ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries December 1989 / 1003 INNOVATIONS Innovation and value-added information delivery By Caroline M. Coughlin Director Drew University Library D rew University is an atypical, small, highly se­ lective liberal arts university'. Over the past five years, it has invested $3.5 million in cutting-edge technology and installed a campus-wide voice and data system with an integrated online library sys­ tem at its center. At D rew the age o f rem ote access for all users has arrived. W hat makes this fact particularly interesting is that D rew University is not a large or rich university with an emphasis on science and technology; rather, it is a small univer­ sity that emphasizes work in the liberal arts. By participating in the enterprise of finding new truths in classic texts, users o f the Knowledge N et­ work at Drew are discovering that they m ust e n ­ gage themselves in th e information revolution of our time. Traditionally book-oriented, they have become quite adept at mastering th e new elec­ tronic system. Given th e fullness of the voice-data system D rew has installed, th e university is a leader in the use of technology to support instruction and research in a liberal arts college environment. Faculty mem bers can coach students via elec­ tronic mail and help them find the right library resources for their research. Faculty have devel­ o p ed co m p u ter-b ased teaching approaches to m astering material as diverse as musical notation, th e 1988 election, or theories o f child develop­ ment. Students find faculty more accessible, get b e tte r critiques o f their drafts o f papers, and have the luxury o f looking for library resources at 2:00 a.m. or during class, w henever it is either biologi­ cally in tune with their work rhythms or necessary to address a topic u n d er review. All faculty and all college students are issued personal com puters and have mailboxes on the electronic network. T here are no categories of people (underclassmen, poorer students, non-sci­ entific students, or faculty) excluded from the n et­ work. While the system is still new, it has become the normal way to do things. Ideally, th e system would include all resources, texts as well as cita­ tions, but that developm ent is still in the future. At the same time, D rew ’s College of Liberal Arts is also a typical college. The College enrolls 1,500 students in 26 traditional majors and is highly selective in its admissions. D rew has a history of balancing its budget collegially and cautiously. A natural outgrowth of the caution is that a long list of campus-wide needs includes such diverse items as a new student center, endowments for faculty sala­ ries, increasing the library’s materials budget, more parking spaces, and a new chapel for th e seminary. Choosing to spend a significant sum on technology ahead o f other equally im portant areas is a clear decision to focus on innovation and value-added services. Why was technology the chosen area for innova­ tion? W hat w ere the D rew decision-makers trying to accomplish? W hat does it m ean for the Drew Library? W hat does it mean for other academic libraries? A flashback to the D rew environm ent of 1982 reveals some of th e answers. T h e C o m p u te r In itia tiv e In 1983 th e U niversity research er at D rew alerted the faculty and budget-makers to the reali­ ties o f the coming decade. Maintaining a highly selective student body of a size that perm itted balancing th e budget would be more difficult b e ­ cause o f the shrinking pool o f potential applicants in the Northeast. Liberal arts colleges that did not distinguish themselves in significant ways from their p ee r institutions would lose applicants to 1004 / C&RL News b e tte r known or more competitive colleges o f the same type. Choices had to be made, w hether planned retrenchm ent, planned growth based on a less competitive student profile, or an increase in value and therefore an increase in competitiveness. Also around 1983, several high-tech universities were em barking on programs to wire their cam ­ puses and increase th e availability of personal com puters to th eir students and faculty. The Chronicle o f Higher Education reported that the concept o f the scholar’s workstation was under developm ent at several renow ned universities, and faculty at hum anities-oriented universities and colleges were following suit and trying to d e te r­ m ine th eir needs for com parable workstations. Simultaneously many colleges reported heavy in­ creases in the num ber o f students enrolling in business and com puter courses. D rew ’s College of Liberal Arts faculty was im mune to n eith er trend; it added a com puter science track to the mathematics major in the early 1980s, and some faculty day­ dream ed about the ultimate workstation to suit their teaching and research needs. D uring 1983 th e College faculty discussed all of th e above, especially the question o f demographic projections o f college-age students in the N orth­ east. The faculty easily agreed that Drew did not wish to plan either a program o f retrenchm ent or a program o f growth that necessitated lower aca­ demic standards. The success o f the new program in com puter science was a stimulus to other faculty, and engendered interdisciplinary activity by fac­ ulty who crossed departm ental lines to share in com puter-oriented curriculum development. By 1983 several faculty m em bers w ere m eeting regularly and th e C om puter Initiative was born. As eventually endorsed by the full faculty, the Com ­ p u ter Initiative had (and still has) a simplicity that is engaging: issue personal com puters to all incom ­ ing freshm en and all faculty, teach both groups to incorporate use of th e com puter into the liberal arts curriculum, and fund the Program by a surcharge on tuition. The administration and trustees ac­ cepted th e plan, primarily because it came from the faculty and was conceptually interesting and well- budgeted, and secondarily because it appeared to offer some way of perm itting the College of Liberal Arts to offer students additional value in an increas­ ingly competitive m arket for students. In the fall of 1984, the Program began, and it quickly had the desired effect on both th e curricu­ lum and the applicant pool. T here was another effect as well. T he process of self-identification of D rew with innovation in the technological arena had begun, and before too long some o f the faculty wished to develop furth er applications and expand the Program. December 1989 / 1005 T h e K n o w le d g e N e tw o r k Innovation is contagious. The goal of the Com ­ p u ter Initiative was expanded, and un d er its new name, th e Knowledge Initiative, it was given a larger goal, that of installing a network to link all the personal com puters on campus and adding the library’s resources to the network. Tom Peters in his book, Thriving on Chaos, links innovation to value-added services and calls these intertw ined concepts th e basis for any future success o f organi­ zations wishing to be competitive in a m odem economy. D rew began its cycle of innovation by focusing on technology—specifically the personal com puter and the value it could bring to the work o f faculty and students. D rew faculty and students quickly understood that the introduction of a p ar­ ticular machine was only part o f a com plete value- added service. M ore im portant to D rew faculty, students, and administrators were the benefits that could accrue if information delivery were added to the innovation. This concept of improved informa­ tion delivery becam e the cornerstone of all the research cost comparisons, and consensus building done betw een 1985 and 1989. The need was to capture additional funding from the university to transform the C om puter Initiative into the Knowledge Network. In 1985 th e library’s request for funding to autom ate the library was already th ree years old, and a num ber o f grant proposals had been subm itted to th e logical fund­ ing sources. None o f the larger requests for funding was successful, but several small grants to provide support for retrospective conversion and planning were received. Retrospective conversion becam e a part of the work o f the library beginning in 1981, and in 1984 a full-scale planning docum ent was created. Both activities kept library staff focused on the long-term goal of being an online library by 1989. At opportune times, librarians rem inded the faculty and administration that having an auto­ m ated library on the new network would be a good idea. The quest for additional funding for a variety of campus needs led to the formation o f six joint faculty-trustee task forces. Each was instructed to study the desirability o f a given idea, price it, and make recommendations for the next round o f capi­ tal improvements at Drew. O ne o f the topics was the new network and library automation; other items on the list included endowments for new faculty an d fo r co m pensation im provem ents, sports and recreation facilities, educational facili­ ties, arts facilities, and a new student center. Each task force educated itself with the help of staff. The network/library automation task force visited L e­ high University, a networking and library autom a­ tion pioneer, and also did extensive reading and developed budget estimates. W hen the work of these task forces was com pleted and campus priori­ ties set, the installation of the network, complete with library automation, was one of the top three priorities. W ith this kind o f affirmation of th e cen­ trality o f the priority to the educational mission of Drew, th e search for funding intensified. No longer was only the library' administration asking for funds for library automation. Now the campus com m u­ nity, as represented in an influential faculty-trustee task force, was asking for library automation as part o f a larger goal, a wired campus. The fact that the campus telephone system was severely overloaded pushed the urgency of the need. In the spring of 1988 the trustees allocated funds for a new telephone system with th e un d er­ standing th at such a system should serve the n et­ work. Having worked together to support th e work of the task force, the vice-president for technology and planning and the library director began work­ ing to spend the allocated funds wisely. In consul­ tations with others, they decided to purchase a com puter that could drive the campus voice-data system first and later support library automation when additional funds could be m ade available. The library allocated precious space to house the network com puter and to provide technical staff with office space. On th e day of the network ce n te r’s official open­ ing, complete with ribbon-cutting ceremonies at­ tended by trustees and th e officials o f companies supplying the technology, a series o f walk-through demonstrations offered all visitors and trustees a peek at its capabilities. One of the twelve dem on­ strations was of a library’s online public-access catalog, courtesy of a linkup to the College of Charleston through D ata Research Associates. The trustees understood that automation in the library would be the next area to support with respect to the network. While D rew personnel involved in the project knew how distinctive the Knowledge Initiative was and how special it made the liberal arts linkage to technology at Drew, it was difficult to explain the richness of the system without the presence of library automation on the network. Visitors to the campus were often puzzled to learn what we had done, because the D rew approach differed from that of similar institutions. Most quality liberal arts institutions had purchased integrated library sys­ tems for their campus and were now trying to find the funds to purchase and install a network and increase th e num ber of personal com puters avail­ able to students. High school seniors touring the campus with their parents or guidance counselors would ask when the library would be autom ated like the library is at institution x, y, or z. This situation was unacceptable to several D rew trus­ tees who had served on the network/library auto­ mation task force. They w anted to see th e knowl­ 1006 / C&RL News edge Initiative accomplished in a timely fashion. O nce done, D rew could claim credit for a full innovation, not an innovation th at was two-thirds complete. T heir sense of urgency invigorated the other trustees, and the full Board acted in D ecem ­ b e r 1988 to authorize additional funding. W ith funding assured, th e library began negoti­ ating with a small group o f library-autom ation vendors who could work in the D rew network environm ent and prom ise delivery o f a system by Septem ber 1989. W e were searching for a p artn e r­ ship similar to those we had developed with Digital, Bell Atlanticom, Intecom , Octel, and M C I during th e installation of th e voice-data system. Any new system m ust add value to the presen t system and for th e library, that m eant adding Boolean search­ ing and the potential for other m achine-readable databases in the future. In June 1989 we signed a contract with D ata Research Associates, and installed th e system over th e summer. By the fall, D rew University had a com plete network with an online public access catalog that featured Boolean access for all users, along with electronic mail, an online encyclopedia, and many o th er features. Six years after the intro­ duction o f th e C om puter Initiative, D rew has a system th at can serve as a model for o th er liberal arts institutions in its comprehensiveness, simplic­ ity, and simultaneous concern for cost-contain­ m ent and innovation. Those institutions still searching for ways to fund autom ating a library, or wiring a campus, or deliv­ ering sufficient personal com puting pow er to stu­ dents may w ant to consider D rew ’s approach. W hile the library w ent w ithout funding in the years w hen it sought funding for library autom ation as an isolated activity, th e proponents of th e network needed th e punch o f what a fully integrated library system would add to th e network in information delivery to sell th e netw ork to some faculty and trustees. Coupling the vision with sound budgeting and th e need to replace an outdated telephone system was vital. Both th e library and the office of th e vice-president for technology and planning found th at th e strongest case for th e Knowledge Network rested in its relation not to a given com ­ p u te r or piece of software, b u t to the vision of value-added inform ation services and delivery. N O TIS instruction for the public: Current tools and future needs By Lynn W estbrook Coordinator f o r Reference and Instruction Undergraduate Library, University o f Michigan Joining m ore than 100 other libraries across the country, th e University o f Michigan recently devel­ oped a local version of th e NOTIS online catalog. This created a critical need for basic training m ate­ rials for the public. As part of a U ser Education C om m ittee Subcom m ittee on Training for the Public, five librarians created an extensive set of lectures, transparencies, handouts, and exercises th at w ere then distributed to each o f th e 21 system libraries campuswide. These materials, available on request from LOEX,1 are based on a com bina­ tion o f th e practical dem ands faced by busy librari­ ans and basic pedagogical principles. Some portion 'F o r copies of any of the University o f Michi­ gan’s public training material, write to th e following address: LOEX, E astern M ichigan University, Ypsilanti MI 48197; (313) 487-0168. of th e materials should help m eet almost any need with th e NOTIS system, or even similar systems. F rom a veiy practical viewpoint, the librarians would be teaching u n d er a wide variety of circum ­ stances. Some would have access to microcom­ p u te r centers with a separate workstation for every student, while others would have only an overhead projector in a sem inar room. Some would have faculty eager for a full fifty-minute session, while others would be teaching undergraduates at brief walk-in sessions. Many would find reference and even circulation staff expected to b rief patrons quickly, while BI librarians would b e asked to add a few words onto th e end of an already crowded presentation. A few would have access to lab time, b u t most would not. These widely divergent needs m eant th at everything must be prepared for fifty-, twenty-, and ten-m inute presentations. Each of these presentations had to be prep ared both with