When Laura Willeford went to Powell Library to research a paper
last week, she left feeling frustrated.
Willeford, a first-year undeclared student, said she had trouble
finding useful sources for her art history paper.
After spending one to two hours in Powell Library every day
after class, Willeford finally completed her research, but dreaded
ever entering the library again.
Online digital collections, searchable by keyword, are working
to alleviate some of the frustrations students like Willeford feel
when trying to do research.
With groups like the University of California, the Open Content
Alliance and Google continually digitizing new books, soon students
like Willeford will be able to complete most of their research
online at any time of the day.
The goal of these programs is to create an online searchable
database of non-copyrighted books that students can read from the
comfort of their dorm rooms.
With the inevitable changes that will occur within research
libraries once more content is digitized, librarians are planning
for the future.
Gary Strong, the UCLA librarian, said that he envisions the
library of the future as a space of collaborative learning. Instead
of coming to the library to read books, students will be able to
collaborate with peers and faculty while looking at and researching
collections of rare material, he said.
And though the number of digitized books is quickly increasing,
Strong said print versions are not going to disappear anytime
soon.
“There were more books published worldwide last year then
in every previous year. Many of the items that we will continue to
buy will be in print and not electronic form,” Strong
said.
Though the number of digital works will increase, the library
will remain a steward of cultural artifacts, said Daniel
Greenstein, associate vice provost for scholarly information and
university librarian for systemwide planning and the California
Digital Library.
The California Digital Library was established by the UC in 1997
to help the university library system share and create digital
resources, according to the program Web site.
The role of research libraries is to act as a civic learning
space, collect rare and special items and be a place for access to
information, Greenstein said.
The library will always have these functions, and the mission of
California Digital Library is to help the University of California
library system develop more effectively, Greenstein said.
Though the California Digital Library will act as a database of
digital content for the entire UC system to share, UCLA has already
begun to digitize some of its own content.
Already available on UCLA’s library Web site is a database
of online journals, pictures of the campus, UCLA’s special
collection of campaign materials, and both sheet music and audio
files from around the world.
The goal of California Digital Library and UCLA’s
digitization program is to give students immediate access to
materials they already have the rights to access, where programs
like Google’s may or may not have all of the access and
distribution rights to the materials they scan, Strong said.
Last year there were 3.5 million downloads of UCLA’s
online licensed journals, Strong said. Comparatively, Powell
library had only 1.5 million visits, he said.
And students said that due to the increasing availability of
online materials, that number is most likely going to decrease.
“An online database would help me find more sources, and I
would be able to search by keyword. It would streamline the
research process. I wouldn’t come into the library when I
could get all of my information online,” said Jessica Roy, a
first-year art history student.
Roy even said that if she needed the help of a librarian, she
could utilize a service offered by the UCLA library that allows
students to chat live with one.
In the future, the research library will resemble a museum,
Strong said. But unlike a museum, where students simply gaze at
static objects, the library will allow and encourage interaction
with rare collections, he said.
“One of our long-term goals is to create an environment of
collaborative learning, to create spaces that allow graduate
students and faculty to gather around and discuss materials and
discover new primary sources,” he said.
Though libraries are facing drastic changes in areas like
presentation and distribution of content, some things will never
change, Greenstein said.
Space will always be a premium, and the library’s role as
a social learning and civic space will remain the same, Greenstein
said. A library will always be a place of learning and of research,
though it may be done differently, he said.
The California Digital Library will be able to digitize between
18,000 and 80,000 books this year, and those numbers will only grow
in the future, Greenstein said.
Though students are hopeful for the future of at-home research,
they recognize the worth of the book.
“I think there is a value in the physical book, but
digitizing the books and utilizing them online will not take away
from that value,” Willeford said.
Despite these new developments, Strong disagrees with assertions
that the future of the research library lies in obscurity.
“I don’t see libraries as dead at all. When I was an
undergraduate, we got the first copy machine. You could take a book
to the machine, get a copy of the page you needed, and walk away
with it. It was revolutionary, and ever since I have not been
surprised by anything,” Strong said.