Web 1.0 and Academic Library Services

Introduction

The internet and services that operate on it have been described as disruptive technologies, Zennstrom quoted by BBC News (2007) and Goel quoted by Krishnamoorthy (2010) are two instances, denoting a technology that fundamentally alters the way in which business activities are carried out (Christensen, 2009). In the case of the internet and World Wide Web (Web) this can be observed in many commercial and public services; the way services are delivered to users in industrialised countries has undeniably been changed by the successful expansion of the internet and Web. Web 1.0 broadly refers to the information technologies that have been utilised in what could be described as phase 1 of the Web: the internet, the World Wide Web, databases, and information retrieval systems. All these technologies are applied in how academic libraries currently seek to meet user needs; in the scope of this post the particular focus will be the relationship between the Web and databases in delivering user services.

Defining the internet and World Wide Web.

The internet and World Wide Web are two distinct technologies.

The internet refers to the infrastructure, predominantly hardware such as communications cables and modems, which enable computers to be connected in networks. Communication between these networked computers is governed by a set of protocols that operate on a client-server architecture, allowing client machines to request information resources from server machines, which if the resource exists and is locatable will return the information to the client (TechTarget Inc, 2000 and 2009).

The World Wide Web “is simply defined as the universe of global network-accessible information” (Berners-Lee, 1996); this information is generally contained within documents. Documents for the Web exist in special languages, the standard for which currently is HTML 4.01 (World Wide Web Consortium, 1999), which enable hyperlinks to other sections or documents to be embedded in the text or multimedia content of the document using tags. See Figure 1.

Figure 1. Example of how a web page can be accessed across the client-server architecture of the internet, utilising http protocols, a URL, and HTML tags.

The academic library.

The information activities of an academic library are centred on its collection and its users, and their services orientated to facilitating a relationship between the two.

Traditionally library collections have been highly defined in terms of what the collection contains, the formats that this content exists in, and the physical location of both the collection and associated organisational operations (Morville and Rosenfeld, 2006, p.7). While changes have occurred to this, to a large extent systems used to manage library information are still modelled on this situation.

The library’s information is therefore well defined in relation to both its collection, and its users (defined by membership). This enables the library to structure this information to serve its own organisational needs. Hence databases have been increasingly employed by libraries in various forms since the  mid-1970s (Chowdhury and Chowdhury, 2007, pp.34-35). See Figure 2 for a basic overview of the key elements of the relational database (Chen, 1976) and how they may operate in the library context.

 Figure 2. Structure of a relational database in a library context (MSDN, Microsoft. 2010), annotations are the authors own.

How has the World Wide Web developed the service?

With the advent and expansion of the Web academic library services have undergone considerable changes. These changes can be identified in both key areas: collections and user activity.

Collections are now increasingly hybrid or complex containing a wider variety of content sources and formats; notably digital formats and resources such as e-books, e-journals and online bibliographic databases. As a consequence of this expansion, libraries have experienced some decentralisation of activities; for example, libraries no longer physically own and store the e-journals that they enable access to, and users do not necessarily have to be in the library to access them (Brophy, 2005).

This leads us on to user services, the boundaries of which have been significantly eroded since the advent of the Web. Users are now able to access an expanding range of library resources, relatively unrestrained by conventional service opening hours or locations; with 24 hour access to the catalogue and their user information via Online Publicly Accessible Catalogues (OPACs), and an increasing number of e-resources that can be accessed offsite via the internet and web.

Future information technologies and projects within academic libraries.

As a result of the changes occurring in academic libraries, at least in part driven by Web 1.0 technologies, there are a number of projects aimed at developing library services for the future. These include:

• Move to e-only in periodicals – many institutions are moving towards e-only journals holdings, posing fewer physical and temporal limitations on user access; additionally, reducing the overhead to the organisation in the staff hours and spatial requirements that processing, storing, shelving and tidying print journals incurs.
• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) – a new way of communicating with databases via transmitters and sensors. These systems give an improved user experience being both simpler and quicker to use than conventional circulation desks; they also facilitate more efficient workflows and improved library security.
  While RFID functionality primarily interacts with the database, its implementation can be interpreted in view of changes in user behaviours that have resulted from the Web. As a result of behavioural conditioning from using Web services of all forms, users now have an expectation of 24 hour service availability. By simplifying self-service systems and improving library security systems through the implementation of RFID, institutions are seeking to make their onsite physical resources deliverable on a 24 hour basis, without incurring the financial or human resource burdens of increasing the hours of specialised library staff.

Conclusion.

Web 1.0 can therefore be seen to have contributed to fundamental changes in service delivery in academic libraries, that today result in numerous debates about their (doubtful?) future. However, libraries are actively responding to these challenges in harnessing information technologies to expand user access to resources beyond conventional physical and temporal limitations. In addition to this opportunities that these technologies create to reduce the number of staff engaged in basic service support as a result of declining user reliance on physical library resources, and to operate in more decentralised collaborative ways is enabling new financial and human resource models to be introduced to the library, that have the potential to ensure the long term viability of academic library services in financially hostile environments.

  

References

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Berners-Lee, T (1996) The World Wide Web: Past, Present and Future. Available at: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/1996/ppf.html (Accessed: 31 October 2010).


Brophy, P. (2005) The academic library. 2nd edn. London: Facet Publishing.

Chen, P.P-S. (1976) ‘The Entity-Relationship Model: Towards a Unified View of Data’, ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS) 1(1) pp.9-36 The ACM Digital Library [Online]. Available at: http://portal.acm.org/ (Accessed: 31 October 2010).

Chowdhury, G. and Chowdhury, S. (2007) Organizing information; from the shelf to the web. London: Facet Publishing.

Christensen, C. (2009) Key concepts – Disruptive innovation. Available at: http://www.claytonchristensen.com/disruptive_innovation.html (Accessed: 31 October 2010).

Krishnamoorthy, V. (2010) ‘“Internet is the most disruptive technology of all times,” says Vinay Goel, Google India’s Head of Products’ Nasscom Emerge Blog, 26 August. Available at: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2010/08/internet-is-the-most-disruptive-technology-of-all-times-says-vinay-goel-google-indias-head-of-products/ (Accessed 28 October 2010).


Morville, P. and Rosenfeld, L. (2006) Information architecture for the World Wide Web. 3rd edn. Sebastopol: O'Reilly Media, Inc.

MSDN, Microsoft (2010) Sample database diagrams. Available at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/xaa0he85(VS.71).aspx (Accessed 31 October 2010).

World Wide Web Consortium (1999) HTML 4.01 Specification. Available at: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/ (Accessed: 31^st October 2010).

TechTarget Inc.(2000) What is Internet? – Definition. Available at: http://searchwindevelopment.techtarget.com/definition/Internet (Accessed: 31 October 2010).

TechTarget Inc.(2009) What is client/server? – Definition. Available at: http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid7_gci211796,00.html (Accessed: 31 October 2010).

Resources

Allison, V. (2010) Verity Allison

Available at: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abjb793/  (Accessed: 31 October 2010).

Allison, V. (2010) ‘Web 1.0 and Academic Library Services.’ Verity Allison. 31 October. Available at: http://verityallison.blogspot.com/ (Accessed 31 October 2010).