Navigating the Parallel Universe: Education for Collection Management in the Electronic Age - collection of electronic and printed library resources

Library Trends, Spring, 2000 by Virgil L. P. Blake, Thomas T. Surprenant

The first information age, Watson (1996) observes, was the result of universal literacy and high speed presses. The artifacts of this first era were physical entities (books, serials). The central problem for the emerging field of library economy was obtaining the physical entities, organizing them, creating tools for identifying them, storing them, and making them available to users. Schools of library economy focused intently on that mission. Drabenstott and Atkins (1996) indicate that the current information revolution is the result of a confluence of technology, new information media, and networking. A major difference, adds Watson (1996), is that "computers deal with conceptual space not physical space. They are not necessarily concerned with paper but the letters and pictures themselves, stripped of their ink and always available--on demand--for display. Information is created, stored and transmitted digitally at, literally, lightning speed. The computer has thus created a new, modern information synergy" (p. 38). Libraries in this setting become "the places where information is stored or the places from which it can be accessed" (p. 39). Librarians are "those who provide functional expertise to the library" (p. 39). Wallace (1991) adds that technology has determined "to some extent ... not only what librarians could do to achieve their goals, but also the goals they have chosen to address" (p. 98). This requires us to consider the changes required in the curriculum in general and collection development in particular.

Van House and Sutton (1996) define the domain of library/information science as "an experiential event between a user seeking information to satisfy a cognitive information need, and a potentially vast information store containing possible solutions to that need" (p. 132). All that the Second Information Explosion (to use Watson's term) has done is to make a difficult process even more difficult. The number and variety of possible information packages with data has greatly expanded, and the obstacles in identifying the apparently appropriate resources for retrieval and use have multiplied. Wallace (1991) suggests "since the introduction of electronic information technologies that the basic tools have changed. Collections must now include access to remote computer databases, computer disk databases, audio compact disks, microcomputer software, videotapes, and a variety of other electronic products and the hardware to facilitate their use" (p. 99). This alone has serious implications "for what schools of library and information science must teach their students regarding the selection, acquisition and use of library collections" (p. 99).

Cronin (1995) argues for a new perspective for the education of library/information service professionals. He does not regard library science as a true academic discipline. In his view, librarianship is a professional activity. Information science, on the other hand, is described as a "field of scholarly inquiry" that includes the study of information and its use within institutions such as the library (Cronin, 1995, p. 897). For Cronin, the central theme in the development of the curriculum ought to be the concept of access with five facets. These are: (1) intellectual access--the development of tools such as subject headings, thesauri, and classification schemes as ways to identify resources with the potential to resolve an information need; (2) physical access--a traditional concern of librarianship; (3) social access--ranging from hours of operation through public policy issues, including censorship/intellectual freedom; (4) economic access--the economics of information, the global information industry; and (5) spatial/temporal access--making materials available from both the local collection and remote locales (pp. 900-01). The concepts of physical access, social access, economic access, and spatial/ temporal access have a direct relationship to collection development as it has been taught in schools of library and information studies.