This document discusses the challenges facing libraries in maintaining relevance in the digital age. It outlines how libraries must undergo fundamental changes, including becoming more user-centric, rethinking their missions, re-engineering operations, and embracing new technologies. The author provides examples from their own library of changes made, such as renovating spaces, increasing digital collections and services, and reallocating resources. The conclusion emphasizes that libraries must adapt and lead change in order to remain relevant to the educational and research missions they support.

1. Beyond Survival : How Can Libraries Maintain Relevance in the Digital Age Rush G. Miller, Ph.D. Hillman University Librarian and Director, ULS [email_address]

2. Why Change? Our environment is changing OR what the h…. happened to our shelf list? How did we lose control of the Internet? Why don’t people use the library as much as they used to? What do you mean, we don’t need libraries?

3. 30 years ago Had a captive audience Were the “Heart” of the University or community and were funded accordingly Forced patrons to use “our” systems (LC subject headings, ILL, etc) Had strong support from administration, faculty, boards, etc.

4. What is different today? There are alternatives like Google, Yahoo, etc. Administration questioning costs of libraries today Boards wonder why we need libraries and librarians since “ everything ” is online!

5. Faculty in many disciplines no longer care about libraries, and are perfectly comfortable with closing them Generally, use of books dropping in most libraries, and long term trend is down Use of library “databases” and other electronic tools is small compared with Internet search engines, etc.

6. Even our “digitization” agendas are usurped by Google Example is ARL project to digitize all government documents, now shelved in favor of Google Buying power of libraries has declined steadily in face of inflation and budget cuts Libraries no longer necessary as distributors of information resources Now the RECESSION!!!

7. Google: the Most Feared Word in Libraries! Google vs Library http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKvR0OC4nYc Library “systems” are out of sync with user expectations (see OCLC Study of Users). 56% of all internet searches are Google searches

8. Google Book Search goal is: “… to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Sound familiar? Did we leave a void for Google to step into? Google is probably going to control access to orphan works online with access fees for us. Google is more of a universal library than libraries ever were!

9. Where are We?? Have we lost a horse Or found a rope???

10. Need for Change is Clear and Present Now “ If you have been working in a library in the 1990’s, you have by now accepted – whether enthusiastically, reluctantly, or fearfully – the notion that libraries must undergo fundamental change if they are to survive in the coming century.” — A. Lipow Rethinking Reference in Academic Libraries , 1993

11. So far, so good at Pitt! Period of unprecedented growth and development over past 12-14 years Growth achieved NOT just from increases to budget but from reallocation (story of much of my presentation) BUT, now we must continue progress in time of financial retrenchment, the real challenge!

12. ARL Membership Index Ranking

13. Total Volumes

14. E-Books Added per Year

15. Expenditures

16. Circulation Trends: Traditional Library Use Declining

17. Frequency of circulation of items in collections, 1987 - 2007

18. Reference Query Trends

19. Visits to the ULS Web Site

20. Our Colleges are Changing Too! Students are customers of services Focus on environmental issues Changes in teaching methods and styles such as active learning, service learning, group and team based learning, etc. Accountability and Assessment of learning outcomes sweeping campuses

21. Communities are changing Funding becoming difficult to obtain Current Recession of course! Libraries focused only on books are having more difficulty

22. In universities/colleges, funding as percentage of budget is dropping steadily and our standards are now ridiculously out of line with reality Alternatives to libraries are more viable than ever General impression (even on campus) is that a library is living on borrowed time! How high a priority is the library today?

23. How Do We Survive? Question is not really surviving (museums survive), but an issue of how do we maintain our central role in the educational and research missions of our academic institutions and in the life of our communities and schools!

24. Claiming Value is NOT ENOUGH Libraries must demonstrate value to the students and faculty of our schools, colleges and universities and our communities

25. + Transformation + New leadership + Organizational AGILITY _____________ = Change Management Change in Libraries is Imperative

26. “… the days of the library’s ability to control what is important are gone. Serving a public good is no longer enough to ensure funding and administrative support. To secure support, the library must now demonstrate how it serves the university mission.” — Beverly P. Lynch, UCLA College & Research Libraries , 2007

27. Survival Tools: 8 Ideas for Change

28. Be User-Centric Not User-Oriented

29. Feedback on website and on specific digital projects, etc. Usability studies of web sites Analyze web use data Surveys of users on web related to digital content Ex., Old Schoolbooks – discovered unexpected user base Digital library users are a new constituency, often a demanding one!

31. http://pittcatplus.pitt.edu/

32. www.library.pitt.edu/services/classes/infoliteracy/ Page provides links to instructional modules, faculty resources and workshops for faculty ULS Information Literacy and Assessment of Learning Program

33. Re-think Your Mission What is our Core Business???

34. What is our Core Business? “ Railroads failed because they thought they were in the train business, when they were really in the transportation business. Libraries will fail if we continue to see ourselves in the book business. Our business really is knowledge.” -----Sarah Thomas, Librarian of Oxford University

35. Mission of ULS is to: “… provide and promote access to information resources necessary for the achievement of the University’s leadership objectives in teaching, learning, research, creativity and community service, and to collaborate in the development of effective information, teaching and learning systems.”

36. ULS Mission :Long Range Plan Strategic Planning – first one ever in 1995 Had no plan or mission Wide disagreement at start of what is the core mission, even core values and who are our users Need to focus on a vision for future Current plan has only 9 goals and is communicated in a trifold brochure -- all unit goals are based on it longrangeplan07-10brochure.pdf

37. Vision The most important thing about planning is to focus on a vision of the future and then strategies to actually implement that vision, not just assume that the past will be the future.

38. Re-Engineer Operations Services Resources Personnel Budget

39. New Imperative for Re-Engineering Recession is reducing budgets Expectations not being lowered for libraries Need to “create” flexibility in budgets to maintain progress and new initiatives!

40. Operations Question assumptions on which processes based Example – How do we define quality? Scrutinize outmoded and outdated functions, services, and staffing levels Re-allocate resources from low priority to higher priority activities – more bang for the buck! Reconfigure space, personnel, budget to match new roles and mission Use business principles to manage operations

41. Early Re-engineering at Pitt Detailed in book: Beyond Survival: Managing Academic Libraries in Transition , chapter 5. Bottom Line: contracted with book vendors to provide OCLC cataloging for all new books contracted with OCLC TechPro for backlog cataloging (huge!) Mapped all processes, redefined positions and priorities

42. Eliminated 60% of positions Moved affected staff over 2 years to other positions Saved $1.1 million Absorbed two personnel budget cuts without affecting staff Jump started information technology developments at the ULS (more later!)

43. Applied same functions to Public Services See Beyond Survival , Chapter 7. New Initiatives in PS include: PittCat+ Libraries to Go! Digital reference service Help Hub Undergraduate initiatives: Peer-to-peer library consultants Wireless laptop project Staffing at desks

44. Current Projects Aligning public service points/staffing with use based on “RefStats” program Special Collections Consulting Report and realignments Closing libraries based on use/need

45. Re-Think How Space is Used

46. Facilities in ULS Consolidation of Departmental Libraries Renovations to Hillman Library Added remote facility housing Archives Preservation Lab Digital Research Library Information Systems Technical Services High Density book storage (3 million vols)

47. Facilities in ULS Use of space changing Elimination of individual study carrels Expanded group study space Expansion of computing devices/wireless Comfortable casual seating Cup and Chaucer Café New policies on food/drink

48. Changing Nature of Use Reference Desk activity decreasing (success?) Circulation flat/dropping Physical Use in Hillman increasing as renovations occur Use of digital reference services up dramatically (500% in one year)

49. The Cup & Chaucer

50. Future Expansion of The Cup & Chaucer

52. Ground Floor

53. Interlibrary Loan Office

55. Thornburgh Room

57. New 4 th Floor Study Room

59. First Floor Grand Opening

60. First Floor Entrance and Desk

61. Hillman Library Gate Count Increases

62. First Floor, Hillman Library

64. Preservation Lab

65. High Density Storage

66. Collaborate On Innovation

68. Pitt-produced Open Access Online Journals

69. Open Journal Systems Publishing

72. Server Move

74. Communicate Your Message

75. ULS Marketing Program Began with a Marketing Plan developed by a Marketing Firm Definition of customers, messages, and styles of communication (how, when, what, etc.) Use of Branding (logos, consistency of communications, etc)

76. Build Expertise and Infrastructure for the Digital Future

77. 76% increase in IT staffing levels, 1997 – 2007 All achieved through internal reallocation Increase in IT staffing levels

78. ULS Technology Infrastructure Information Systems 70 servers Data storage/robotic backup systems Generator for server room as backup to UPS 12 systems analysts Central management of all systems/devices in ULS Digital Research Library 2 IC2 Digibook scanners 6 flatbed and stack scanners 6 FTE staff + dozens of graduate students/interns in LIS and History Automated processes for OCR process, etc. License middleware from U. of Michigan Outsource some scanning Emphasis on quality vs quantity

79. Funding for IT Infrastructure Student Computing Fees Generates $500,000+ per year for Library IT Additional staffing, hardware/software expenditure from budget OPAC expenses centralized as “enterprise” system (purchase, maintenance, management) Digital Research Library Initially with interest from endowments, reallocations of staff from TS re-eng project, and grants Now fully funded on budget from reallocation from lower priority areas Some grants, but only for high priority activities (ex. Digitizing photos from IMLS)

82. The ULS offers a variety of services and programs to help faculty mount digital resources online Project ideas may call for the digitization of physical resources or may begin with “born-digital” material

83. Current Digitization Projects Pitt Honors Convocation Programs Fred Wright Cartoons Historic Pittsburgh Glass plate negatives and photographs Hopkins plat maps City directories Books American Left Ephemera Santiago de Compostela Darlington Library Books Manuscripts University of Pittsburgh Press Digital Editions National Council of Jewish Women Oral History Project

84. Reformatting tapes 1,182 audiocassettes 512 interviews of Jewish immigrants conducted between 1968-2001 Creating preservation files and MP3s for online access Full release Spring 2009

85. Darlington Library Original Open Content Alliance participant Now 100+ contributors PALINET’s Mass Digitization Collaborative Pilot project contributed 90 books Two year commitment: 6,000 books Wide cross-departmental ULS involvement Scanning and hosting by the Internet Archive and accessible via PittCat+

86. The ULS has created successful digital publishing initiatives focused on: Pre-print archives to facilitate rapid dissemination of scholarly research “ Grey literature” to increase access to working papers, policy papers, conference proceedings, and technical reports Photographic image collections to provide broader access to visual material for research and teaching Textual collections to increase availability of rare and important print books and serials in the ULS care Journals

87. D-Scribe Publishing Categories http://www.library.pitt.edu/dscribe/az.html Electronic Theses & Dissertations (ETD) Electronic Journals Pre-Print and Grey-Literature Archives Image Collections Textual Collections

88. Darlington Digital Library Project 11,000 books donated by Darlington in 1918 500 historic maps Manuscript collections (Washington letters, etc) Broadsides, atlases, etc. Important collection of early Colonial American history More than 1,000 books digitized, opening in May, 2007 Completion in 3 years Contributed to OCA Collection on Americana

89. Number of Images Created by DRL Each Fiscal Year

90. Change the Organizational Culture

91. How do we do this? Leaders must lead Leaders must have vision for future and confidence to move toward it We must be risk-oriented, not risk-averse We must communicate internally and externally a consistent message Empower the producers, dis-empower the naysayers and curmudgeons Support growth and learning in staff Kill the sacred cows that are no longer working for us!

92. Internal Communication

93. New Instruction Room

94. Updated Conference Room

95. Future of Research Libraries

96. Library as Information Filtration System

97. We are connecting people to resources of all kinds needed for learning and critical thinking and (hopefully) knowledge No longer just “organizing” knowledge containers, but helping to create them and mold them, host them, etc.

98. Redefine Library’s Role in Teaching & Learning

99. Build digital content and systems in collaboration with campus stakeholders Adopt and adhere strictly to standards of interoperability Be the EXPERTS on Campus in Digital Technology

100. Library’s Role in Open Access Publishing Models Pitt is developing or contributing to OA models for: Open Access Journals Open Access discipline repositories (grey literature) ETD’s Mounting content from constituents Government Publications (EU) OAI Harvesting (statewide effort in PA)

101. Forging New Relationships

102. Borrowing Relationships

103. Partnership with Calliope: The Emerging Legends Series

104. Global Networking

105. East Asian Gateway Service Partners Tsinghua University Shanghai Jiaotong University Fudan University Wuhan University Nanjing University Sichuan University Chinese University of Hong Kong Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai Information Center for Life Sciences Fu Ssu-nien Library of Academia Sinica Peking University University of Macau National University of Taiwan Renmin University of China Sun Yat Den University Yanbian University

106. East Asian Gateway Service

107. Current Expansion of Gateway Model Gateway Document Delivery Service for the Andean Region (GDDSAR) Bolivia Ecuador Venezuela Colombia Peru

108. Further Expansion: Mali, Africa

109. Projections for the Digital Future More collaboration Develop expertise in digital publishing More international in focus

110. But, my budget is shrinking?! So is mine! We are facing as much as a $1.2 million budget reduction for FY10 We will maintain our focus on the future regardless by utilizing certain strategies:

111. FY10 Key Strategies Eliminate processes & functions that don’t contribute to core library missions or adapt to the changing nature of collections & environments Avoid defending traditional services & operations because they are time honored Position library resources and services for effectiveness and efficiency

112. Personnel Eliminate functions or processes that are no longer necessary Realign staffing patterns Leave non-essential positions unfilled Projected savings: $625,000

113. Operations/Acquisitions Scaling back faculty travel Conservative in purchase of monographs & new electronic purchases Temporarily suspend purchase of large electronic commercial products Review & cancel redundant databases Flipping rest of print journals to electronic where feasible Rollover of $400,000 to next year Savings projected: $550,000

114. In Closing. . . It is not merely a matter of whether or not libraries exist in the future, but how relevant they will be to the educational and research enterprise. That relevance is not assured but will be more likely if we learn to adapt better to our environment.

115. Finally, Our future is a digital future!!! Must expand the way we think of our roles in the digital future Must be prepared to question time honored “tradition” and embrace change

116. We must become more entrepreneurial and innovative We must move our libraries toward more flexibility/adaptability to be able to respond more quickly to change! We must lead change!

117. and if we don’t? Libraries that is stuck defending the past without embracing the future may become: P retty, I rrelevant G hosts

118. And you know what they say:

119. See: Wood, Elizabeth; Rush Miller and Amy Knapp. Beyond Survival: Managing Academic Libraries in Transition . (Westport, CT (US)/ London: Libraries Unlimited, 2007).