ABSTRACT
It has long been apparent to academic library administrators that the current technical services operations within libraries needs to be redirected and refocused, in terms of both format priorities and human resources. A number of developments and directions have made this reorganization imperative:
While purchased print resources will continue into the future, there will be less of them due to the availability and popularity of online and electronic resources that contain either exact or similar content.
Every library purchases the same “stuff.” It is our special collections, our unique materials that no one else owns and for which there is little if any access either physically or bibliographically, that holds the key to survival for libraries into the future.
Our current human resources in technical services have focused for too long on purchased print resources as the priority content; libraries need to redirect their scarce resources towards the organization and description of the unique information that each library holds in their special collections and archives, information that is not held anywhere else in the world.
New directions in libraries, in the areas of metadata, digitization, and digital projects, hold the key to broader collaboration and cooperation in academia with faculty and students, as they struggle with challenges regarding access, curricula, information organization and description, and digital preservation of their created content.
In the current economic and budget crises, libraries can no longer hire the needed expertise and talent to move forward into these new initiatives, at least not as broadly as they could have five years ago. They must retool and retrain current staff to assist in these initiatives, and make strategic decisions regarding what processes and workflows will no longer be maintained or supported. Technical services staff are uniquely qualified, with their attention to detail and work in metadata standards, to assist libraries as scanning and metadata technicians to digitize and describe objects in the digital environment.
Our legacy and proprietary integrated library systems (ILSs) cost too much and don’t do what we want them to do; open source and Web 2.0 technologies are now advanced enough that, working in consortial and cooperative models, libraries can use combined human resources (especially in the network and programmer areas) to move, manipulate, inventory, purchase, archive/preserve, and provide access to their metadata and digital content in a much more consistent and efficient manner for their patrons, using different cost models and throughputs that are more efficient and cost-effective in the long run, while providing much more user-friendly and interactive search and discovery interfaces.
Finally, it is through the retooling, retraining, and re-engineering of technical services staff and their skills from the analog/print world into the digital world (digitization, digital projects, metadata, etc.) that libraries have a chance to become players in the growing commercialization of accessibility in the information marketplace.
