Review: Heath, F., (2009)

Heath, F., (2009), 'Documenting the Global Conversation: Relevancy of Libraries in a Digital World', Journal of Library Administration, 49 (5), 519-532
      Dr Fred Heath is Provost and Director of the University of Texas, Austin Libraries. For more information about Dr Heath go to: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/vprovost/heath_f.html
      A specifically American voice reiterates many challenges facing research libraries and universities in the United States of America today. Throughout this article Fred Heath discusses modes of survival for academic libraries within the information sector amidst the fast paced, changing 'information universe' and the economic transformations affecting broader reaches of society.
      To unpack his case for the survival of research libraries, Heath defines the boundaries and realities of the information landscape by effectively highlighting the impossibility of an all or nothing, dichotomous position if academic libraries are to stay relevant and prosper. Heath reinforces that the previously central and traditional role of libraries as gatekeepers within the research environment has gone. There are many possible futures for research libraries but there must be an embracing of technological and economic change, coupled with a sustainable focus on facilitating critical inquiry on the part of the university community.
        Heath presents two texts that represent opposing positions on the spectrum of arguments surrounding the acceptance of new information technologies into the realms of the education sector. The first, a cautionary report Preparing for the Revolution: Information Technology and the Future of the Research University (Duderstadt, et al., 2002) offers discussion regarding the disruptive impact of information technologies on the way people learn. It expands on the position that rapid evolution of the digital environment has brought with it threats as well as opportunities. In addition the changes induced by information technology are different as they alter the fundamental relationship between people and knowledge. However this issue takes on a different, more positive light in an earlier article by Louis Rossetto , the then editor of Wired magazine, who argues that the revolution will produce a 'direct connection of minds' (Max, 1994) meaning anyone who can write can publish. Perhaps in this context it is also useful to compare O'Reilly Media's promotion of the 'democratisation' of the Web (O'Reilly, 2005), with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Thomas Friedman's argument that a world without experts or specialist scholars is a world without nuance, depth and quality information (Friedman, 2005).
      Discussion of the ways in which related industries such as book publishing, music and newspapers have succeeded or failed to adapt to recent economic free-fall, highlighting the paring of labour and distribution costs from their traditional economic models, echoes the writings of Daniel Bell from the late 1960s. Bell's elucidation of the societal changes from industrial, blue collar work to information management and the coming of the post-industrial society (Bell, 1973) can also provide a segue here to Heath's discussion of the higher education sector. Heath reminds us that universities have not been immune to the elimination of intermediaries between users - students and the research community - and information - available any time and any place on the Web. This 'disintermediation' includes the irrelevance of fixed geographical locations (buildings) and face-to-face contact (for example between students and staff).
      A range of complex futures for research libraries are put forward by Heath. Included in the mix is the increased partnering of librarians with academic faculty and administration to ensure students are equipped with 'baseline' information literacy skills, access to librarians via real-time online facilities and the building of quality collections of e-resources housed in fenced, vetted online environments approved by global networks of scholars.
      Although the specific institutions Heath discusses in this article are unique to the USA, it is possible, given the realities of a global economy and increasingly vigorous cyber infrastructure, to draw strong parallels from Heath's dialogue to an Australian context and to that of myriad other institutions across the globe. For example a quick visit to university library websites across the world say, for arguments sake, Bangalore University Library and Queensland University of Technology Library , will highlight the similarities of approaches to surviving in a digital environment in a networked society. Solutions found in this context are access to digital repositories of research dissertations and greater reciprocal relationships between universities. In this way, the issues raised in this article can apply usefully to a much wider audience. The tools, spaces and methodologies may be different but as Heath states, if libraries and librarians stay focussed on their key objectives they will have important roles to play into the future.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bell, D. (1973). The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books.

Duderstadt, J., Atkins, D. E., Brown, J. S., Fox, M. A., Gomory, R. E., Hasselmo, N., et al. (2002). Preparing for the Revolution: Information Technology and the Future of the Research University. Washington DC: National Academies Press.

Friedman, T. (2005). The World is Flat: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.

Max, D. T. (1994). The End of the Book. The Atlantic Monthly, 274(3), 62.

O'Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. from http://tim.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html