Smartphones Can't Replace Libraries

Academic libraries aren’t just expensive “vanity projects” but rather a vital part of the higher education ecosystem, argue Julie Todaro and Irene M. H. Herold.

While there may be other laboratories across a campus, they do not provide the access to information, librarian expertise and interdisciplinary integration that academic and research libraries sustain. In addition:

• Academic libraries provide (for the haves and the have-nots) spaces or commons -- primarily “high-tech ready” in nature -- that offer general and subject-specific equipment, software and web-delivered content for individual access and study. They also offer collaborative spaces for students to work together with each other in small groups and with classroom faculty to study and create content.
• Academic libraries provide spaces for STEM and STEAM discovery or maker space environments for students anywhere in the program or the curriculum -- especially those who don’t have access to departmental labs, where spaces are often reserved for students majoring in those specific areas.
• Academic libraries provide open labs and flexible, individual computer spaces with equipment and software unique to special research or subject area populations, such as geographic information systems or statistical software packages to process data used in the study of social and natural sciences. They also serve special needs students, faculty members and staff.

Academic libraries provide not only access to content within their buildings but also equipment and technology that students can check out and use in their educational pursuits. (This takes space for not only storage but also delivery of resources.)

Meanwhile, academic library professionals, often faculty members themselves, are experts in areas of research, and they work in partnership with classroom instructors in the design and delivery of curricula. They also:

• partner with classroom faculty members in the design and delivery of courses requiring critical thinking and information literacy as well as subject-targeted assignments;
• are champions for and leaders in open educational resources that provide vetted, free content for students who can’t afford textbooks, a large part of the price tag of college;
• build digital as well as print collections to reflect classroom faculty research, recommended research by other experts and subject content required by external regional and national accreditation bodies -- such as digital and print content for the health sciences and business-management curricula; and,
• acquire, curate, design and deliver online content and competency lessons (online tutorials, streamed office hours with library experts) for students to access on their smartphones.

We invite Van Susteren to visit one or more of our nation’s fine academic libraries, such as that of her alma mater, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, or any of ACRL’s Excellence in Academic Libraries award winners. She will see firsthand the role those libraries play in the life of knowledge and information and how an investment in them is an investment in the success and future of our college students -- and, in turn, the success and future of our nation.

Details Available @ https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2016/11/10/why-academic-libraries-arent-just-expensive-vanity-projects-essay

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library

Khaitan & Co

Blog | http://pralhad-fyilibrarian.blogspot.in/