Digital dawn

CHAPTER 3

Digital dawn: libraries experiment and adapt to new technology Academic libraries had already undergone many changes, including several phases of automation before the launch of the World Wide Web in 1989, but the development of easily accessible online information resources would later challenge the professional identity of librarians and value of libraries. Before directly addressing the problem of electronic resources for libraries, it is helpful and necessary to explore an important intermediate step, the development and demise of CD-ROM services in academic libraries. Whatever the many shortcomings of this technology and associated business models, the very first documented electronic resources librarians were in fact CD-ROM specialists. Understanding and adapting to the challenges of CDROM helped libraries begin to adapt to the new online frontier.

3.1 The problem of new information resources: revisiting CD-ROM Compact disc-read only memory (CD-ROM) was first developed in 1982 by the company Denon in Japan as an adaptation of the earlier Compact Disc Digital Audio technology developed by Sony and Philips in 1980. CD-ROM had a maximum storage capacity of 650 megabytes as the technology matured, a tiny amount of storage by standards in the second decade of the 21st century, but this was a vast improvement over contemporary options when the technology was first introduced. To give one a sense of scale, desktop computers sold to consumers commonly had 20- and 40-megabyte hard drives in the late 1980s. Previous advances in library automation, apart from early online databases such as Dialog, had a greater impact on back-end workflows as opposed to front-end operations and collections. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, most libraries provided collections based overwhelmingly on physical The Role of the Electronic Resources Librarian ISBN 978-0-08-102925-1 https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-102925-1.00003-9

Copyright © 2020 George Stachokas. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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information resources. CD-ROM forced librarians to rethink collections and services, both technical and public, in more fundamental ways that foreshadowed some of the greater changes to come with the development of online journals, eBooks, and even Webscale Discovery Services. David H. Davies, project manager for 3M’s Optical Recording Project, provides a concise but in-depth description of CD-ROM technology. Physically, the CD-ROM or disc was a 120 mm donut-shaped polycarbonate plastic disc with a 15 mm hole. One side of the plastic disc was embossed with recesses or pits, coated in aluminum and lacquer, in order to store digital data. Information was read from the plastic side of the disc while the lacquered side could be labeled (Davies, 1988, 34). Davies further explained how the components of a CD-ROM drive read the data encoded on the disc using an optical head with a laser diode (Davies, 1988, pp. 34e36). Perhaps, most remarkably given later developments in information technology, Davies wrote of the then 550 megabyte storage capacity that “the technology currently exceeds the application base; the problem of developing exciting and useful applications is today’s challenge” (Davies, 1988, p. 42). Many saw the early CD-ROMs only as the first generation of a much broader and more user-friendly technology, “Ultimately new information productsdones which do not exist today in any formdwill be introduced, and new markets will include people who never before have been heavy information consumers” (Schwerin, 1988, p. 54). Regarding the economics of CD-ROM, Peter Schipma noted that, “The CD-ROM is a published medium, much like paper. Making the master disc is expensive, as is the type-setting for a book; pressing copies is inexpensive, as is pressing the copies of a book once the plates have been made” (Schipma, 1988, p. 66). Elaborating further, Schipma estimated that the expense of CD-ROM systems precluded individual buyers, but CD-ROM databases would be viable products in the contemporary marketplace of the late 1980s if hundreds or thousands of copies could be sold, making business feasible as long as these services were attractive to libraries (Schipma, 1988, p. 66). Vendors often sold CD-ROM databases in bundles that included the drives necessary to read the discs in 1980s. Bill Zoellick lamented the lack of interchangeability or interoperability of these early CD-ROM, which remarkably coexisted in the same time with interchangeable music CDs that were based on a different application or use of the same disc (Zoellick, 1988). This further increased the cost and inconvenience of maintaining multiple CD-ROM databases as early CD-ROMs were shackled with three different types of incompatibility in hardware, media including systems environments, and

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retrieval software (Zoellick, 1988). A given library might not only have to purchase or lease the CD-ROM database but also buy compatible computers, CD-ROM drives, monitors, and printers. Like many other early technologies, standardization and interoperability were an afterthought in CD-ROM. By the late 1980s, library literature was virtually awash in publications about CD-ROM as noted by Raja Jayatilleke, “Every characteristic and technical detail has been researched, reviewed, and dissected in the minutest way. Yet, no definitive suggestions for dealing with the high service costs have emerged” (Jayatilleke, 1987, p. 98). Writing in 1988 in the Journal of Library Administration, John Cochenour and Patricia Weaver-Myers emphasized that “CD-ROM has gone from a buzzword to a technology that commands sole attention at more than one national conference” (Cochenour & Weaver-Meyers, 1988, 57). To confirm, a search by the author of “CD-ROM” in April 2019 using the Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA) database produced 11,469 hits albeit “trade publications” with 4586 hits was the highest category in search results. Interestingly, a search of “CD-ROM” produced 14,099 hits in Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) with “scholarly journals” ranked as the first category accounting for 10,537 hits. Given limited resources, staffing, and the challenges of a shifting technology marketplace, libraries often struggled to manage CD-ROM information services while many continued to celebrate its potential. One of the greatest challenges of CD-ROM was cost. John B. Lowe, Library Automation Consultant and doctoral student at the University of California Berkeley, wrote that “The CD-Revolution is upon us, and, at least in the beginning, it is going to be expensive” (Lowe, 1988, p. 37). Lowe noted how the “up-front” costs of CD-ROM technology would have to be born by either the information providers or the information consumers (Lowe, 1988, p. 38). While acknowledging the costs of producing content, producing the CD-ROMs, acquiring the technology necessary to read the discs and for users to access them, Lowe hoped that reproduction and distribution costs, along with all associated maintenance costs of both updating content and computer equipment, would drop over time since CD-ROM would need to be cost-effective in comparison to print and existing online dial-up technologies in order to acquire market share. Furthermore, a dedicated but small user group with professional expertise, mostly librarians and other public sector specialists in higher education, would work with the private sector to find ways to produce better products and achieve broader distribution (Lowe, 1988).

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Content providers that sold CD-ROM to libraries often seemed acutely aware of the need to work with librarians to develop and sell their products. Karen Hunter, Vice President and Assistant to the Chairman, Elsevier Science Publishers, B.V., stated that “Publishers would like to understand libraries’ desires and concerns about CD-ROM. How fast will CD-ROM be accepted by the librariesdor will it be a fad which is replaced within five years by something else?” (Hunter, 1988, p. 42). Barbara Beach of Gale Research wrote 10 years later, “The library market presents special challenges to market research. The varied layers of purchaser and users add complexity to the design and development process. The customer is not always the consumer; the librarian is not always the end user” (Beach, 1998, p. 61). Just as libraries began to adapt to the challenges of electronic resources management during the heyday of CD-ROM, the period served as a valuable learning opportunity for some publishers and vendors as well. Paul Travis Nicholls provides a “statistical profile” in his words of CDROM at the time of writing in 1988. First, the total universe of available CD-ROM databases had risen from zero in 1985 to roughly 200 as tracked in Bower’s Optical Directory (Nicholls, 1988, p. 38). This compares favorably to the growth rate of the original “online” databases such as Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) that were first launched in the late 1960s. These “online” resources numbered around 60 in 1976 and approximately 400 by 1986 (Butler, 1988, p. 49). Broken down by subject area, 32% of CD-ROMs could be assigned to the “general” category; 31% to science and technology; 18% to business; 15% to social science; and 6% to humanities (Nicholls, 1988, p. 38). Roughly half of the available databases were indexes, sometimes without abstracts, while the other half were divided between full-text source and reference (Nicholls, 1988, p. 40). According to Nicholls, costs varied from $112 to over $25,000 with a median cost per disc of $1273; roughly a quarter of CD-ROM were updated frequently defined as from “1 week to 2 months” while three quarters of CD-ROM products were updated at least on a quarterly basis (Nicholls, 1988, p. 42). Costs for the same information resources in different formats have shifted over time, but CD-ROM generally cost more than print. Writing in 1991, Marilyn J. Martin reported that Biological Abstracts cost $7660 in CD-ROM format and $5845 in print while Compendex Plus cost $2085 in print format and $3450 in CD-ROM (Martin, 1991, p. 95). However, it is important to add that the cost of CD-ROM did seem to decline from the time that it first appeared in the 1980s. Nancy Melin Nelson wrote in Library Journal that the median price for CD-ROM had already fallen from $1300 in 1987 to $1000

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in 1989 (Nelson, 1990, p. 47). Most importantly, for most librarians and patrons, there were no connect or communication charges as with other dial-up online systems before the World Wide Web (Karp, 1988). Overall, one could argue that CD-ROM was relatively affordable and accessible for most libraries in the United States in the late 20th century. CD-ROM, somewhat like the introduction of electronic resources in the 1990s, also served to democratize and promote greater accessibility to users without the need for mediation by librarians. For some reference librarians, use of new databases stored on optical discs freed up their time since they had previously been searching contemporary online systems on behalf of patrons due to charges per use, although there was a tradeoff between doing on behalf of users versus teaching them how to use new information resources (Karp, 1988). Ron J. Rietdyk, Vice President, SilverPlatter Information Services, Inc., wrote that “From the beginning of the product design it was stressed that this product should be able to be used directly by the true end user of the library and not only by the experienced searcher” (Rietdyk, 1988, p. 58). As Paul Kahn noted “CD-ROM has made it possible for the first time to deliver databases that take up many hundreds of megabytes of storage space on personal computers” (Kahn, 1988, p. 169). In his review of six CD-ROM user interfaces, Khan confirmed a broad range of usability with SilverPlatter providing the best support for printing and saving files combined with a simple search interface. Having reviewed searching, browsing, the ability to refine results, as well as printing and saving files, Kahn concluded that in this early phase of development, too many CD-ROM databases reproduced the limitations of the original online databases developed in the 1970s (Kahn, 1988). While this problem is not unique to libraries or information services, a recurring theme in electronic resources management is the delay in grasping opportunities for systemic change offered by new technologies. It is important to note that for many library staff, the development of CD-ROM services coincided with their introduction to personal computers. This was partly a coincidence due to the growing use of personal computers in offices in general in the late 1980s, not only the investment of libraries in CD-ROM. While the focus of this chapter is on historical developments in North America, some of the same changes were also occurring in the rest of the English-speaking world. Dennis Warren, a subject librarian on Monash University in Australia, discusses the impact of CD-ROM on staff and users. The Information Desk had a greater workload that included explaining how to use technology and troubleshooting problems (Warren, 1989). Warren

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also lamented the lack of online tutorials and resource-specific instructions for contemporary CD-ROM services. He argued for developing user support for CD-ROM that would copy user support for computers in general. This approach included an unobtrusive strategy so that knowledgeable library staff responded to user requests at the point of need rather than offering unwanted advice, direct access to human assistance as well as relevant training or documentation materials, and the need for user support to be flexible, adaptive, and informative to users (Warren, 1989, 83). By the early 21st century, many organizations, not just libraries, were using CD-ROM as instructional materials such as the Journey: Discovery Social Services 9-module multimedia course used by the State of New York to train new social services personnel and developed by the Bureau of Training and Workforce Development (Bookhagen, Wegengast & McCowan, 2002). To understand the impact of CD-ROM on library reference services, Kristine Salomon conducted a survey of 150 colleges and universities based on a randomized list of institutions derived from the 1985 American Library Directory. Salomon included only libraries that the Directory listed as a college or university library, not as a military or specialized library, and held more than 200,000 books (Salomon, 1988). The 80% response rate provided a number of interesting results. CD-ROM adoption was greater at 68% than that of early online services such as Dialog with only 34% of libraries offering those services. Roughly, 76% of respondents agreed that users would accept CD-ROM while 74% of librarians agreed that they welcomed the new technology as well. Only 35% of librarians indicated that patrons would not find CD-ROM difficult to use while a majority expected users to have problems in developing good strategies. Only 24% of librarians anticipated that CD-ROM would replace print reference resources such as Books in Print while 35% of respondents indicated that CD-ROM would not replace any print resources at all. While 40% were willing to use book budgets to purchase CD-RPM, 26% were not. Fifty-eight percent of reference librarians saw the introduction of CD-ROM services as increasing the amount of work required at the reference desk, including troubleshooting and maintenance of the CD-ROM and associated equipment (Salomon, 1988). CD-ROMs presented new challenges for cataloging as well. Dickinson College in Pennsylvania organized CD-ROM into four categories: music, reference, data, and parts of sets (usually CD-ROM accompanying monographs). Depending on the expected use of a CD-ROM and how conversant library staff were with the contents, different levels of cataloging were used. Music CDs received full records but not call numbers since the

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collection was closed and simply designed with “CD-ROM” and an accession number. Reference CDs were also fully cataloged with special modifications for location, but data CDs were sometimes only classified by accession number and did not always receive full subject analysis. Parts of sets were managed on a case-by-case basis, sometimes with both the book and accompanying CD-ROM designated as in-house use only (Persons, 1996). As another physical medium, however, CD-ROM did not lead directly to the kind of transformative questions that electronic resources have inspired such as linked data but simply required extensive modification of machine-readable cataloging (MARC) records, often done more to suit local needs of circulation and housing. While not as transformative as electronic resources, CD-ROM had an impact on all aspects of library operations. The University of Northern Iowa experienced a 16.6% growth in interlibrary loan requests from 1989/1990 to 1990/1991. Networking CD-ROMS in the following year witnessed a 43.6% increase (Martin & Rose, 1996, p. 98). Perhaps most importantly in the future development of electronic resources management, CD-ROM often required complex license agreements that required an understanding of content, technology, and overall usability (Martin & Rose, 1996). CDROM also made the work of assessment more complex in collection development as noted by Veronica Harry and Charles Oppenheim, “To evaluate a CD-ROM product, one not only needs to consider such elements as purpose, authority, scope, audience, format, and cost, but one also has to consider features such as the user interface software, the search software, and the reliability of the package” (Harry & Oppenheim, 1993a, p. 211.) Victoria Harry and Charles Oppenheim at the University of Strathclyde in the United Kingdom developed a complex system for reviewing CD-ROM that included the categories of general description, technical specification, documentation and support, database contents, user interface, searching, output, and reliability with a scoring system for detailed features in each category (Harry & Oppenheim, 1993b, pp. 348e350). Some libraries such as the Karl E. Mundt Library of Dakota State College employed highly effective outreach programs to demonstrate the value of CD-ROM to their patrons that included individual training, group sessions, and demonstrations at faculty meetings. “Our purpose was to educate the faculty to the possibilities of ERIC on CD-ROM searching, to encourage them to integrate its use into their regular class and services of the Mundt Library. We succeeded beyond our hopes. Several of the faculty arranged for one-on-one training for themselves and asked for bibliographic training for

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their classes within a week of the meeting” (Bean, 1987, pp. 40e41). Director Ethelle S. Bean also mentioned that during the same time period the College administration also required faculty to integrate computers into their teaching, a factor that may have helped the libraries to operate in an institutional climate that was more amenable to innovation (Bean, 1987). Gonzaga University, a private institution in Spokane, Washington, used CD-ROM to help develop a distance learning program for students at the Canim Lake Reserve in British Columbia, a Bachelor of Education in Native American Leadership (Burr, 1988). These First Nations people, numbering around 350 in total at Canim Lake, were part of the larger Shuswap Nation which was related to the Flathead tribe in Montana and the Coeur d’Alene people in Idaho and Washington. All of these groups of Native Americans or First Nations people were once part of a larger group of Salish and affiliated tribes that previously occupied much of the Rocky Mountain and plains regions on both sides of the United States and Canadian border. The education program was very much the product of an initiative undertaken by the Canim Lake Band itself in 1980, which had developed a long-term plan to develop and improve their community. One of the major problems for the Band was that students enrolled in educational programs off the Reserve often dropped out due to loneliness, isolation from community support, and lack of financial resources. Finding a way to increase educational opportunities on the Reserve itself seemed imperative for further development. Having first tried and failed to achieve agreements with Canadian academic institutions, the Band signed an agreement with Gonzaga University that launched the program in April 1987. The program required 2 years of complex negotiations between the Canim Band Council, Gonzaga University, as well as provincial British Columbian and Canadian federal authorities (Burr, 1988, pp. 37e38). The Bachelor of Education in Native American Leadership program was technically more of a hybrid program than a fully fledged system of distance or remote education that would combine on-site learning at Canim Lake during the fall and spring semesters with summer sessions at the main campus in Spokane, Washington. To accommodate the cultural needs of the students, entire families along with the enrolled students would be provided with housing in Spokane during the summer sessions. Gonzaga University created a library resource center at Canim Lake that included a general reference collection in print format as well as an IBM-PC XT microcomputer, one Hayes 1200 Baud Smartmodem, a Hitachi 2500-S CD-ROM drive, and a Ricoh 210 Fax Receiver. Software included a WLN LaserCat

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Search Software and Database and the PFS First Choice Integrated Applications Program (Burr, 1988, p. 39). Staff at the main campus library in Spokane communicated with staff at the Library Resource Center via e-mail while document delivery for the students was supported via fax and online, specifically the UMI Article Clearinghouse. Books were delivered to students within 11 days (Burr, 1988, p. 40). An assessment of the program in December 1987 indicated high usage by the students, overall satisfaction with training and results, but the lack of on-site technical support at Canim Lake, particularly when local computer equipment failed, was cited as a weakness of the program (Burr, 1988, p. 41). CD-ROM was also used in efforts to digitize large amounts of archival information, including communities that had previously been underserved by libraries and general information services. The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County (PCLMC) created an African American Album Volume 2 that addressed local African American history in North Carolina from the 1940s to the 1990s at a cost of $100,000. The previous first volume was a print book restricted to black and white format with limited text at a cost of $25,000, whereas the CD-ROM included “more than 6 hours’ worth of narrative, interactive maps, videos and photographs that recreate the World War II era, the integration of public schools, urban renewal, and the election of Charlotte’s first black mayor in the 1980s” (Johnston, 1999, p. 54). While more expensive to produce, one can argue that the CD-ROM was a much more effective tool in providing in-depth information in context about the African American community’s history in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County than the book, which despite its many merits, can provide only limited information. Before the World Wide Web, CD-R was also used to help develop services in ways that most associate the electronic resources. One of these services included union catalogs and expand interlibrary loan as in the case of ReQuest in Connecticut in the late 1980s. Some problems encountered included the lack of real-time updates for circulation data which might have been facilitated by connections to local area networks as well as the cost and practical problems of extending service to nonautomated libraries although the program was considered a success in comparison to previous technologies (Uricchio & Duffy, 1990). The development of local area networks (LANs) and client/ server architecture further extended accessibility for CD-ROM information resources (Perone, 1996) constituting an early form of electronic resources management in libraries. CD-ROM was also used to improve facilities for advanced graduate work such as the Library Electronic Text Resource Center

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(LETRS) created by Indiana University in 1992, originally as a limited extension of the main reference desk, but later expanded in its own facility that could be open for extended hours (Willett, 1998). Search functionality of CD-ROM databases greatly improved after their launch in the mid-1980s. ABC-Clio’s Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life, now offered in the 21st century as online databases by EBSCO, provided advanced search capabilities for author, subject, print entry number, and documentation fields with the use truncation and wildcards, as well as Boolean operators to combine terms (Still, 1992). By the mid-1990s, many CD-ROMs offered free-text searching. Serious efforts were made, before the development of commonly used search algorithms on the Web, to develop conceptual indexing that would enable the discovery of relevant information resources that did not include the literal text of search strings such as A History of Australia undertaken by Macquarie Library Pty Ltd. (Cousins, 1996). One could argue that academic libraries in North America have undergone the following broadly defined transition in the 20th and 21st centuries. (1) Modern print libraries defined by rational principles for organizing space and maximizing the usability of traditional library materials such as books, periodicals, maps, reference works, and later other forms of physical media; (2) automated print libraries that continue the general pattern of the first phase with the benefit of computerized management of physical materials and the resulting reduction in staffing and changes in workflows due to automation; (3) hybrid libraries that offer materials in both electronic and traditional formats; and (4) 21st century libraries that prioritize contemporary electronic information resources with services that use other formats such as special collections when available or as appropriate. CD-ROM services are a bridge between the second and third phases in this model, partly due to the intrinsic characteristics of the technology but also due to the proximity in time of the heyday of CD-ROM in the 1990s that coincided with the emergence of the World Wide Web that provided access to electronic resources. CD-ROM forced libraries to rethink how to manage information, work with vendors on complex license agreements, explore new business models, reorganize services and personnel, and devise new positions.

3.2 The early transition from print to electronic journals The development of the World Wide Web in 1989 helped major academic publishers to develop online journals throughout the 1990s. Elsevier Science announced the launch of its ScienceDirect platform in 1996 with the

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planned release of 300 journals in the first quarter of 1997. Elsevier planned to include what was then its entire suite of around 1200 journals while inviting other publishers to publish their content on their platform as well (“Elsevier Science announces ScienceDirect, releases final report on TULIP project,” 1996, 2). Charles Ellis, President and CEO of Wiley, announced that “a major new project to deliver many of our journals on the World Wide Web to those subscribers who want electronic access” at their annual meeting on September 19, 1996 (Milliot, 1996, p. 16). Wiley unveiled their InterScience online journal platform on October 1, 1997 including 50 of its 400 journals. Access was initially freely available in 1997 with plans to start subscriptions in 1998 (“Wiley launches online journal service,” 1997). EBSCO announced the pending launch of its own EBSCO online journal service in 1998 (“EBSCO Subscription Services announces EBSCO Online Electronic Journal services,” 1997). SpringereVerlag later agree to partner with EBSCO to make its content available on their new platform (“Springer-Verlag to Provide Electronic Journals through EBSCO Online,” 1998). Ovid Technologies released some online content in its Biomedical Collections II and III including such journals the American Journal of Psychiatry, British Journal of Surgery, and Mayo Clinic Proceedings (“Competitors ‘Web up’: Elsevier Science and Ovid, 1996). Simply posting content online in browsable form was only an initial step in the development of online journals. Full-text linking or the reciprocal linking of full-text articles would make electronic resources even more convenient to patrons. Elsevier developed version 3.0 of the ScienceDirect Gateway in 1998, which allowed the direct retrieval of individual articles using bibliographic searches. Provided that other publishers were willing to share their bibliographic data, the new “smart-links” would also reciprocal retrieval across different publisher’s platforms (“ScienceDirect Updates its URL Gateway.” 1998). The growth in scientific publishing and the total number of information sources in the late 20th century had led started to put great pressure on libraries, both in terms of physical space for book stacks to house serial runs and increasingly overtaxed photocopy machines used to make personal copies of articles. The development of online journals brought unprecedented convenience to users but required additional refinements to meet the demands of users who were increasingly used to the short life cycle of information technology with constant improvements in overall computing power and usability. The transition from print to online journals also impacted pricing. One of the factors sometimes forgotten in the cost of producing print journals is the

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difference in currency rates. Partly due to the development of ScienceDirect, Elsevier announced plans to keep the annual increases for journals below 10 percent, with an anticipated increase of 7.5% for the 2000 subscription year (“Elsevier Science Announces New Approach to Journal Pricing,” 1999). While the base unit cost for online journal site subscriptions was originally set by many companies to make up for anticipated loss of print sales since IPauthenticated subscriptions were group subscriptions by definition that permitted multiple simultaneous users, online journals also helped to stabilize and make pricing more predictable given international variability in currencies, physical production costs, and shipping. The Library Journal conducted a survey of 440 public and academic libraries in 1996. While 71% of public library reference collections and 63% of academic libraries were in print format, academic libraries had increased their annual spending by 91% on electronic resources since 1991 whereas spending on print materials had only increased by 5.7%. For all libraries, spending had increased during the past five years in the amount of 6% for print reference, 80% for CD-ROM, and 52% for online. For the next 3 years, the Library Journal projects that libraries would only increase their spending on print by 2%, the CD-ROM increase would drop to 51% while online would increase by 43% (Oder, 1996, S75eS76).

3.3 The development of an online presence for academic libraries The US Government was a pioneer and early proponent of shifting information resources from analog to digital form. The entire Internet as we know it was developed originally from Arpanet, but the role of the US Government in developing electronic resources extends developing infrastructure to changing the format of information resources commonly sent to academic libraries included in the Federal Depository Program. By the late 1990s, hundreds of websites were organized to deliver freely available information to the public at large, including a number of metasites designed to help users navigate a seemingly innumerable amount of text and images. These metasites were organized hierarchically, by subject classification or category, and finally by type of publication. Importantly, metasites were developed not only by the US Government itself, but also academic institutions, regional branches of government agencies, State Governments, as well as private institutions. Some of the most important included the Federal Web Locator available since 1994. The University of California Riverside

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developed INFOMINE to search government information by subject. The Regional Depository Library at the University of Memphis created the Uncle Sam Migrating Publications website by publication. The Government Printing Office (GPO) developed its own Browse Electronic Titles (BET): The Virtual Depository website. Another notable early entry that was not updated after 1995 was the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) Governments on the Web project that listed information resources for all levels of government from international to local. The American Library Association (ALA) Government Document Roundtable’s International Documents Task Force maintained its own list of resources published online (Notess, 1998). Libraries in North American began to develop and expand websites in the 1990s. The University of Saskatchewan spent $1.7 million to upgrade its library system, including the launch of a new comprehensive Web search called U-Search in 1994 (Fox, 1997, pp. 11e20). Western Illinois University developed its first website in 1995 (Greenwood, 1997, pp. 63e75). St. Joseph Public Library in South Bend, Indiana, was most likely the first public library to launch a website and tracked the development of other public library websites listing 127 in total in mid-September 1995 (Cisler, 1995, p. 24). These institutions were located not only in the United States, however, but also in Europe, Canada, and Australia (Cisler, 1995, p. 24). Steve Cisler, Senior Scientist, Apple Computers Library, cited the growth in such online services as Netscape, America Online, and search tools such as InfoSeek and Yahoo as creating an online environment conducive to the development of a new web presence by libraries (Cister, 1995). Libraries in the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia also launched websites in the 1990s, for example, the University College London (Edwards, 1997). Making library services available online changed the game for libraries as noted by Don L. Bosseau and Susan K. Martin, “We need to ask ourselves whether, in a world where our primary clientele are asking us fewer questions, and the rest of the world is asking us more questions, we should rethink the way that we offer these services” (Bosseau & Martin, 1998, p. 469). The decline in physical traffic by users of libraries, particularly for serials, as well as a reduction in reference questions was long-term trends, documented thoroughly in the library and information science literature well before the 21st century.

3.4 The first electronic resources librarians The first documented use of the term electronic resources librarian was in a position announcement in July/August 1992 for a Reference/Electronic

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Resources Librarian (Fisher, 2003, p. 6). Having reviewed 298 positions listed in American Libraries from 1985 to 2001, William Fisher discovered that the very first use of the term “electronic” appeared in a job ad for an “Electronic Information Services Librarian” in December 1988 that worked almost exclusively with “CD-ROM databases, a local information access system, and end-user oriented services from the commercial database vendors” (Fisher, 2003, p. 6). CD-ROM services arguably set the stage for the future development of electronic resources librarianship in some important ways, particularly the creation of a format-based specialization, separate or siloed workflows, and a focus on information resources delivered through vendor-supplied technology, but Fisher seems right to argue that electronic resources librarianship proper could not exist before the World Wide Web and what we now call “electronic resources.” While 1989 is the actual year that the Web was created at CERN, it did not really take off as a widespread phenomenon until several years later. 1988 is too early for the first electronic resources librarian, partly since CD-ROM services still left many traditional library functions, organizational structures, and best practices relatively intact despite multiple waves of automation in libraries in the 20th century. Of course, having written that electronic resources librarians were not identical to CD-ROM librarians, some of the early specialists did staff reference desks a great deal of time working with CD-ROM and other technologies. A good example would be the development of the electronic resource librarian positions at the Holland Library of Washington State University. When Holland Library added a new physical wing or extension of their building in 1994, the Head of Holland Public Services decided to change two existing reference librarian positions to electronic resource librarians who would staff the reference desk, assist patrons with new computers and technologies such as CD-ROM, and act as liaisons between the Reference and Systems departments. These positions had a range of “computer-related duties,” including troubleshooting problems, and a third position was added in 1995 (Felt, 1999, pp. 75e76). Later, one position was designed as an “Electronic Resources Librarian, Humanities” and another as an “Electronic Resources Librarian, Social Sciences” while the third position was advertised as “Social Science Reference and Electronic Resources Librarian” since these positions included varying levels of collection development responsibility (Felt, 1999, p. 76). Part of the reason for the creation of new positions was that managing electronic resources required a great deal of additional specialized work. As

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Cheryl LaGuardia, Coordinator of the Electronic Teaching Center, Harvard College Library, put it, “Now, however, reference librariansdwith all our expertise in information accessdfind ourselves facing an online information onslaught of unprecedented proportions. Electronic resources are proliferating in gratifying, yet alarming, numbers, and the plaint everywhere is: ‘I have so much to do I can’t find time to learn X’ (for X read Gopher, the Internet, the Web, UNIX, and a multitude of other computer-accessible systems and resources)” (LaGuardia, 1995, p. 8). From the very beginning, there was considerable tension between centripetal and centrifugal forces in the work of electronic resources librarians as libraries struggled to delegate and disperse workflows while ensuring that new electronic resources librarians remained sufficiently conversant with what was going on to advise and communicate important developments to other library departments. Nicholas Lewis, the first electronic resources librarian at the University of East Anglia, discussed future needs to address over specialization and the need for much greater coordination for successful electronic resources management in libraries, “Library staff at all levels need to broaden their roles and make sure they have ‘bought into’ the electronic aspects of our library services. Electronic resources Librarians will have an ever-increasing role in facilitating this kind of change by acting as a linchpin between different groups and different departments both within the library and the institution as a whole” (Lewis, 2001, p. 187).

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Digital dawn: libraries experiment and adapt to new technology

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