University Libraries

University Libraries: So Much to Research, So Few Index Cards!

Dr. Louis A. Pitschmann, dean of UA Libraries, oversees the library system's need to offer users more and to broaden its scope

Dr. Louis A. Pitschmann, dean of UA Libraries, oversees the library system's need to offer users more -- more services, more formats, more training, more outreach -- and to broaden its scope.

By Joanna C. Hutt

It’s a world of knowledge out there in the Information Age. All it takes to believe that is go to the library. And the trip can be daunting, because it’s no longer your father’s library. Today’s trip to the library can be physical or virtual.

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Under the leadership of Dr. Louis A. Pitschmann, named dean almost a year ago after the retirement of Dr. Charles Osburn, University Libraries is turning the journey through the library into an opportunity and an adventure. Because of technology, collaboration and partnerships, and strong support from the UA administration, users can tap into a quantity of research opportunities that couldn’t be foreseen even in recent history. The adventure lies in the side trips into sources and knowledge that would likely have been missed until now. Pitschmann call this adventure the "new serendipity."

Words that float around in today’s academic library environment include e-journals, e-books, access, search terms, Web of Science, WorldCAT, LION, JSTOR, as well as more familiar terms like catalog, index cards, microfiche and bound copies.

Libraries as Hybrids

"It’s important for our users to understand that our academic libraries are not doing a 180-degree turn," said Pitschmann. "We are not changing the course but we are broadening the scope. We are continuing to offer traditional resources while opening the doors to e-resources."

The print-driven subject areas can rest easy, as the library is not disposing of the print material. It won’t be paperless for some time, according to Pitschmann. "We are continuing to meet the print needs of those subject areas," he said.

The University Libraries, like other academic libraries, will be what Pitschmann calls hybrids, holding a mix of print and electronic materials, combining ownership of materials with access to other materials, and sharing resources with other regional and national academic libraries. Publishers and costs will drive many of the specific decisions on holdings.

Providing access to e-resources is in large measure a result of what publishers of academic materials are doing. "Publishers of reference materials have moved away from print as the primary form of delivery," said Pitschmann. "They are now delivering long-standing reference tools electronically."

Web Access to Knowledge

The Modern Language Association bibliography is one among many examples. The MLA moved from print a decade ago to CD ROM; now it is a Web-accessed index. In the print era, the researcher flipped through many, many pages. Today, that researcher does a key-word search by author, subject, genre or topic. The search covers multiple years of the index in a split second.

"As I’ve described it to students, it is now possible to identify what has been published on the topic they are researching, print it out, and devote the rest of the time -- time that used to be spent writing on index cards -- to the intellectual process of digesting, writing, or preparing for a presentation," said Pitschmann. "It saves days and weeks compared to the old method."

Costs of High-Tech Knowledge

With all this information on the Web, what will keep people coming in to the library? The answer is cost. "Over 95 percent of the Web content that supports higher education is NOT free," said Pitschmann. "Access to this wealth of information will be available at the library, which is the subscriber." And the 95 percent is extremely costly. "For example, the electronic MLA Bibliography costs more than the print version," he said.

One way for libraries to bear these high costs and to offer more services is through collaboration and partnerships. For example, peer institutions can negotiate special prices, and publishers have accepted this need. University Libraries is currently working also with the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries to test a pilot that will give users access to assistance at any time. "This program will connect the user to a real person, 24/7, who can then walk the researcher step by step to what he or she needs," said Pitschmann.

The UA administration is investing large sums of money to bring these new resources to students, faculty and staff. One of the newest additions to e-resources is the Web of Science citation index. (See accompanying story below on Web of Science.) The library can provide researchers access to information from 1992 through the present.

New Serendipity

So what is new? Isn’t knowledge still knowledge? Through history, great ideas have often come via serendipity, just by virtue of looking for something else. Web access and keyword searching in seconds and minutes have increased the odds many times over that new ideas can be found in unexpected journals or indexes or through keyword searches that lead to other words to use in searches. This is e-browsing at its best.

"Connecting with electronic journals, books and indexes takes you to places you’d never have gotten in another day and time," said Pitschmann. One of his favorite journals is Speculum, which is now e-indexed and in full text in JSTOR, one of the databases the University Libraries subscribes to. JSTOR provides electronic access to some 200 core scholarly journals, excluding five most recent years of each publication’s back issues.

"Using that same keyword in my favorite topic to search JSTOR, for example, would bring up my topic in journals I would never have looked in and which would never have been indexed in my favorite index," Pitschmann said.

WorldCAT may be the mother of all cataloging databases. It contains bibliographic information on more than 40 million items, including books, serials, scores, films, maps, computer files, mixed-media items, and more. It has a new bibliographic record added to the database in Dublin, Ohio, for a new book somewhere in the world every 15 seconds.

Pitschmann used the keywords "Tuscaloosa," "history," and "geology" to demonstrate the system. The results? Try it as an exercise. Each WorldCAT record offers links to related books, articles, journals and alternate key words for searching. WorldCAT is available to University Libraries users through the Alabama Virtual Library (AVL), funded by the Alabama Legislature and accessible from the Libraries’ Web page under Resources.

University Libraries for Everyone

Technology and the Internet are requiring libraries to offer more, not less: more services, more formats, more training, more outreach and more public relations. Many people can feel less secure in the face of rapidly changing technology and increasing numbers of ways to do more extensive research.

"We are dealing with practical issues like how we can deliver enough training sessions," said Pitschmann, "how we can over time deliver training-on-demand, how we can use an interactive module on our Web page, how we can deliver virtual reference help, and more.

"We are looking at issues like how we can make sure all new students and faculty can best use the breadth of resources we offer. We are now part of Bama Bound (new-student orientation), for example."

The research and reference resources are not just for faculty and students. Recently, the University’s Office of University Relations found several reasons to use the e-resources available through University Libraries. Keeping up with how often and where the University’s faculty experts are quoted is a monumental task for media relations writers and editors, requiring subscriptions to clipping services, as well as using other creative means. By using databases such as ProQuest Newspapers, the office has found citations it could otherwise have missed.

Chandra Clark, broadcast reporter/producer in broadcast marketing and media, recently attended "Exploring the UA Libraries," a training class designed to familiarize users with databases useful to their particular needs. "Navigating the libraries’ Web site is no longer the daunting task it was before the class," said Clark. "I can search efficiently, using what I learned about Boolean logic limiting terms and other methods, for the best background material for stories we are working on. I also discovered that we have several video libraries on campus."

A world of knowledge awaits UA faculty, staff and students. To access the many databases the libraries offer, go to the libraries’ main Web site at www.lib.ua.edu. Click on the link to Databases at the top of the page. Then click on the letter corresponding to the database/index you want.

For information regarding training sessions, contact Brett Spencer in Gorgas Library at 348-1200 or dbspence@bama.ua.edu.