Professor Kate Williams introduced the 3rd Annual Digital Divide Lecture Series today at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She began by explaining why the digital divide is such a persistent problem and why it’s relevant for libraries. Williams added that GSLIS is one of the only library and information schools that is actively engaging in research to examine methods to close the divide.

Today’s speaker was Beth Sandore, Associate University Librarian for Information Technology Planning and Policy and Associate Dean of Libraries, Professor of Library Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Sandore leads a number of exciting technology programs that work to foster long term data curation for research and cultural heritage communities on campus.

Sandore began her talk by asking the question, “What is the role of the academic research library in closing the digital divide?”

It’s hard to identify the elements of the digital divide within the research library community on campus, but it’s critical that research librarians approach this challenge in the context as information professionals. Sandore continued by saying that it’s ultimately a layered challenge. It’s like peeling an onion (a metaphor from Shrek); they don’t all stink. Rather, the layers are porous, connected to each other, and they also have to relate to each other.

Sandore explained that on the surface, “it looks like we have a lot” compared to, for example, a small town in southern Illinois where you’ll find a number of different issues and needs. What are the layers to the digital divide in research libraries on campus?

The UIUC library is increasingly moving to serve the research community through digital environments (newspapers, e-books, e-journals, freely available digital content). The world is migrating in this direction.

As content moves online how can libraries help users find what they need?  Sandore explained this is one of the biggest challenges for libraries today. Getting library assistance is part of the digital divide on campus, and it also breaks down across discipline. Libraries need the right tools to slice, dice, and reuse content in order to use it effectively in library instruction and public outreach.

However, having the tools is only part of the challenge.

The University of Illinois website hosts 60 million virtual visits a year, while physical use of the library is decreasing over time. The number of questions asked at the main library has decreased by 50% over the past 5 years.  The number of visitors to the website continues to grow annually.  At the same time, the rate at which new people use the library is declining.

Sandore explained that the UIUC Library still needs to figure out what happens during those visits online.  They need to engage in data driven decisions to learn how people are using the information that the library acquires through the website.  Other questions with regard to virtual library use include: Who is using it? How are they using the information online? Are there things they want that the library can help them with?

U of Illinois Library Network Access Profile

• Multiple buildings & libraries
• 500 public networked workstations
• Laptops for loan @UGL (Undergraduate Library)
• Many peripherals are on loan and available @ UGL
• Ubiquitous wifi (except bookstacks)

Every public access workstation is an accessible workstation. Anyone with impaired vision or hearing can use open source accessibility software to access the website.  They have worked with EBSCO to get them to make their interfaces that students use more accessible.

Now EBSCO has improved their tagging system beyond what they do in their HTML docs and CSS stylesheets through their database.  This is thanks to a number of big 10 research libraries that worked together with EBSCO to make this idea a reality.

Trends affecting research libraries

• Mass digitization: Google, Internet/Archive/OCA, HathiTrust: UIUC is part of the Google Books consortium.  The library worked out an agreement to digitize close to 12 million volumes over the next several years.  The project began with the University of Michigan to digitize all 8 million volumes in their library. Google has digitized at least 5 million books.  Research libraries tend to buy the same things, so there is a reasonable amount of overlap in books across universities.

• Negotiated – HathiTrust allows libraries within the university consortium to share the digitized content – independent of Google.  The library has to figure out how to use the content effectively with regard to the legal issues involved, such as copyright and fair use.  The library is on the way to being able to do that.  It is an important cornerstone with regard to issues of the on-campus digital divide and access that researchers are facing.

• Content aggregation – OAI (Open Archives Initiative). It’s key that libraries retain an open format in being able to access library information and also how it’s linked to from mainstream search engines.

• Long-term access – Q: What happens to the stuff after a few years?  Long term stewardship and curation is key for libraries in the digital age.  In the digital world, stewarding digital content is an important part of the library’s mission.  We don’t want to be left saying, “Where did the information go?”

• “Atomized” communication: chat, blogging, twitter, mobile devices – Libraries are now working in a new world where information is recombined in different ways to create new products.  We have to figure it out so people know how to reference it.  It’s another trend that’s impacting what we do.

• (I missed the last point. Sorry!)

Current wave: mobile access

Kristen Purcell at the Pew Internet and American Life Project conducts research on how people use mobile devices and what kind of content people are looking at using those devices. Purcell says that mobile & digital are the waves on which content delivery is riding. News is also important to young people who use mobile devices.

Q: Where are research libraries on this continuum?

Access & Discovery

Sandore described the many different ways that the UIUC Library is leading the way in developing new technologies that help users find information, where they are online. For example:

• Easy Search – At the university library website, Easy Search takes what a user puts in,  guesses what is it she might be looking for and then tries to match it across 12-20 different databases.  They have scripts that are working behind the scenes to match the query.  It also has built in intelligence to try to figure it out what the user is looking for.

• Mobile Illinois – Virtual chat and reference services are now available through mobile devices. It’s a lightweight service, which means that sometimes it goes down.  People should call the library when it goes down, so they can know how it is needed. The usage is going up on the website.

• Facebook Share / Search – The undergrad library is getting ready to launch a search and citation site.  The point is that you can share your research with other people in the community via Facebook.  We think this will bring library resources closer to places where people actually use them.

• Illinois Harvest – Aggregates information about digitized collections at U of Illinois and at other institutions within the big 10 consortium research libraries.  All of the materials are in the public domain.

For more information about Beth Sandore, and the library’s information technology initiatives, visit the University Library.

Photo above (Beth Sandore pictured left and Kate Williams, right) by Colin Rhinesmith available on Flickr.com under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 generic license.

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