoints. This can be done in person directly with patrons, but to have a broader effect, libraries can create and market web-based and print handouts to serve as a guide to navigating the media landscape. As a point of comparison, academic libraries invest a lot of resources in educating students how to identify an online source as scholarly by investigating the author’s affiliation and potential biases. This model needs to be adopted by public libraries to ensure that the public is able to make the same types of judgments of corporate-backed news which comes at them on a daily basis, often masquerading as objective reporting.

Despite these possibilities, the battle is becoming increasingly difficult for libraries as the media conglomerates continue to grow in power. The Nation’s telling infographic demonstrates how six giant corporations own a staggering share of news media, ranging from TV shows to radio stations and even niche websites. Many of these subsidiaries would not instinctively seem to be part of a larger entity, and this invisibility of the conglomerates in these situations makes the public less likely to be able to identify their biases; therefore, libraries must protect their values by educating the public in the use of media in all domains.

It is also important to point out that conglomeration of media is not the only type with potent consequences to the field of LIS. In addition, private corporations such as EBSCO, ProQuest and Gale are consolidating and steadily acquiring smaller databases and other information collections. Whereas libraries used to have the power to hand select every resource in their collections, today they are increasingly relying on these third-party vendors to provide them with access to journal articles and ebooks. Similar to the case of media conglomeration, these vendors have the same profit-driven mindset, which causes them to only include resources thought to have the broadest possible appeal in their database packages (Dilevko 698-99). Naturally, these resources are the non-controversial ones and as a result, important alternative and minority points of view are often left out. And like the situation of the media corporations, these information vendor conglomerates do not hold themselves to any code of ethics or share the ALA’s commitment to represent all opinions. In some aspects, this is an even more threatening type of conglomeration for libraries, as it has a larger and more noticeable effect on the collections of resources that are made available to patrons. Abbott said of online article databases that “whoever controls them will control much about the structure of knowledge,” (436) and as libraries continue to rely on vendors more and more to provide them with serials and monographs, they are at the mercy of those companies’ priorities. The business model of a major database conglomerate will simply not have room to include a balance of viewpoints, because those uncommon opinions are not cost-efficient on a mass scale. Libraries need to work to balance out these forces by exerting their power of expert selection and principles of intellectual freedom.  They need to make it a priority to add alternative media to their collections whenever possible, for example by subscribing to databases such as the Alternative Press Index, and need to continue to find the most effective ways to educate their communities about the effects that major information conglomerates have on information.

References:

Dilevko, Juris. “An Alternative Vision of Librarianship: James Danky and the Socio-cultural Politics of Collection Development.” Library Trends, 56 (2008): 678-704.

Library Bill of Rights. American Library Association. Web. 11 May 2011. http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/index.cfm

Nichols, John, and Robert W. McChesney. “The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers.” The Nation. 6 April 2009. 12 May 2011. http://www.thenation.com/article/death-and-life-great-american-newspapers.

John Stuart Mill on Intellectual Freedom: His Thoughts Applied to Today’s Information Landscape

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In his essay On Liberty, published in 1859, philosopher John Stuart Mill makes a strong case for the necessity of intellectual freedom in society, outlining four points that would have a profound effect on librarianship. He argued that any and all opinions that are not heard may in fact contain truth; that the “collision of adverse opinions” is necessary in order to clarify truth; and that truth must be contested in order to be accepted.

Mill’s points are seen as a direct influence on the Bill of Rights of the American Library Association, which charges libraries to provide materials representing all opinions and points of view, so that people are free to compare and contrast them in order to find truth. Although these undoubtedly remain the guiding principles of librarianship, a number of factors bring significant challenges in a contemporary context.

First, in today’s information landscape, several types of censorship threaten Mill’s vision. Libraries and their communities often object to and ban particular titles based on perceived “inappropriate” subject matter (Asheim, West Bend). More importantly, however, librarians themselves often find it difficult to hold true to their values of intellectual freedom when faced with extreme situations, such as holocaust denial literature (Wolkoff). It is a temptation to censor opinions which represent blatantly hurtful and harmful ideas, but Mill preaches that these obscure ideas must be heard, and even that they help readers find and clarify truth, a point strongly supported by the Library Bill of Rights.

In addition, there is a less overt form of censorship that results from the commodification of information and the increasing reliance of libraries on third-party information vendors to provide them with article databases and ebook packages. Dilevko explains how these companies operate on a profit-motive, and since the most broadly profitable opinions are common ones, they frequently exclude alternative viewpoints (698). When libraries do not have the final word on all of the individual resource in their collections, it becomes more difficult to ensure that the communities they serve have access to the wide-range of divergent opinions advocated by Mill.

Finally, Mill never could have envisioned the vast platform of the World Wide Web which today connects our global society. His points about the necessity of considering all opinions and juxtaposing them before making conclusions are based on a much smaller-scale model of the print book trade and personal debates that was all that was possible at the time. For a key political or social issue, for example, only a select group of upper-class individuals were able to publish their opinions and any debates would be limited to individuals in close geographical proximity. Today, however, any individual can publish their opinions at the push of a button using blogs and other social networking platforms, and can immediately reach a worldwide audience. Today there are over 156 million blogs in existence (Nielsen), so for an important issue with national or global importance, the sheer enormity of opinions makes it impossible to consider all of them before making conclusions. Thus, the issue instead becomes how to effectively synthesize and gauge consensus among the public.

References:

Asheim, Lester. “Selection and Censorship: A Reappraisal” Wilson Library Bulletin 58.3 (1983): 180-84.

Banned in West Bend. Web. 12 May 2011. http://www.bannedinwestbend.info/west-bend-wi

“BlogPulse”. The Nielsen Company. 16 February, 2011.

Dilevko, Juris. “An Alternative Vision of Librarianship: James Danky and the Socio-cultural Politics of Collection Development.” Library Trends, 56 (2008): 678-704.

Mill, John Stuart. ” On the Liberty of Thought and Discussion .” On Liberty. Chapter 2. Web. 11 May 2011. http://www.bartleby.com/130/2.html

Wolkoff, Kathleen N. “The problem of holocaust denial literature in libraries.” Library Trends 45.1 (1996): 87-96.

Future of Reference in Special Libraries

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In an article about the future of reference in special libraries, Stephen Abrams posits a variety of scenarios for reference service, the most pessimistic being that special librarians will be left behind due to advances in technology. His main objective, however, is to highlight key ways special librarians can adapt to the new Web 2.0 landscape and stay relevant. Abrams stresses that those who are open to adaptation will be key in the redefinition of the profession, even going so far as to call it a “new renaissance” in libraries.

First, Abrams makes an important distinction between general reference queries and the “deeper research support that is our stock in trade,” which is becoming increasingly problematic in the age of Google. He says that search engines do a decent job for simple reference queries but librarians are needed when research questions get deeper. The problem lies in the fact that “core users don’t always know when their question is simple or more complicated,” and since more basic reference is now conducted almost exclusively on the web, they will never find out that their question is in fact more complicated.

As a result, they will end up settling for halfway decent answers to their questions, instead of the vastly superior resources they would have discovered with the aid of a librarian. This is a big issue, and it goes even deeper than Abrams suggests. Cassel and Hiremath (2009) define “ready” reference as a briefer query for factual information in which there is usually one answer, but that it is not “simple” reference as the public typically believes. They even list “the data found in a random Internet search are of dubious accuracy” as a characteristic of ready reference. Those users who conduct this type of reference online are likely coming across inaccurate information all of the time without knowing it.

Abrams also echoes the popular call to “go where the users are,” as he explains that special librarians also need to adapt to the latest in Web 2.0 technologies in order to serve their user base most effectively. He uses the example of the OPAC as a tool that was designed primarily for librarians’ needs, and while it is helpful to the general public, it does not always correspond well to the information seeking behavior of today’s Amazon.com generation.

Adams challenges librarians of all types not to radically change their core service model, but rather to continue to find ways to put their reference services into these new spaces that are popular among users. He explicitly mentions mobile devices, instant messaging and social networks as particularly important spaces.

I agree that this is crucial: while we’re not going to be able to abandon the OPAC in favor of some sort of sleek, search-engine-like interface any time soon, we are certainly able to provide multiple entry points into our content, whether it be by creating of web-based research guides or answering research questions via email and chat. At the end of his article, Abrams organizes his ideas into 8 possible scenarios for the future of the special reference librarian, ranging from “fossilization” to “embedded” and “remote” librarians. There are plenty of interesting ideas in these scenarios.

For one, Abrams argues that e-learning is becoming increasingly popular in corporate spaces, but the library is organized on the enterprise level instead of the lesson level. In order to bridge this gap, relationships must be strengthened between libraries and e-learning providers so that reference services can be better integrated into Blackboard and other intranets. This would lead to more effective learning and also higher visibility of library reference services.

Next, his idea of the “embedded” librarian is an interesting one, suggesting that librarians could become more valuable member of the team by physically (and virtually) attending important meetings and finding themselves “at the table” in more situations. Such librarians would then “not only design intranets that mirror each team’s needs but offer personalized service customized to each team member.” I am not very familiar with how prominent of a role special librarians typically have, but I agree that becoming more “embedded” would make their work much more effective and targeted to the actual user needs.

All in all, the article was very informative and written in a clear style. Adams, however, barely addressed the differences between special libraries and the more familiar public and academic venues, which was slightly confusing. I found that many points seemed to be more directed towards academic librarians, but he didn’t make this clear. Both public and academic libraries have advantages in that they can serve a role as a community resource capable of holding events, and I would be interested to hear more about the unique situation of special libraries.

The Information-Seeking Behavior of Today’s Latin American Researchers

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The article “Researching Latin America: A Survey of How the Next Generation Is Doing Its Research” by Potts and Mazurkiewicz in Latin American Research Review investigates the information-seeking behavior of a very specific population: advanced-level university students belonging to the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).

In particular, the article examines how these students conducted their research, what particular tools they used in the discipline of Latin American studies and what level of bibliographic instruction they had previously received. The participants in the study were geographically dispersed across the United States and Puerto Rico and the vast majority was of Latino descent.

This user group is significant for several reasons. First, Latinos in the United States have had documented problems with using academic library resources (Haras et al. 2010, Solis and Dabbour 2010). In addition, this study’s specific population of doctoral and graduate students represents the next generation of teachers of Latin American studies. The manner in which this group conducts its research has implications for future generations of students as well.

While these advanced, graduate-level students have plenty of familiarity with using electronic resources for research, questions remain about whether they have an appropriate level of knowledge of discipline-specific databases that lead to higher quality information resources relevant to their investigations.

Potts and Mazurkiewicz’s methodology was a detailed three-part survey sent out to all 723 LASA members with postal codes in the United States and Puerto Rico, and it had a respectable return rate of 32%. The questions were mainly concerned with the students’ usage of print and electronic sources, their awareness of core Latin American information tools including a group of important subject databases and indexes (abbreviations HLAS, HAPI, LAPTOC and LANIC).

The authors found that the students did not overwhelmingly favor internet sources and that they still preferred to use traditional resources provided by the libraries. The students reported that their search strategy frequently included browsing the stacks and following journal citations to new articles.

This supports the popular viewpoint that users’ information-seeking behavior does not follow a linear pattern of a specific information query matched to an information source. Instead, the seeking process, both online and physical, is complex and evolving, and users often retrieve results one or two at a time and not all at once (Bates 1989).

The study’s findings relating to the use of discipline-specific information tools raise significant concerns, and suggest that Latin American bibliographic instruction in academic libraries, both in person and online, needs to be improved. Potts and Mazurkiewicz discovered that the students’ knowledge of the core Latin American databases was very low, as between 69 and 93 percent of respondents not only had not used the tools in the past year, but reported that they had never even heard of them.

It is troubling that such a high percentage of the next generation of Latin American studies instructors do not know of these core online resources, and the study’s findings imply that bibliographic instruction in Latin American studies needs to be improved at many institutions. 65 percent of respondents reported that they had never had an instruction session with a librarian and 55 percent said that they had not had a course or professor direct them on how to conduct their research.

The authors suggest that part of the problem is the fact that in many cases, graduate-level faculty do not provide these resources because they assume the students have already received such instruction before. This is not always the case, as the strategies needed to conduct research for undergraduate-level courses are much different than Latin American master’s and doctoral programs, and each specific discipline has its own specific tools. Faculty should work more closely with librarians to plan bibliographic instruction sessions, whether that be a class session in the library or just a short visit and lecture from the consulting librarian about how to conduct research on Latin America.

Today, bibliographic instruction does not just occur in person, and Potts and Mazurkiewicz do not address the benefits of online guides for teaching research skills. The Latin American studies programs at these institutions should be listing the core databases on their websites along with an explanation of how to find sources. Universities that subscribe to Libguides software can easily create subject specific guides that can be very helpful for students. The authors did not ask any questions about whether the students’ institutions offered any of these tools, and it is possible that the students who did not have a formal session with a librarian had indeed been using online tools created by the library. The statistics about database knowledge, however, suggest that this area of bibliographic instruction still needs great improvement.

Works Cited:

Bates, M J. “The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the online search interface.” Online Review 13.5 (1989): 407-424. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts.

Haras, Catherine, Edward M. Lopez, and Kristine Ferry. “(Generation 1.5) Latino Students and the Library: A Case Study.” Journal of Academic Librarianship 34.5 (2008): 425-433. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts.

Mazurkiewicz, Orchid, and Claude H. Potts. “Researching Latin America. A Survey of How the New Generation is Doing its Research.” Latin American Research Review 42.3 (2007): 161-182. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts.

Solis, Jacqueline, and Katherine S. Dabbour. “Latino students and libraries: a US federal grant project report.” New Library World 107.1/2 (2006): 48-56. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts.

Harper Collins’ 26 Checkout Policy Challenges Traditional Role of the Library

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Harper Collins recently released a new library ebook policy in which the licenses to its content expire after 26 uses, forcing libraries to purchase them again. This represents a very dangerous trend affecting the very role of the library, and underscores a need for library and information science professionals to take a stand against competing information organizations that seize power and control.

To place this development into an LIS context, Pawley gives of examples in the digital era of commodification of information negatively impacting libraries, calling their relationship with commercial publishers an “unequal partnership” (8809). Vaidhyanathan explains the need for a new field, Critical Information Studies, which urges an increased study of “the relationship among information control (and) property rights” and “the cultural, social and economic ramifications” of flows of information (302). Abbott, on the other hand, makes a more gripping comparison by presenting the situation in terms of an ecological battle for survival, arguing that libraries are in direct competition with other professions and must continue to adapt to a shifting information environment so as not to fall victim to its predators. This idea can be directly applied to the Harper Collins ebook case, as it transforms libraries from an institution that owns the content it provides to one that is merely leasing it from another company that retains all the power.

This type of change has already occurred with proprietary article databases, as libraries typically pay for access instead of purchasing full rights to individually selected titles. With ebooks, the implications of this loss of ownership are even more significant. Most library policies, as well as the fundamental ALA Bill of Rights, are written under the assumption that libraries will have continuing access to and control over the items that they provide. But as we have seen with ebooks-for-lease models, this is not the case, both in terms of the duration of ownership and even whether the items will continue to be available at all. Owners reserve the right to remove them at any time, as was the case in 2009 when all copies of two George Orwell books were removed from all Kindles without the knowledge of those who had “purchased” the item (Stone). How can libraries stay true to their foundational value of ensuring continued access to knowledge for all patrons when they cannot ensure that the items provided today will still be available tomorrow? Asheim argues that librarians have an ethical duty to fight censorship and fight against the removal of materials, but the ebook case complicates the argument by raising this new form of digital censorship in which materials can be removed by other parties who represent different values, all because libraries do not control the delivery platform.

The 26 checkout issue also raises other important concerns. For example, how could a library enter such an item into its OPAC and provide real-time item status as each ebook nears its expiration. It is true that print books do not stay in readable condition forever, but libraries have always had the power to utilize its resources for preservation and conservation in order to get the most value out of its investments. There is no such comparison in the digital world, and the fact that the arbitrary number of 26 was thought up by pricing consultants without any dialogue with libraries or reading communities is a disturbing fact, and a trend which will likely continue.

Returning to Abbot’s desires for libraries to adapt in order to challenge its “predators,” the library community is banding together to fight Harper Collins. A petition launched by a New Jersey librarian opposing the policy had collected over 58,000 signatures as of May 5, 2011 (Library Journal). Such movements from the library community will be crucial in the coming years as other companies try to protect their financial interests at the expense of the public. Interestingly, Abbott himself predicted just this over a decade ago:

The central challenges (for libraries) lie in embracing the various information technologies of the future and the groups that service them.  This embrace will end up redefining the profession. But that is necessary to survival.

References

Abbott, Andrew. “Professionalism and the Future of Librarianship.” Library Trends 46.3 (1998): 430-443.

Asheim, Lester. “Selection and Censorship: A Reappraisal” Wilson Library Bulletin 58.3 (1983): 180-84.

Kelley, Michael. “Petition Protesting HarperCollins’s Ebook Circulation Policy Takes Off.” Library Journal. 5 May 2011. http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/890502-264/petition_protesting_harpercollinss_ebook_circulation.html.csp

Pawley, Christine. “Libraries.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Elsevier, 2001.

Stone, Brad. “Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle.” New York Times. 17 July 2009. 12 May 2011.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. “Afterword: Critical Information Studies.” Cultural Studies 20.2 (2006): 292-315.

Librarian Degree Breakdown: What College Programs Lead to the Job?

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The degree needed for becoming a librarian is a Master’s in library and information science. Other institutions might call it library science, information science, or it might just be a school of information.

This is a relatively short program as far as graduate school goes, as the degree usually takes 2 years to complete. Working professionals often take longer as they take a few classes at a time, while highly motivated students are able to complete the degree in just 1 year. There are also many online programs that allow maximum flexibility depending on your personal situation.

There is another important point to add, however. The library and information science master’s degree is required for positions that are officially “librarian.” But these are far from the only jobs in the library. There are library paraprofessionals, often called assistants or support staff, whose jobs do not require any graduate work. Most often these jobs do require either a bachelor’s or possibly just a high school diploma.

The general public often forgets that not everyone seen behind a library desk is a librarian (sort of like how not everyone in a hospital is a doctor!), so those who simply want to work in the library environment at some level can certainly do so with very little to no specialized education. Instead, those library assistant jobs will usually require some specialized training and sometimes the completion of an exam. They do, however, pay less than librarian jobs and are sometimes part-time or without benefits.

If you decide that you are going the master’s degree route to become a professional librarian, you’ll need get a bachelor’s degree first. The good news is that library programs do not require any specific major; you can choose anything you’d like. The most common areas for applicants, however, are in the humanities, such as English, and STEM degrees are usually less common. If you are interested in becoming an academic librarian at a college or university, many of those librarians use their undergraduate major as part of their job. This can include specialized instruction for classes in that major, collection development work, and other types of outreach and collaboration with faculty in that subject area.

The coursework in a master’s program for librarians is very diverse. It can range from database design and programming to information law and policy to children’s storytelling. It all depends on what you want to ultimately do with the degree, whether that be working in a public library, an academic library, a special library, or one of many other possibilities. You will likely also notice that certain programs have different focuses. Schools of information or information science will usually have more coursework in advanced technologies, while others have a stronger emphasis on the “traditional” library.

Picking up some actual work experience is also very important for ultimately securing a librarian job, so you should try to do that as early as you can, whether it be a nice paid position or just an internship or volunteer work. It all helps, and will also help you make sure that your career aspirations are in line with what you actually like to do.