Home    Multimedia   Follow:   Subscribe    RSS   Facebook    Twitter   Share:        Delicious

search this site search web

Behind the Scenes: The Decision to Stop Print Journals: Not Just Around the Corner

Librarians Speak Up
What’s the biggest issue you encounter in reaching today's users?

Regina Aparecida Blanco Vicentini, Head Reference Librarian, Central Library, State University of Campinas, Brazil

On the one hand, increasingly sophisticated tools help us locate information. On the other, our library users are anxious to know they are accessing the most relevant sources for their research. The hunt for information relevant to a specific research question now takes place within a larger context - an information universe transcending the library walls, and taking on unlimited dimensions. We face this challenge with our users on a daily basis and we orient and direct them along this tumultuous and intensely busy super highway - through the Internet, information networks, databases, e-journals and data transmission. In our Reference Service Division, we are committed to training the entire university community in the use of all information resources available at our nineteen campus libraries. Since 2001, we have offered daily training sessions. This two-way relationship between librarians and library users is fundamentally important to the success or failure of the library.

José Fernandes, UMIC (Knowledge and Information Society Mission Unit) and FCCN (Foundation for National Scientific Computing) Executive Board Adviser, Portugal

Today we live in a fast moving, ever-changing world. The advent of mobile/wireless technologies has made it possible for anyone to access information anytime, anywhere. Providing our users anytime, anywhere access is the aim of the e-U (e-University) project
(  www.e-u.pt) here in Portugal. This initiative involves services, content, applications and mobile/wireless communication networks, inside and outside the university, for students and professors. It stimulates and facilitates access, production and knowledge sharing. Portugal is the first country to create an integrated Wi-Fi network for all its universities and institutes and is fast becoming a world-renowned case study. Recently, Portugal signed a contract with several international publishers to make more than 3,500 journals available online to our national academic and scientific community. We believe that this initiative is a key step forward towards the knowledge economy.

Hella Bluhm-Stieber, MLIS, AHIP, Medical Librarian, Milton J. Chatton Medical Library, Santa Clara Valley Health & Hospital System, San Jose, CA, USA

The biggest issue in reaching todays’ users is the ever-growing cost of journal subscriptions and the shrinking library budgets. That makes it increasingly difficult to provide the best service possible to our clientele.

Today many users think that everything is available online, unaware that most journals are not free online nor that libraries need to pay for them, either as separate subscriptions or as bundled database subscriptions. Even regular library users have no idea how much these subscriptions cost. Also many people do not realize that not everything found on the Internet is true.

 

Wei Zhi Su, Library Director, Shandong University Library, China

“Users First” is the principle of our service at Shandong University Library. The library, established in 1901, has a collection of 4.3 million volumes with four buildings located across campus. In terms of access, the electronic revolution has enabled us to better serve our users. We now provide the full-text of over 6,100 Chinese academic periodicals online through CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure); 380,000 e-books through the Super Star Chinese Digital Library; and many important databases from outside China. To facilitate use of these resources we have increased our seating capacity to 2,000, added electronic reading rooms, and installed information retrieval stations.

Mi-suk Park, Periodicals Librarian, Medical Library, College of Medicine, Gyeongsang National University, Korea

Our library services are currently in a state of turbulence due to rapid technological change. It’s an inevitable phenomenon. Our users demand the best possible services and support, but at the same time they expect that to be coupled with carefully balanced progress. Our users even require the library to provide urgent information in the operating room. I think we are now at an important turning point. It's time to branch out into the world of real, dedicated customer service - through the provision of a customizable interface offering a wide range of communications media such as proactive email notification, portable, wireless, remote access, etc.