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8 May, 2007
What is a Library?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a library as "a building or room containing collections of books, periodicals, and sometimes films and recorded music for people to read, borrow, or refer to". As the Internet continues to expand in the number of services, many of these services for which people used to go to libraries are now being rapidly taken over by the Internet. So, it is a fair question to ask what will become of libraries in the next five to twenty years.
A survey was distributed amongst a random selection of 60 Stanford students to determine what they thought about how libraries were going to change in the next five to twenty years.
Although the majority of the students in the survey were of the opinion that libraries would not undergo any radical changes in the coming twenty years, it is also worth noting that a very significant 40% of survey participants thought otherwise. Following are two excerpts, presented "as is" from the survey, from either side of the argument, which convey the major points made by survey respondents for either answer:
"With the advent of electronic libraries, more and more library material will be available from the the internet/library networks. Thus, I think physical libraries will be decreasingly used to check out books and do research; and instead be used more frequently as a source of resources (i.e., special services and equipment) and a study location."
"The essential aspects of libraries, which are book collections and research materials, have not changed in the past very much. While libraries have added many technological advances, I do not expect the essential aspects to change."
Two other questions were also asked in the survey regarding how often the survey respondent visits libraries and for what purpose. Click on the thumbnails for the full size image.
A Bookless Library
Meyer Library is in a very unique and fortunate position by being one of the first bookless libraries at Stanford. Instead of books, the library houses computer clusters on both floors, multiple technology-equipped classrooms and a technology desk (the "Tech Desk"). The Tech Desk on the second floor checks out equipment such as notebook computers, camcorders, hard drives, audio recorders, optical drives, cables and connectors, etc. It is staffed by a team of approximately twenty consultants who field both technical and non-technical questions.
Breaking the stereotype of a library has allowed Meyer to add some very unique and valuable services over the years such as Wide Format Poster Printing and the Multimedia Studio.
Objectives
Although libraries in the future may become profit-making organizations, Meyer Library, despite breaking many norms, is still a not-for-profit organization. However, in order to receive continued funding and be relevant to the Stanford community, the library must offer useful services to the community and this usefulness needs to be measured quantitatively. In order to achieve this goal, in 2005, the Meyer Tech Desk began using a Consultant Log in which every consultant logs every interaction with a patron. Analysis of the log records easily shows trends in popularity and the growth of certain services.
The total number of interactions, that is, the total number of patrons visiting the desk for any kind of assistance, increased by a factor of 1.4x between 2005-06 and 2006-07. The graph above depicts the three major services that the Tech Desk offers (determined by volume of consultant-patron interactions). We see that Poster Printing requests have seen the most rapid growth, followed by the number of technical questions consultants get asked and the number of Equipment Checkouts. These salient services, which form the core set of Meyer services, will be the focus of the website.
Website Features
Each of the three core services mentioned in the previous section will need to be supported and extended by the website in different ways.
- Technical Consulting
Most of the technical questions at Meyer Library fall into one of two categories:
- The consultant knows the solution or can derive the solution, or
- The consultant cannot derive the solution
Case 2 is the case that needs to be minimized. However, it also needs to be optimized such that, given that it occurs, the consultant should still be able to locate a solution for the patron in a reasonable amount of time. To implement this, a forum, a wiki or a combination of the two will need to be implemented such that a consultant can find information in a streamlined fashion. This forum/wiki will be a repository of troubleshooting tips for problems that are specific to either Stanford or Meyer Library.
- Equipment Checkout
Equipment Checkout is one of more difficult aspects when it comes to improving library services because it is intrinsically tied to Stanford University Library's Workflows software which is a closed system. This places a restriction on making any fundamental changes to the library checkout paradigm which was designed with books in mind.
Currently, the Meyer Tech Desk checks out a very wide range of technical equipment ranging from notebook computers and camcorders to connector cables and headphones [complete list]. The range of inventory is currently determined by the consultants and new items are added to the inventory if a sizable number of consultants feel that patrons are demanding certain equipment which is not available.
The aim with improving Equipment Checkout will be to take this imprecise method of determining demand and convert it into a more deterministic method in which patrons can go to a section of the Meyer website to request items that they would like to be made available for checkout and, if a sizable number of patrons place requests for a certain item, it will be evaluated by the team leaders and, if found feasible, added to the inventory.
- Poster Printing
Poster Printing is one of the unique services that is offered at Meyer Library and it is available to anyone with a Stanford ID. The Poster Printing facility has a high demand because it is very convenient, offers competitive pricing against commercial alternatives such as FedEx Kinko's and posters are customizable in order to best match the patron's individual needs.
Between 2005-06 and 2006-07, the Poster Printing facility has seen a 300% increase in the number of jobs, which can be largely attributed to its growing popularity by word-of-mouth and thanks to the more streamlined "full service" system that was put in place in the beginning of 2006.
One of the key areas where the facility needs to improve is in service speed. In the current model, any poster printing job that is accepted before noon on any given day is promised the next day and any job that is accepted after noon is promised on the second day. These delivery times do not reflect the actual print times (which are usually about one to two hours per poster), but are instead in place to guard against emergencies which might lead to unforeseen delays.
The biggest bottleneck for patrons who wish to print posters is the actual trip they need to make to the library in order to submit the print job. They need to come once more the next day or on the second day to pick up the completed poster. Our goal is to eliminate the first visit by taking the job submission step online. In addition to making the process a lot less cumbersome for patrons, this will also allow us to keep records of poster print jobs in a database as opposed to a binder.
It will also allow the patron to check on the status of their job online, be informed as soon as it is completed and save their information so that they do not need to fill in the same information repeatedly when printing multiple posters. The majority of our patrons print posters on behalf of their departments and usually need to be reimbursed for the printing cost. By default, we do not print out receipts because many patrons do not need them and it is simply a waste of paper. However, many patrons forget to ask for a receipt at the time of poster pickup and have to come in a third time for a receipt which involves carefully looking up old paper-based records and printing a receipt for the patron. However, with the new poster printing website, patrons will be able to print out receipts online for all the posters they've ever printed and whenever they want.
- Advertising
Another major reason why most of the potential of the Meyer services is untapped is because many people do not know about our services. A website that focuses primarily on Meyer Library will greatly increase the number of patrons using our services because they will know about their existence and also offer detailed information about how they work.
Project Development and Maintenance
The initial website development effort will be done by me. Since it will be free-of-charge, it will not require any financial investment on behalf of Meyer Library. However, after my graduation, the consultants team will either have to comprise of at least one member who is dedicated to the task of maintaining the website and adding more features to it, or a dedicated developer may be assigned to the task.
Foreseeable Issues
The salient foreseeable issue with this website project is that it is large enough to be beyond the scope of a 5-6 week project. Another significant obstacle is that the construction of a large part of the website will be technically involved and so some of the suggested features will remain as placeholders due to lack of time until dedicated development can take place to implement those features.
