The E-Ref Invasion —Reference 2006

At Herrick District Library in Holland, MI, where six reference librarians serve a population of 105,000, traditional print items are being earmarked to be cut this year for the first time to make room for electronic resources. “We’ve finally crossed over to a generation of technology adopters,” says Kelli Perkins, the head of reference. “So our push to move from print to electronic has begun in earnest.” At Baruch College Library in New York City, electronic reference is at the forefront of student and faculty research, evident not only in the impressive number of computer stations scattered throughout the reference section but also in the number of empty metal shelves that used to house bulky print sets and periodicals. Librarians at the University of Georgia Library report that they have cancelled all of their print indexes in favor of the web-based versions and that they can now meet most of their undergraduates’ needs without a print collection.

Signs like these everywhere point to the invasion of electronic resources in libraries. Whether public or academic, small or large, most libraries now report that an overwhelming number of patrons conduct research via web-based databases. We can endlessly defend the value of books, but we can no longer deny the many advantages of electronic resources: their ease of use, cross-searching capabilities, and simultaneous and remote access options. However different their library’s clientele or budgets, librarians still generally agree that there is confusion about how best to manage reference collections during the period of transition. This confusion is easily detectable at conferences, where any reference-related panel is packed to the last seat.

Publishers, too, have varying perspectives on the current state of reference, which are reflected in the models they create. Some, like H.W. Wilson, devote most, if not all, energy and resources to their online efforts. Some vendors, like Thomson Gale, have begun producing ebooks without a print counterpart. Others, like Greenwood and Routledge, are digitizing their backlists and creating their own platforms. Yet others, like Sage Reference, remain faithful to their print lines while partnering with vendors to deliver content electronically.

Whatever the model, or the level of resistance, every reference publisher has an e-strategy in place or is in the process of building one. Many even openly acknowledge that the future of reference has the letter E written all over it. Casper Grathwohl, VP & publisher of Oxford’s Reference and Online division, is one of them. “I have seen a steady decline in the number of print sets we can sell in a model that used to exist prior to electronic,” he says. “I do not approve any new project that doesn’t have an online exploitation plan.”

Walk into any library and you will still see reference shelves filled with print sets of all sizes, among them such ubiquitous resources as Encyclopaedia Britannica, Oxford English Dictionary, and Encyclopedia Americana. You will also see people quietly perusing those reference books or asking librarians for assistance. But if you look more closely, you will see an even higher number of library patrons engaged in virtual research, with not a single book within their reach—nothing in front of them but their personal belongings and the glowing computer screen.

Recent visits to several public and academic libraries in the New York City area and conversations with two dozen librarians from across the country have confirmed that librarians have cut back on print reference. This does not mean they are not buying print reference. But it does mean they are not buying as many sets as they used to and for good reasons.

Many cite the lack of space as a rationale for cutting back (some libraries have already begun moving older reference books and print journals to remote storage facilities), but many also say it’s a service issue. “It is a disservice to refer a user to a difficult print resource when its electronic counterpart is a far superior product,” says Stewart Bodner, associate chief librarian, periodicals section, New York Public Library’s (NYPL) Humanities and Social Sciences Library. “With certain print resources, we’ve reached a point of no return,” adds Denise Hibay, NYPL’s assistant chief librarian of collection development. “I’m thinking of specific periodical indexes like Psychological Abstracts, MLA, or the various citation indexes that were a challenge to use for both librarians and researchers.”

In an ideal world, librarians say they would want both print and electronic formats, but it is rarely economically feasible to acquire both. Tight budgets often force hard purchasing decisions. In order to buy a subscription to a new database, librarians must cancel something else, and more often than not it is a reference book. If it’s not the demand for web products, it is the popularity of other nonprint items contributing to the decline of print. Queens Borough Public Library (QBPL), NY, for example, reports that an increasing portion of its book budget is going toward CDs and DVDs, as well as toward popular fiction and other best sellers.

There is, of course, the flip side to the budget issue: e-resources are expensive, in some cases going for double the cost of their print counterparts. “Unfortunately, print materials do not grab the attention of administrators who are making tough budget decisions,” observes Rosanne M. Cordell, head of reference at Indiana University Library in South Bend. “The result is that budgets for print reference titles are shrinking before electronic access to many of them is even available.”

While some librarians are ordering less print to buy more electronic, others are not yet going all electronic because they don’t feel they are getting enough bang for their buck. “We prefer web-based resources,” says Nadine Cohen, reference librarian at University of Georgia Library, “but if the cost is prohibitive or access is too restrictive, we’ll stick with print.” Denise Johnson, reference and government documents librarian at Bradley University Library, IL, agrees. “If more publishers would move to a 'purchase’ model with e-­resources, we would be more likely to switch,” she explains. As it is, her library doesn’t get the usage required to commit to a continuing cost for such products.

It’s not just librarians, however, struggling to allocate money. Publishers are vocal about what it takes to invest in electronic resources. “The perception that print is more expensive is simply not true,” says Donna Coleman, ABC-CLIO’s marketing director. “It takes a huge investment to build a database and then sustain it.” Oxford’s Grathwohl points out that subscription sites usually need a major overhaul every three or four years and that such projects are costly. “The more e-products you have,” he says, “the more you have to spread the infrastructure cost.”

The money is tight all around and is likely to remain that way. Nevertheless, when students and researchers walk into a library and head for the Reference section, they are not concerned with any of this. What they want is fast and easy access to accurate information. The question hovering in the background is the same old: “How do end users want their information?”

According to Donald Altschiller, history bibliographer at Boston University Library, whether patrons prefer to do their research on paper or online greatly depends on their age. “Students below 22 years of age have the mentality that everything is on the web,” he says. “They will use print for research only if instructed by their professors. The faculty, on the other hand, know that serious research involves the use of many types of sources.” Louise Klusek, head of reference at Baruch, says that the group still using print reference is shrinking fast. “Students are already way ahead of us in terms of their comfort level with technology,” says Klusek. Some public library branches, however, grapple with having abundant e-resources but no interested patrons. That’s the case at Forest Hills branch of QBPL, which caters to a large senior population. Reference librarian Michelle Ray believes that “age and the ingrained research habits that come with it factor heavily into the preference of print over electronic resources” at her library.

Almost everyone agrees that the generational gap exists, but, according to NYPL’s Bodner, so does the librarian’s responsibility “to help print users move into the digital age.” This, of course, is no small task, and, ironically enough, it seems to have gotten harder rather than easier with the advent of free search engines like Google.

Everywhere you turn, people are Googling, including librarians. “Sometimes a customer will peer at my computer screen and say that they could have used Google themselves at home,” says Queens Borough’s Ray, “but it takes the librarian’s skills to find stuff on Google.” Baruch’s Klusek admits to using it a great deal, too, but unlike the students, she says, “we know how to exploit Google as a search tool.” On the whole, librarians perceive Google as a wonderful adjunct to proprietary sources but should not be used as a standalone research tool. It is okay to Google, seems to be the verdict, but it takes a librarian to do it well!

The publishing community, not surprisingly, has a much more troubling relationship with the omnipresent search engine. While publishers recognize the potential to establish a favorable business relationship, they also see Google as a serious competitor. “It scares me,” admits Oxford’s Grathwohl, “but it’s a fantastic opportunity. It’s like a snake that if it bites, you die, but its venom is also some great cure.” Ron Boehm, CEO and academic publisher of ABC-CLIO, believes Google can actually increase the use of the publisher’s material. Phil Friedman, VP and publisher of Collins Reference, HarperCollins’s new, more tradey reference imprint, is less optimistic. “Google needs to be more in tune with publishers,” he says. “It has already alienated many with its flagrant misreading of copyright law.”

As technology continues to advance, so do librarians’ roles, requiring them, as one librarian concluded, to be more proactive than reactive. “If we crawl into the comfort zone too quickly,” notes NYPL’s Bodner, “then we are probably not doing our job.” One way to remain proactive, says Georgia’s Cohen, is to “participate actively in the creation of simple, clean search interfaces to multiple research databases, pushing vendors to adopt indexing and software standards to make the searching effective.”

Indeed, ask any reference publisher, and you will learn that librarians’ influence in the production of their products, both print and electronic, is enormous. Many publishers also have advisory committees that provide them with feedback; some, like Greenwood, even attend their local libraries’ acquisitions meetings. At Wilson, more than 150 editors directly involved with the production of its databases hold MLS or MLIS degrees. ABC-CLIO’s Coleman says this deep involvement is exactly what is needed. “Publishers are the ones on the bleeding edge here, having to invest in all these resources and having to constantly seek librarians’ approval. This is the only right way to move forward.”

While acknowledging that communication exists between the two sides, librarians like Baruch’s Klusek want to see more of it. “I don’t think there is as much communication in an academic setting as there is in a corporate one,” she says. “Publishers often provide us with dumbed-down versions of the products they sell to special libraries. Part of the problem may be that some don’t want to devote a sales force to the library market.” Oxford’s Grathwohl, however, is not worried about such detours. “It is important that we go through this trial-and-error period,” he says. “It is the only way to know what works for both sides.”

Everyone concurs that when it comes to reference, content still matters most. As for the delivery vehicle, it will take some time before all parts of the puzzle are in the right place. Some believe it won’t be too long before e-resources completely replace print materials; others remind us that thousands of valuable print reference books have yet to be digitized. There are those who believe the future of research is definitely online but don’t see the need to ever digitize inexpensive paperbacks like used-car buying guides. And there will always be those resistant to change, however positive it may be. “Sure, our world has been turned upside down,” observes Herrick’s Perkins. “We don’t put information on the shelf anymore, we link to it. This is a good thing, though, because it means that everyone will have equal access to information.”

Print reference may be in crisis, but reference publishing and reference librarianship are not. It could just be that both sides are so wrapped up in trying to resolve the key issues to mutual satisfaction that they are not always able to see the big picture. Susan Glover Godlewski, manager of reference and information services, Boston Public Library, ended her invigorating speech on the state of reference collections at this year’s ALA conference in Chicago by proclaiming, “The whole issue is an art, not a science.” Maybe so, but the industry is well on its way to figuring out the future of reference and is closer to the day when reference becomes more of a science than an art.