Des Moines Register
03/19/06
Hitting the books isn't what it used to be
With students turning to Google, ISU seeks to improve its library
LISA LIVERMORE
REGISTER AMES BUREAU
Ames, Ia. — It's easy to find students at Iowa State University who say that when
they need to do research they routinely blow off the library in favor of Internet
search engines such as Google.
"I think we grew up in a new technology age," Iowa State University junior Ebony
Watts says. "Nobody knows how to use the library."
That may not be true - at ISU a half-credit library orientation course is mandatory.
Still, the perception among some students is that libraries are old school. Despite
that, ISU library advocates are seeking more money to make the facility more
attractive for users and put more information on the library's Web site.
The ISU library currently ranks in the lower half of academic research libraries in
North America, and library advocates warn that the university is likely to suffer if
the library continues to lose support.
"We're at a crossroads," said ISU library dean Olivia Madison. "If we don't see an
infusion of funds, we will continue to drop in rankings. We'll become a secondrate library."
About a decade ago, more than 1.8 million people per year streamed into the ISU
library, according to university records. Today, the number is down 17 percent, a
decline Madison attributes to heightened use of online library resources and free
information found through Internet search engines.
Public money for the library at ISU and elsewhere has not kept pace with
inflation, due in part, advocates say, to the notion that all information is now
available on the Web for free.
"A few years ago, I went to the Board of Regents to give presentations on behalf
of the three research libraries," Madison said. One of the regents "asked the
question, 'Why aren't you saving costs now because everything is free on the
Web?' "
The Internet provides easier access to information, but library advocates and
some faculty members warn that over-reliance on search engines leads to
"shallow" research.
Dirk Deam , senior lecturer with the department of political science, said more
money should be spent on buying books to encourage more of that kind of
reading.
"I have a very strong policy against using Google," said Deam, who teaches
classes on American politics and constitutional law.
"The Internet generation is designed to get fast answers," he said. "That
orientation hurts them with their ability to read."
Madison and a committee of faculty and students at ISU will push for a new
student fee that could go toward putting textbooks on reserve, building more
group study space and a coffee shop, and a larger cut of state money to enable it
to purchase new research journals for faculty and put other journals online.
She's following the lead of other research libraries, such as those at Texas A&M
University and the University of Colorado, that have built coffee shops and
learning areas with the hope that students lured to study at the library will also
use its books and journals.
City libraries also are sprucing up. The new Des Moines public library will include
a cafe and wireless Internet access. A public library that opened in Davenport
this year features lounging areas, a fireplace and new computer equipment.
Google is "certainly a competitor" for 21st-century libraries, Madison said,
attributing the phenomenon partially to the instructions from teaching faculty.
"I'm concerned that all faculty may not be providing enough background
information of where students should be going for information and resources,"
she said.
Madison warned that if more money doesn't come to her facility, she will have to
purchase fewer books and academic journals, which faculty members use to find
groundbreaking research in their fields. Prospective faculty might reject a job
offer from a school with a poor library, advocates of increased funding said.
ISU library problems, according to Madison and her committee, include:
• A drop in the Association of Research Libraries rankings, which measures how
much the libraries spend on books, journals and staff. Over the last decade, ISU
has dropped six points, ranking 79th among the 113 academic research libraries
in North America that were analyzed.
• The university is also in the minority among schools that haven't gathered
student support for creating a student library fee. Eight of the 12 schools in the
Big 12 Conference have a library fee, according to the University Library
Committee. ISU would be the first four-year public university in Iowa to impose a
student library fee.
• Over the last five years, $1.6 million has been cut from the library budget, due
to state budget cuts and falling tuition revenue.
In the next year , Madison said, she will work to rally student support around a
library fee of $25 to $100 per semester, which would raise $1.25 million to $5
million in a year.
Student support for the fee is mixed.
Veterinary medical graduate student Adrienne Norgrant sat in a quiet area on the
library's second floor earlier this month. Surrounded by notebooks, journals and
books, she was working on an assignment related to multiple sclerosis. She said
she would pay more money for a better library.
"I think it's needed because it's a resource everyone at college can use," she
said.
Shawntel Washington , an industrial technology junior, disagreed.
"People don't study at the library because it's a distraction," said Washington,
who recently worked on a speech assignment about her hometown of Chicago.
She said she found more information on the Internet about attractions in the city
than from the magazines and journals at the library.
Library advocates are also pushing for a 10 percent mandatory inflation increase
of $800,000 for the library's materials and access budget, which totals about $8.5
million. That budget did not receive an increase for fiscal year 2006 and received
a 0.28 percent increase in 2005.
Madison, the ISU library dean, said finding cash for the library depends on
convincing people that it actually takes money to create a library Web site
available to university students. The library spent about $4.5 million on acquiring
and placing books and journals online in the year 2004 .
Professors are mixed in their approaches to advising students on Internet versus
library research.
At the University of Iowa, history professor Colin Gordon , who is teaching a
course on Hurricane Katrina and the history of government response to natural
disasters, said some Internet research is good and even better than what
students can dig up at the library.
One student looked up information at a museum in San Francisco to learn about
the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake, he said.
"There's an instance where students have access to materials that doesn't exist
in the library," he said. "The information available online is now so rich that
occasionally I have to slap students and say, 'Remember - there are printed
sources.' "
Fewer students hitting the stacks
Fewer students today obtain information from libraries and more from free online
search engines, research shows.
Nearly 72 percent of ISU students use Google and other search engines for
information daily, compared to 7.7 percent who walk into the library daily for
information. However, more than 23 percent of students use the electronic library
databases daily, according to a survey of 288 ISU students taken in 2005.
Those trends hold true internationally as well. More people use online search
engines than the library, and find them more worthwhile than libraries, according
to an online survey of 20,000 respondents taken during spring 2005. It was
organized by the Online Computer Library Center, a nonprofit organization based
in Ohio that tries to make information more affordable and accessible.
One-third of the survey respondents said their library use has decreased in the
past three to five years - the same amount of time that access to the Internet has
exploded, the survey said.
Most of the survey's college students were from the United States. Forty-five
percent of college students said they were extremely familiar with search
engines, compared with 34 percent familiar with the physical library and 20
percent with the online library.
- Lisa Livermore
Want to learn?
Many students have to write papers for classes in college. These tips will also
help anyone seeking more credible information for important matters in work,
health or travel:
WHO IS THE AUTHOR? Before accepting the credibility of Web information, the
savvy consumer should find out who the author is and how credible and qualified
he or she is, said Susan Vega Garcia, an instruction coordinator at Iowa
State University's libraries.
HOW CURRENT IS THE INFORMATION? By looking at a Web page, you
should be able to have an idea when the information was updated, when it was
created and if it's being maintained.
USE CRITICAL THINKING: When doing Web research, you need to ask yourself
what you already know about a topic is consistent with what you are finding on
Web pages.
GO TO THE LIBRARY: University libraries at public universities are a statewide
resource for anyone. Visitors may use collections and services, which could
include access to scholarly research. The distinction between scholarly research
and what's free on the Internet is that it goes through a rigorous peer review
process. That's when subject experts read and critique a manuscript to see if the
content is unique, interesting, valued and verifiable.
ASK FOR HELP: Reference librarians are the staff members who can help the
public find credible and focused research tools.
WHEN TO READ BOOKS: Scientists tend to communicate major discoveries in
research journals, rather than posting free on the Internet. Other areas, such as
history, are more commonly found in books. Books are also a good way to get a
"big picture" of a particular topic. It's going to be difficult to find that on the
Internet, where information is scattered and needs to be analyzed.
Source: Susan Vega Garcia, an instruction coordinator at the ISU libraries