Action for Libraries
Librarians, Throw Off Your Policies and Expose your Holdings!
By Heather Clark and Brenda Bailey-Hainer
Last summer, Action for Libraries included a report on a grassroots movement among
librarians to rethink how they share their resources through interlibrary loan and other means. (See www.bcr.org/publications/afl/2006/june/resource-sharing.html.) In the past year, this grassroots movement has gained both momentum and new adherents.
The Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative is an ad hoc, international group that advocates for a complete rethink of the way libraries conduct resource sharing in the context of the global Internet revolution and all of the developments that have arisen from that. The initiative started in the U.S. in 2005 with a white paper written by a group of librarians, product vendors and library technology specialists. While working on revising resource sharing technical standards, they began to feel as though they were trying to improve a protocol that was becoming increasingly obsolete. It was rather like refining the typewriter protocol when the world had already moved on to the computer. And more importantly, resource sharing practices and policies continued to be library-centric while the rest of the world had already moved on to being consumer-centric.
The most intriguing progress from the initiative so far is the on-going development work on a "GetIt" prototype. Designed to be easily downloaded and installed by the user, this Firefox plug-in will allow a user to identify the availability and cost of a book or other material that has been cited on a Web page. After selecting a particular title, the user enters a few keystrokes to find out more information. A new window opens, showing whether the material is available at libraries or booksellers, the cost if purchased or the length of the loan period for libraries that the user has specifically profiled. The user can start his/her search from within a library catalog, a bookseller Web site or even a bibliography found on a Web site. This open source, vendor neutral plug-in will be an exciting first step toward empowering users with ready access to items within the flow of an Internet search. Although the prototype is still under construction, more information and a beta level demonstration is available from the Rethinking Resource Sharing Web site.
The "GetIt" prototype is a clever piece of work, but as is often the case, harnessing technology isn't the most challenging task related to changing the way people think. It is much more likely to be the existing policies and practices that pose the most forbidding barriers. In the past, library policies were often created to deal specifically with the exceptional deadbeat user rather than the trustworthy user who is the norm. A Manifesto has been released by the initiative that calls for librarians to rethink their policies and respective libraries to make their holdings more readily available with fewer restrictions to all users. This involves an active commitment to changing library culture within and outside of their institutions.
Most recently, a working group was created that will focus on delivery. This group will be working on an initiative to create a national brand for home delivery as well as investigating the possibility of expanding courier systems beyond regions. Both initiatives are designed with an eye to getting materials in the hands of the users more quickly. Do you have a desire to throw off your policies and expose your holdings in order to provide better library service to users everywhere? If so, please join the work of the Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative. Information on how to get involved is included on the initiative's Web site.