Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
keeper of the culture's information. However, what may not be as well known is
that librarians have discussed among themselves for more than a century the idea
of providing service. This paradigmatic shift away from the library as a warehouse
of topics and toward the responsibilities of serving the needs of information users
began with librarian and educator Melvil Dewey, whom we discussed earlier in this
chapter. The new role for librarians is anticipating information needs and custom-
izing (repackaging) information.
At one time, librarians focused solely on providing materials and services to col-
lege and university faculty. Today more emphasis is placed on the campus com-
munity as a whole. This includes researchers, administrators, students, staff, and
faculty. In addition, academic librarians are focused on their relevance to the in-
stitutional mission. Today there is a growing interest in making the scholarship of
the institution more visible and in promoting the global reach of the research and
teaching that is created. As higher-education academies build institutional reposit-
ories, support publishing programs, adopt open-access policies, establish learning
commons, embed librarians in academic departments, and investigate alternative
metrics, the academic library continues to evolve. Academic libraries are embra-
cing the opportunity to provide growing services to promote the impact of scholar-
ship and programming to support this expanding mission.
This expanded mission comes at a time when providing customized information
services for all constituents in the academic community is desired, and academic
librarians have become a vital part of the research support needed by the
academy. They have formed a partnership with the academic community through
a variety of services, which include access to published research collections and
bibliographic instruction—services that have added to the ease of using the vast
collections of the average campus library. As this shift from the topic to the user
has progressed over several decades, academic librarians have grown their ser-
vices into departments that focus on providing instruction, developing workflows
in which some librarians are embedded within key courses. Many professors in
higher-education institutions across the country now look to these information pro-
viders as co-instructors, and the services continue to flourish.
Information literacy instruction has become a prominent service for librarians
due to encouragement by professional agencies like the Association of College
and Research Libraries and the American Library Association, which provide pro-
fessional development opportunities. The library is the logical place to support
such initiatives through collaboration with faculty in teaching copyright, access to
content, and publishing; this collaboration will benefit faculty as they work to devel-
op more open course materials to counter the high cost of textbooks.
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