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Libraries are increasing becoming just a building. Georgia and the University System covers the cost of Galileo on-line access. It can provide electronic journals. Individual libraries can supplement that with database access they need not covered by Galileo which they pay for. KSU can rely on Galileo and use interlibrary loan for those things they don't have. So there is no need to upgrade the KSU library to research level.
thats not entirely the case... depending on the contracts of different journals they have to pay to use each different journal at different schools. That is why each school has a different access to those portals.
When I was working on my thesis at UGA in the 6th years straight of budget cuts they were looking at cutting the budget by not subscribing for access to a bunch of journals.... one in which I specifically needed frequently.
Access to all of these materials are provisioned through the library... a library is not just a building with books in it. I needed alot of different historical data sets... I got access to many of them through interlibrary loans. However, that was all done through the library and the library in some cases had to pay to get access to what I needed and sometimes they were able to do it off of traded system. Either way access to all of those materials for me to work on my thesis went through the library. (the irony of this discussion... one small thing I needed actually did get was loaned to UGA through compliments of Kennesaw State.)
The library isn't just a building and it isn't just books stacked... it is the go-to place to get what you need.
thats not entirely the case... depending on the contracts of different journals they have to pay to use each different journal at different schools. That is why each school has a different access to those portals.
When I was working on my thesis at UGA in the 6th years straight of budget cuts they were looking at cutting the budget by not subscribing for access to a bunch of journals.... one in which I specifically needed frequently.
Access to all of these materials are provisioned through the library... a library is not just a building with books in it. I needed alot of different historical data sets... I got access to many of them through interlibrary loans. However, that was all done through the library and the library in some cases had to pay to get access to what I needed and sometimes they were able to do it off of traded system. Either way access to all of those materials for me to work on my thesis went through the library. (the irony of this discussion... one small thing I needed actually did get was loaned to UGA through compliments of Kennesaw State.)
The library isn't just a building and it isn't just books stacked... it is the go-to place to get what you need.
That's fading fast. Libraries have been scrambling to remain relevant by adding coffee shops, relaxing food and drink restrictions, adding computer labs, adding more cultural events, etc. Library usage was dropping each year but thanks to the above there has been a reversal but the improved numbers give the wrong impression. In other words, all those things can be covered without the need for a library. What the average student seeks out at library is study space, group meeting space, and computer access.
Library reference services have noted consistent declines. I've heard that it has gotten to the point that Georgia Tech is merging its reference and circulation services to one desk and we'll probably see more and more consolidation over time. Georgia Tech does a lot of interlibrary loan services given its technical holdings but it is handled by a staff of only 6 people and maybe 2 student assistants. And that is mostly to handle the printed material that is copied, scanned, or physically sent. One of the staff works only with corporate clients.
More to the point about KSU needing to upgrade to a research library. Galileo can handle the need for database and journal access and really the campus Information Technology Services can handle that. Also services such as NetLibrary and Books24x7 will provide many ebooks and this will only expand. So I see all journal and most book access as going on-line. Google certainly wants to make more books available and for things out of copyright, there should be no problem. The University System is trying to create one big library in a sense with Galileo and services such as Gil Express. With Gil Express, a student can do an on-line request for a book and have it sent to his or her home library. I see no value in upgrading KSU's holding to a research library's as most of the needed material will be on-line, requested through interlibrary loan, or shoot, s/he can go to Emory or Tech.
Old school university presidents and provosts will probably support libraries for a while longer and certainly the library communty will try to perpetuate itself but in the long run, libraries are not worth the investment. We'll probably see more things like UGA's Learning Center
That's fading fast. Libraries have been scrambling to remain relevant by adding coffee shops, relaxing food and drink restrictions, adding computer labs, adding more cultural events, etc. Library usage was dropping each year but thanks to the above there has been a reversal but the improved numbers give the wrong impression. In other words, all those things can be covered without the need for a library. What the average student seeks out at library is study space, group meeting space, and computer access.
Library reference services have noted consistent declines. I've heard that it has gotten to the point that Georgia Tech is merging its reference and circulation services to one desk and we'll probably see more and more consolidation over time. Georgia Tech does a lot of interlibrary loan services given its technical holdings but it is handled by a staff of only 6 people and maybe 2 student assistants. And that is mostly to handle the printed material that is copied, scanned, or physically sent. One of the staff works only with corporate clients.
More to the point about KSU needing to upgrade to a research library. Galileo can handle the need for database and journal access and really the campus Information Technology Services can handle that. Also services such as NetLibrary and Books24x7 will provide many ebooks and this will only expand. So I see all journal and most book access as going on-line. Google certainly wants to make more books available and for things out of copyright, there should be no problem. The University System is trying to create one big library in a sense with Galileo and services such as Gil Express. With Gil Express, a student can do an on-line request for a book and have it sent to his or her home library. I see no value in upgrading KSU's holding to a research library's as most of the needed material will be on-line, requested through interlibrary loan, or shoot, s/he can go to Emory or Tech.
Old school university presidents and provosts will probably support libraries for a while longer and certainly the library communty will try to perpetuate itself but in the long run, libraries are not worth the investment. We'll probably see more things like UGA's Learning Center
rather than library expansions. The library is destined to be an on-line thing.
your continuing to miss the overall point with the discussion at hand....
someone says "library" and all you spending all of this time thinking about is the physical building you are use to walking into and seeing cooks on shelves (or coffee shops, labs, etc....)
However, all of these online things, historical databases, online journal access to newly published materials researchers need, programs to save physical content into electronic databases all come out of the library budget and are set up through the library. They all cost money and many of them are not done university system wide and frequently when they are each school has to pay for their own access. They are the library. You are right the way people access things are changing... but you all of these services you keep referring to ... are the library and paid for through the library.
This doesn't even begin to mention some of the specialized libraries, which are less the physical libraries you are thinking and more warehouses of boxed material being maintained for historical purposes and can't be found elsewhere.
You are focusing too much on how information is databased and accessed... and not enough realizing that a library is a repository of information regardless of how it is accessed or how that is set up.
your continuing to miss the overall point with the discussion at hand....
someone says "library" and all you spending all of this time thinking about is the physical building you are use to walking into and seeing cooks on shelves (or coffee shops, labs, etc....)
However, all of these online things, historical databases, online journal access to newly published materials researchers need, programs to save physical content into electronic databases all come out of the library budget and are set up through the library. They all cost money and many of them are not done university system wide and frequently when they are each school has to pay for their own access. They are the library. You are right the way people access things are changing... but you all of these services you keep referring to ... are the library and paid for through the library.
This doesn't even begin to mention some of the specialized libraries, which are less the physical libraries you are thinking and more warehouses of boxed material being maintained for historical purposes and can't be found elsewhere.
You are focusing too much on how information is databased and accessed... and not enough realizing that a library is a repository of information regardless of how it is accessed or how that is set up.
Your original point is that a school wanting to do research needs a well-funded library. In the past libraries gathered, cataloged, and stored that material. Libraries later provided access to electronic databases that sometimes were in-house. We now have a system-wide collection of databases, Galileo, that I believe is supported by UGA and Georgia State last I've heard. Increasingly these databases and even books are supported by third party vendors to which the library provides access. There is debate in the academic community to bypass "the library" as an institution and allow the campus information services to provide the access. Even individual schools within universities are providing their own access to third party databases.
The point I've been trying to make is that a school like KSU doesn't have to ramp up its library resources as it can use the existing university structure. The idea is to have the university system resources available to all institutions.
There is a reason why many library schools have been closing around the country. Libraries (as a building or institution or whatever) are questioning their future. Librarians at conferences frequently have topics about their future relevance. I think the future is that schools won't have to house the information but rather connect to third party vendors for books, journals, etc and the "library" can be removed as the middle man and universities can focus more on study facilities.
The point I've been trying to make is that a school like KSU doesn't have to ramp up its library resources as it can use the existing university structure. The idea is to have the university system resources available to all institutions. .
But what I'm trying to convey is it isn't that simple.
You can't pay to access the latest copies of a journal and distribute it to everyone through one payment... or at least if you can that payment reflects who all has access to it.
Galileo does house alot of internally and historically data based material from different libraries at the older universities (most notably UGA and GT).
Each university pays to access a wide variety of journals individually often with some consideration where that institutions stronger research focuses area. In my case UGA has one of the more respect Journalism and Mass Communications programs in the country, so there is wider access to all journals that reflect those topics and similar topics.
Now I still go and search through galileo, but I am doing through a portal into galileo that is unique to UGA. In a few cases the requirements of the material force me to access those journals on campus vs off campus log ins. It was UGA's library and department funds to the library that supported the wide availability of digital content access to certain publishers/journals. During all of the budget cuts several years at UGA... some of what was cut was the paid rights to access certain journals. One in which was of particular concern to me at the time, but it was UGA and their library that had been paying for it and it wasn't accessible to every institution with a Galileo access.
Interlibrary loans.... I had to use that a whole lot. The library pays for that. On a few occasions a book was sent as a loaner with shipping fees and sometimes a small rent, but more often or not... because I was trying to access a certain chart that was commonly published over many years I would get a mailing of a print out. Now UGA saved money by not having to buy as much stuff and store in case someone needed it, but some university had to have it and they had to pay for it to be copied and sometimes included a royalty fee. That service was provided through the library and their funds. I forget exactly what it was at this point... but I had to pay a fee for it as well.
Now in my example of UGA.... they became the benefactor of being a dumping ground for a huge set of outdated Arbitron ratings data and it is a huge collection organized by the rare books library. UGA got it because of their commitment to mass communications research and their commitment to maintain that repository.
I don't expect a place like KSU to hit that point, but when I look at GSU, what it has become, and realize it isn't quite yet 100 years old (2 years shy).... and then look at how quickly KSU has grown and the resources they have available from that student growth... with 50 years time... I can easily see it forming into a research university, but eventually they have to start paying for more access/storage of content, data, and publications.
In GSU's case... they have a particularly strong public policy school. (Keeping in mind they have only had status as a research university for about 16 years) their library is bound to support that. This would include paying for greater access to related journals, to spending more money becoming a repository for certain government and private data. No surprise given their research focus they have a new special collections Georgia Government Documentation Project.
Now they will look at forming Partnerships (Gilileo and Gil, interlibrary loans) and they will examine storage costs vs digitization/server costs vs microfiche storage costs to be more efficient.
What I am trying not to lose sight on ... is that is the library participating in that. It is the library that runs as a support mechanism to most efficiently catalog material and special collections that support a research institution's research programs in the most efficient manner possible.
There are 3 types of lies;
Lies,
Damn lies, and
Statistical Lies.
Fulton and DeKalb have OUTRAGEOUS property taxes. (double Cobb Counties for comparable price home),
and Georgia has STATE INCOME TAX, . . . and that pesky annoying annual tax on your car.
Drive an hour and a half to Tennessee, or 4 hours to Florida and they DONT have state Income tax or that car tax.
So,
Dont dislocate your arm patting yourselves on the back there Georgia Lawmakers and Tax collectors.
Instead you should look for ways to become more efficient, and save your residents a few bucks.
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