ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


3 6 2 /C&RL News

The upside of dow nsizing: 
Using Bl to cope

B y  C h e r y l L a G u a rd ia

A report on the UC-Santa Barbara 
conference

T he Upside o f Downsizing: Using BI toCope,” a conference sponsored by the Uni­
versity of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) Li­
brary and the Friends of the UCSB Library, was
held March 24-25, 1994, at the Hotel Radisson
in Santa Barbara. Nearly 150 participants from
30 states and Canada gathered at this first-time
national conference.

The conference theme of using instruction
in libraries to cope with a downsized environ­
ment was touched on and developed in sev­
eral ways by three all-conference speakers. Each
o f these individuals noted variously that the
changes downsizing has wrought are not all
bad: downsizing is forcing us to work smarter,
one way or another.

A  fundam ental change in focus
The keynote address by Carla Stoffle (Univer­
sity of Arizona) put the new downsizing into
context: she emphasized that higher education
is not just experiencing a temporary shifting of
funds, but a fundamental budget restructuring
which requires an accompanying restructuring
within the academic library for what we do
and how we do it. Public support for educa­
tion is changing along with changing public
attitudes: higher education is under fire as the
perception of educational institutions’ waste­
fulness grows. Public funding support is disap­
pearing and costs are shifting to students them­
selves; although private giving has increased,
it cannot fund basic library operations. So “wait­
ing out” downsizing is not a viable option: the
good times as we knew them will not soon
return.

 

 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 

 
 

Stoffle went on to say that the enormous 
new technological needs of libraries, plus dra­
matic increases in serials prices, has created an 
even larger academic library budget crisis. Ser­
vices, personnel, and supplies are being cut, 
units are being combined, and we are tinker­
ing with the organizational structure of our li­
braries— but few have undertaken the funda­
mental changes needed to maintain or improve 
service within our new operating circumstances. 
She supports a fundamental change in focus: 
away from staff needs to customer needs. This 
means focusing on delivering information rather 
than owning collections, eliminating unneces­
sary programs' and redundancies within our 
systems, and placing the power for decision­
making and problem-solving with staff teams 
at the point of expertise and need, rather than 
in a hierarchical management structure. She 
advocates opening up the library organization, 
moving more staff into public contact areas and 
out of “the back rooms,” and removing patron 
barriers to information (especially when those 
barriers are outdated library procedures!).

Stoffle finished her talk with a discussion of 
user self-sufficiency: what it is, and how librar­
ies can be designed to help them achieve it. 
She predicts that instruction librarians will lead 
the way in transforming libraries into user cen­
ters because we have the skills and experience 
to create and apply newly emerging knowl- 
edge-management activities.

The needs of users
In her speech, Janice Simmons-Welburn (Uni­
versity of Iowa) recommended the reconsid­
eration of the pedagogical models libraries use. 
She discussed a “post-bibliographic instruction” 
model that focuses on the needs of the user 
and encourages independent information seek­
ing. She also discussed differences in ap­

Cheryl LaG uardia is a  m em ber o f  the R eference Services Group/Library s ta ff at the University o f  California, 
Santa B arbara; e-m ail: laguardi@library.ucsb.edu

mailto:laguardi@library.ucsb.edu


Ju n e  1 9 9 4 /3 6 3

Attending the conference were four past-presidents o f ACRL: Joanne Euster (1 9 8 7 -8 8 ), Carla 
Stoffle (1 9 8 2 -8 3 ), Josep h  Boissé (1 9 8 8 -8 9 ), and Hannelore Rader (1 9 8 6 -8 7 ).

proaches to information-seeking, learning styles, 
and instruction, covering three broad areas o f 
instructional users: on-site groups, point-of-need 
individuals, and rem ote users (eith er in groups 
or individually). She described the kinds o f in­
form ation m anagem ent and developm ent tech ­
niques instructional librarians 
will have to em ploy to carry [Stoffle] adou t o u r w o rk  in the 1990s 
and beyond. opening up

The n e w  information lib rary org
instruction moving mo
B a r b a r a  Q u in t (S e a r c h e r  
M a g a z in e) d is c u s s e d  th e  into public
progression w e have m ade a re a s and 
a s in s tr u c tio n a l lib ra ria n s  
from  B I (b ib lio g ra p h ic  in­ “the back r
stru ction ) to LI (library in ­
struction) to DI (docum ent instruction) and ad­
vocated advancing to the next logical phase, II 
(inform ation instruction). In the process o f out­
lining how  w e can focus on delivering the in­
form ation to our custom ers, Quint touched on 
a nu m ber o f issues affecting academ ic librar­
ians w orking in downsized circum stances: e x ­
traordinary p ricin g structures and  steady in ­
c r e a s e s  fo r  b o th  p rin t a n d  c o m p u te r iz e d  
resources; increased user needs, expectations, 
a n d  wants (to paraphrase: “Let them  know  how

m uch you hate the print, too— but show  them 
how  to use it w hen it’s the only gam e in town!”); 
and the debate over subject headings vs. key­
w ord com puterized searching (h er discussion 
o f “Bill, B u ffalo ” and a short disquisition on 
indexers m eeting “som ew here in the Azores” 

to d ev elo p  su ch  headin gs 

vocates alm ost b ro u g h t d ow n the hou se).
 the E ig h teen  b rea k o u t s e s ­
anization, sions and a series o f poster s e s s io n s  ro u n d ed  out the 
re staff program . T h e s e  w en t into 

greater detail than the all­
 contact c o n f e r e n c e  p ro g ra m  w as 
out of able to do on  several issues, 

including: achieving user in­
o o m s.. . ” d ep en d e n ce , d ealing with 

a n d  o v e r c o m in g  t e c h n o  
stress, d esign in g library o n lin e instructional 
systems, building instructional teams, w orking 
with and designing programs for multicultural 
learners, providing Internet training, and teach­
ing librarian s h o w  to te a c h  (b o th  in library 
school and on  the job).

T he con feren ce was very w ell-received, and 
d iscussion is taking place for another m eeting 
in two years. T h ose interested in a cop y o f  the 
con ference proceedings may order them  from 
N eal-Schum an Publishers later this year. ■