For-Profit Information Providers: Are Libraries Threatened?
This debate brings up issues that have long been of concern to those in the library world, such as marketing. As a profession, librarians have always had trouble promoting what it is we do and marketing our wares. People don't really know what we do (and assume we read books all day), and that's really our own fault. We know that digital collections could never replace us, but if the bodies that fund us believe, however incorrectly, that we can be replaced by subscriptions to digital collections, then we surely are threatened.
Many in the library field feel that to look at these companies as a threat is to miss the point. We should rather look at it as a chance to reevaluate our services and our marketing of those services. The central question here is: what is it that students find attractive about Questia and similar companies? Clearly it is the convenience of the access to information. Instead of feeling threatened by for-profit information providers we’d be better off examining the quality of access we've been providing and try to find ways to make it more convenient for students to access our materials and our services. Providing 24/7 online reference services is just one of the innovative ways that librarians are attempting to do this (see my article on Digital Reference Services, for example).
Our task now in this critical time in our field should be to convey what we as librarians have known all along - that libraries are much more than buildings that house old musty books. Besides texts and online article databases, the library provides research services, personal and specialized assistance from a trained librarian with a masters degree in information organization and access, online database searching skills, and teaching information literacy. These things can’t simply be supplanted by online access to digital collections, no matter how impressive and comprehensive they might be. But we need to demonstrate how critical we as libraries and librarians are, and be willing to make changes to improve in the areas we're lacking.
So, are libraries threatened? That all depends on our reaction to this exciting new time in our field. We're only threatened if we fail to face the challenges that arise, and if we choose to see them as threats rather than opportunities.
For Further Reading . . .
Article on Questia Media in The Chronicle of Higher Education
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