Libraries in Transition: Reflecting on the Past, Present, and Future at Cheng Library

Thoughts from the Dean, Dr. Edward Owusu-Ansah.

Dean Edward Owusu-Ansah

 Any observer of academic libraries today knows of the challenges these libraries face across the nation and is also aware of the excitement that engulfs academic librarians as key participants in that most enduring of enterprises, the academy. The observer would also concede that while transformations have come slowly to the academy itself, the libraries that serve it have had to embrace change at a much faster pace. The academy has come to expect of its libraries a dynamism and nimbleness that places its operators on permanent alert.  Academic libraries, like all other libraries, are institutions in constant motion. That fact calls for frequent reflection on the ever-evolving state of libraries and on which directions the academic library should be pursuing at various stages in that evolution. 

Wherever such reflections lead us, whatever thoughts and contemplations we bring to bear upon what we do as library professionals, in the end, the value and sustaining logic for our operations and continuing existence will lie in how we handle what J. H. Shera articulated in his Sociological Foundation of Librarianship. In attempting to answer the question of what it is that librarians do that no one else does, Shera opined that the role of libraries was to “bring human beings and recorded knowledge in as fruitful a relationship as it is humanly possible to be.” The history of librarianship demonstrates the inextricable connection between the institution of the library and this social need that sanctions its existence. This has been true from the very beginning of libraries, born in the fertile valleys of the Euphrates, where a settled civilization and its need to document economic activity gave rise to record keeping and collections to serve that social purpose.

Fred Lerner (The Story of Libraries from the Invention of Writing to the Computer Age) wrote: “The wisdom of the past, the learning of the present, the hopes and fears of the future – through the written word, all could be preserved and called upon whenever needed. In this realization lay the birth of libraries.” In fact, in that realization lay the justification for libraries. Libraries as institutions have always been products of social necessity. Over time those social functions have moved beyond mere economic activity to other social imperatives. As those new imperatives emerged and earned a place within the domain of information and knowledge mediation, they have expanded the scope and value of libraries.

  Jean Key Gates (Introduction to Librarianship) expressed the scope and value in such needs as the preservation of government documents, supporting instruction, furthering formal education, providing materials for scholarly research, providing resources for creating and sustaining an informed citizenry, serving purposes of self-improvement, self-education, and recreational reading, and preserving the recorded cultural heritage of the past for future ages. Gates asserted that the obligation on the part of the librarian is “to use his knowledge of recorded materials and of the principles and techniques of selection, or organization, and arrangement as well as his knowledge of the needs of the clientele he serves to plan and execute a program within his own library for accumulating, preserving, using, and disseminating recorded knowledge.” It is fair to add beyond such acquiry and processing functions, the need to empower the information seeker with the skills for discriminate and efficient information identification, retrieval, selection, and use. For as John M. Budd (The Changing Academic Library: Operations, Culture, Environments) puts it, “higher education aims to foster learning through discovery, which implies that knowledge grows as students (and faculty) find connections previously unknown to them.” 

  We at Cheng Library are aware of such historical and ongoing obligations. We are cognizant of the academic library’s basic collection, preservation, processing, access, and quality control functions. We know what the emergence and ubiquitous presence of digital resources, growing expansion of opportunities for remote access, and the spread of computers in library and home environments portends. Our users have come to expect library resources and services that embrace these opportunities and developments. They want a library that responds adequately to the ways they discover and use information. They expect remote access upon demand and physical library environments that support flexible approaches within the library. Adequate availability of networked computers, easy printing, spaces that are conducive to group and collaborative work, and spaces that allow for independent quiet study as well are normal expectations. Our users expect comfortable seating spaces for the relaxed reader. In an increasingly virtual world, the library as place has never been more desired. 

Faculty members appreciate informal academic spaces where they can meet with each other or with their students as they extend classroom and departmental activities beyond the walls of the classroom and department. You, our users, want us to provide services that facilitate efficient and effective individual and group information seeking skills and behaviors.  You want the content we mediate to reflect a selectivity and sensitivity that targets the highest of intellectual productivity and standards of excellence. You want our physical spaces, for as long as they persist, to support different learning styles and needs and to embrace and house institutionally synergistic activities and solutions that address student success and sense of community. We get it and we are working on a myriad of solutions that hopefully meet your demands and expectations.

We are having discussions and devising solutions at Cheng Library as we explore how best to serve you, our institution, students, faculty, staff, and our broader community. We hope you will chime in so that together we may shape that desired future. 

February 29, 2016