Barriers to Library Resources
I ran across this post on the Rural Doctoring blog, Library Research, Then and Now, by Theresa Chan, a family physician who describes her experiences doing library research in 1996 and in 2008. Of course she knows that things have changed and many things are online compared to back in 1996. Once perfect example is her Twitter consultation with her Twitter buddies about the best way to go about getting library articles. But what struck me the most was even with today's technology making access seemingly easier and faster, patrons still encounter many barriers to getting library information.
She is doctor in a rural area with limited access to library resources. She mentioned she was able to get articles from nearby medical library for $15/each. While this was cheaper than the publishers' price, it was still pretty pricey to her. While she was in San Francisco she decided to visit the UCSF library to get the articles she needed. Not only was the cost of parking a barrier but the UCSF library required that she use "general public" computers and she could not download a PDF to a USB drive. While she wasn't a UCSF employee or student, she was their library user while she was in the library at that moment.
What kind of barriers do we (libraries in general) have that make it more difficult to access information? What policies have we enacted that make it more difficult rather than easier for patrons to access information? Costs, location, license agreements, technological logistics, language etc. are all barriers we and our patrons encounter every day. How many times do we librarians mentioned ILLing an article or talk about databases? How many of our patrons know what that is and can ask for the appropriate service when needed? Sure the regulars may have been trained in library jargon and the "library way" of doing things, but the casual user may have problems. Sometimes we are too close to our own situation to be able to see the obstacles. Sometimes we need a fresh perspective to see the roadblocks.
Things like parking may be truly out of the library's ability to change. While license agreements are a common barrier, they can be negotiated. Are you doing that, or are you just accepting of whatever the license agreement says? What one person feels is a barrier may not be for another. For example, I have encountered a few patrons who must have absolute quiet while studying in the library. They find even the clicking of people typing on keyboards and the hum of printers printing to be a distraction. I don't know of a library that can get rid of all of their computers (and the access they provide) to accommodate these users, but they might be able to set aside silent areas or study rooms. Unfortunately there will never be a time where all of the obstacles can be removed. But, it is our job as librarians to reduce the number and type of barriers so that all of our users, expert and casual, can easily get use library resources and information.
posted by The Krafty Librarian @ 12:57 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
KL--I'm not really sure I agree with your point. The way I view it is that the UCSF is kindly making their library available to a clientele it doesn't have any obligation to serve(or very much obligation since I don't know their funding structure. Public libraries have one responsibility to the general public, universities another, and other libraries other. As "libraries" we have no overriding responsibility to serve everybody in every way. It would be nice but since there isn't some general fund somewhere buying resources for every library everywhere, its NOT our obligation to meet everyone's need. I'm sorry the rural doctor doesn't have a library nearby to serve him/her. What is the public library doing? Surely it offers interlibrary loan service for residents? Why not request articles there? Evidently the USB drives were inactivated in the UCSF library. Why? Contractual? Security? Prior mis-use by the public downloading much beyond reasonable amounts? The first obligation of the librarian is to serve their primary clientele the best way possible with the funds and restrictions they have. If they choose to open their collection and services to people who they have no obligation to serve, that's kind but shouldn't interfere with serving those they are SUPPOSED to serve. Where is it written that all libraries must serve everyone everywhere? And for free.
I didn't mean to specifically say that UCSF was completely wrong. I meant the post to be more about how libraries still have obstacles to their users, even their primary users.
I agree we should try to serve our primary users the best way possible. But how many libraries look at their electronic journal license agreements to see if off campus access or ILL of PDF is allowed?
How many libraries use the Annals of Internal Medicine's tiered pricing? Do they know under the license agreement tiered pricing does not allow proxy access?
I know a library that has electronic full text books through STATRef and MDConsult yet they do not provide any links to those titles. They don't even have an online catalog. They do have a Intranet page where they list the titles but it is on a spreadsheet with no links to the titles of the online books. I would say that is a pretty large barrier to accessing the online texts.
My point (and I appologize if it wasn't clear) was that libraries have a lot barriers to information for primary users AND secondary users. You can't please all of the people all of the time and elminate all of the obstacles for every user. But it is our job as librarians to find those obstacles and reduce or eliminate them. Often times we are unaware of these barriers, they have become part of the wood work so to speak, and it takes an outside perspective to reveal them.
Sometimes 'service' means referral. A shared principle in libraries seems to be that 'I'm going to help you find what you need, whether it comes from me, or not'.
UCSF has as much obligation as any public institution or public library to provide service to anyone in California whose tax dollars support UCSF. There are of course limits to what a library with an identifiable primary clientele can practically do for those who are not in that primary clientele, and each library has to choose what they will and won't do, within the parameter of 'if we can't/won't do it, we'll tell you who will'.
This gets muddier and muddier with the shift to econtent. Some states, such as Michigan, have helped 'everyone' past a content barrier with large publicly-available e-libraries. They don't have everything for everyone, but they do have a lot.
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