The IPL: Still Alive and Well | From the Bell Tower

A fresh perspective on the IPL2 and the role it plays in LIS education

Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA -- Library Journal, 03/25/2010

You remember the Internet Public Library (IPL). Of course you do. It was probably one of your go to sites, along with the Librarian’s Index to the Internet (LII) and Scout Reports, for authoritative, subject organized, librarian vetted web content.

Have you taken a look at the IPL lately? Probably not. Academic librarians may even think the IPL was swept into the Internet dustbin years ago. Here’s some news for you, then. The IPL is not only still going strong, but it’s now morphed into something new—the IPL2. Rather than offer two similar yet competing sites, the IPL and the LII decided to merge, and together became the IPL2. Personally, I had thought little about the past, present, or future of the IPL in recent years. That was until I attended a symposium held to celebrate the 15-year anniversary of the IPL2.

Is it really 15 years already?
According to the official timeline of the IPL2, the site first became active in 1995. IPL was the brainchild of Joe Janes, who continues to teach the next generation of reference librarians at the University of Washington iSchool. According to Janes, who spoke at the Symposium, the IPL emerged from questions he was pondering about what a public library would look like on the Internet. A guiding principle asked what librarians could offer the Internet, and what the Internet could offer to librarians.

The project attracted immediate attention, and 35 graduate students worked for 70 days to build the world’s largest and most recognized free, subject-indexed online collection and reference service. To date, the librarians who work and volunteer for IPL2 have answered 91,982 reference questions—and they still continue to answer approximately 800 a month. Though originally based at the University of Michigan, IPL2 is now located at Drexel University’s iSchool. The Internet has vastly changed libraries in the past 15 years. How about IPL2?

Looking ahead
The IPL2 has an interesting history, but the point of the symposium was to examine where IPL2 is headed, and in what ways it could help to shape the education of tomorrow’s reference librarians. The most recent significant change occurred when the now defunct Librarians’ Index to the Internet (LII) merged into the IPL, leaving IPL as the premier, free public source of evaluated and subject-indexed content on the Internet.

What has changed little is the IPL2 website, which according to at least one Symposium attendee, now looks dowdy and out of date. One thing I learned at the symposium is that Drexel’s team of HCI (human-computer interaction) specialists is looking to reinvigorate the user interface with a redesign. Good news, but with the many options the public has for obtaining information on the Internet what can be done to get them to visit the web’s public library? What role can academic librarians play in helping to secure a sustainable future for the IPL2, as well as maintaining the site as a training ground for up and coming reference librarians who need to gain experience in both the physical and virtual worlds?

Offering a community of practice
Much of the conversation at the symposium focused on the future of reference service. Several trends were discussed: the emergence of a reference continuum with multiple service modes and technologies; a vast expansion of potential resources in new formats; reference as a collaborative process that involves the user; the delivery of reference service within social networks; reference librarians shifting from searchers to evaluators. We talked about the importance of librarians having identities rather than being anonymous to the community. Dave Lankes shared his thoughts about the role of the reference librarian in creating conversations that lead to the construction of knowledge. And when it came to discussing the future of LIS education for reference librarians, there was a great exchange of ideas between the LIS educators and the practitioners.

One thing became clear in that conversation. It’s difficult to teach someone how to do reference work. How do you educate someone to internalize the nuances of the reference interview, to listen well, to be inquisitive and intellectually curious—all important skills for reference success? The hard-to-teach soft skills of reference work are challenging to communicate in a classroom. IPL2 can help LIS students who want to hone these skills with authentic practice.

One of the things I discovered is that IPL2 offers LIS students and practicing librarians a learning community where they can exchange ideas and help each other learn the best practices.  Although it currently allows only email reference, it still presents a great opportunity for student volunteers to gain expertise with virtual reference. But to reflect today’s reference environment, IPL2 will need to add new technologies such as chat and text reference.

Overlooked by academic librarians
I suspect that for most academic librarians, like me, it’s been more than a while since using the IPL2. Many, at one time, probably did, but with improvement in search engines, browsing directories like the IPL2, along with their collections, are less relevant than in the past. But my participation in the symposium gives me a fresh perspective on the IPL2 and the role it plays in LIS education—which is really from where it all originates.

I hope that the Drexel iSchool, now overseeing IPL2, will continue to publicize this resource and encourage more academic and other librarians to participate in the learning community. Librarians across all sectors of the profession like to complain about the quality of education in LIS programs and the lack of preparedness shown by new students. There’s only so much you can learn in a classroom. If they want to see improvement, academic librarians need to stop overlooking the resources IPL2 offers, and start exploring how they can involve themselves in the learning community to connect with LIS students seeking to improve their reference skills. Just as with all of our futures, the best future for reference is the one that we can shape today with our actions.

Steven Bell is Associate University Librarian, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.  For more from Steven visit his blogs, Kept-Up Academic Librarian, ACRLog and Designing Better Libraries or visit his web site.