The Academic Library and Its Users

Citation

Revill, D. (2001), "The Academic Library and Its Users", New Library World, Vol. 102 No. 1/2, pp. 68-72. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.2001.102.1_2.68.5

It is quite a task to write about a library’s users when one considers the various age groups involved, the subjects they study, the different modes of attendance, attainment levels (from first years to the tenth year PhD), and teaching methods, which all make different demands on library services. Jordan, drawing on his experience largely at Manchester Metropolitan University, covers the academic environment, quality, users in general, students, subject communities, researchers, user education, publicity and promotion, and lessons for the future.

In such a short book omissions are inevitable. The more obvious, to me, are the lack of attention to administrative and manual staff as well as special services to senior academics and the university top management that can do so much to affect perceptions of the library. Libraries tend to be designed to serve identified groups, market segments, rather than the individuals who approach us. Therein lies our dilemma. There could also have been more on topics such as opening hours, access, delivery systems, rewards for wider reading, licences for electronic sources and photocopying. Convergence, copyright, performance measures, overseas students, franchising, distance learners, and other aspects of services are mentioned but all too briefly. Plagiarism is not featured while there could have been much more on the effects of modularisation, reading lists, service level agreements, learning contracts and similar issues rather then the few lines devoted to these topics. A limitation on length perhaps rather than a lack of opinion or information.

The book covers what we know about user attitudes and behaviours, how libraries do or ought to respond to these, and the issues they raise, with some suggested solutions. There are chapter references that stop at 1997. Some of the references are a little dated now and do suggest that the Centre for Research on User Studies’ publications represent a great deal of what we know about users. It is a pity that the emphasis in recent years seems to have gone elsewhere. Little use is made of various in‐house studies other than those at Manchester perhaps because so many go unpublished. Use is made of foreign sources, particularly North American but less so Australian experience that has much to say about these matters. However we do tend to assume, somewhat uncritically, that what is found in such English‐speaking countries does apply, or can be applied, to the UK. We are still talking about endemic problems concerning such matters as the liaison function. Solutions still elude us.

Jordan states that it is beyond his scope to deal with the special needs of music, law, and nursing but does look briefly at the broader fields of art and design, humanities, social science, and science and technology.

Various dilemmas are touched on including the extent to which the library should give assistance to any enquirer. While Ranganathan’s “laws” included “Save the time of the reader” it should not include doing the student’s work if the tutor’s intention was otherwise!Only the closest contact with the lecturing staff can ascertain the correct level.

Some tips might have been included such as persuading academic staff to refer students to “authorities”, and keywords rather than specific titles thus both reducing demand for the obvious texts (which are usually in short supply) and creating a better learning event. I believe it was Farradane’s advice that one should seldom give an enquirer everything you have found but keep back several items for later. People are not necessarily happy to receive a comprehensive answer involving a dozen monographs and 50 periodical articles. That would ruin a weekend. Most people simply need “enough” to get started. You can then contact the enquirer and say that you have been thinking about the enquiry and can offer some more assistance. You have then created a relationship rather than merely satisfied an enquiry. Peter Brophy’s advice too is relevant. He suggests we should under‐promise and over‐supply thereby producing a “highly satisfied” rather than a simply “satisfied” customer!

Jordan recognises IT as the solution to many problems yet acknowledges its limitations, not least in this reviewer’s opinion that it can lead some students to expect instant answers to complex problems, often accepted uncritically and leading to a neglect of proper planning and scheduling of work.

User education is addressed including the problem of persuading students to attend such sessions. This is all too familiar. The problem has been with us for generations. It is linked to academic staffs’ expectations that students should already have the skills required in order to undertake higher education; their wish to get on with teaching subject content rather than “learning to learn” studies and their suspicions about librarians as pseudo academics. Skill in IT is seen as important and to that extent user education is acceptable if linked to computer literacy. Yet the question still remains of who ought to teach it. Should the students be expected to teach themselves, or adopt the old library college concept of “each one teach one”. Should academic staff, technical staff or librarians do it and should it really be embedded in the subject structure rather than being done by some outsider? More on such matters might have been, usefully, included. There is a checklist of features of a good presentation (pp. 129‐30). Librarians tend to shy away from more formal evaluations including pre and post tests and the calculation learning gain.

Jordan recognises the dilemma of providing services in the light of a reducing resource base and the conflicts involved for example where the objective of tuition in information use is to make the student less dependent on assistance but which may have the unintended consequence of increasing pressure on enquiry services but at a higher level of enquiry. One definition of higher education is that which leaves the student at a higher level of confusion!As both academic and library staff to student ratios decline there is that much less time and inclination to get involved in liaison despite its obvious (to us) necessity. Indeed there is some anecdotal evidence that newly built, more centralised, libraries may themselves dissuade library staff from venturing beyond their walls while academic staff may not use the new, improved, resource as much as they did the small, more local, facility. Despite networked services, propinquity still seems to matter. The library service is generally still seen as a separate and different element in an educational institution. This separation still exists while library and academic staff remain distinct entities. We still hear complaints that academic staff do not involve library staff in course planning, validation and evaluation; that lecturers do not sufficiently inform the library of reading expected, of projects set and so on. How to change it? “They could all be alleviated by improved liaison” (p. 123). Indeed so. Other than giving the libraries to the academics and telling them to run them while we all resign, perhaps more direct methods could be employed. One librarian adopted a bookfund formula that favoured departments that involved a high proportion of their students in library induction and further tuition. The other teaching departments soon noticed!Uproar ensued but attention was drawn and improvements made. I once proposed a “reward” scheme where funds allocated for library purposes to teaching departments were to be enhanced by a schedule of increments driven by reading lists submitted, number of students scheduled for induction, journals holdings reviewed annually and similar features. The Academic Board had to approve it. I lost by 10 votes to 8 with 17 abstentions, on the grounds that it would give too much power to the library and if they had to reward everyone for doing the right thing then chaos would ensue. Straight out of Cornford (Cornford, 1953).

Perhaps I am expecting too much subtlety from so short a book. There is much common sense in it, most of which is known and accepted by experience library staff, but too little shared with, or acknowledged by, academics especially senior management. As Jordan says “There is little worse than knowing that senior management believe what you are doing is marginal” (p. 123). Inevitably in so short a book many interesting topics receive less attention than they deserve. Perhaps the intention is to suggest topics for students to pursue? Jordan neglects to tell us his intended audience in his preface but the jacket blurb mentions practically all of us. Experienced staff will learn little new from this title but others might, particularly students. I enjoyed reading it for its perspective on the user and as a summary of an important area deserving a more extensive treatment. No doubt a second edition could be a much more ambitious affair.