Best of
the Lists
(including Best of BUSLIB-L)
(including Best of BUSLIB-L)
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
Best of
the Lists (including Best of BUSLIB-L) |
||||||||||||
| Montague Institute |
|
||||||||||||
| See our event calendar for ways to add value to business research with SharePoint and the Semantic Web | |
To be notified of new articles, sign up for email alerts or subscribe to our RSS feed |
How to plan a virtual library
I had written to request for help with planning a virtual library about a week ago. Thank you to all who wrote me about your experiences with planning a virtual library and directing me to various sources. You have been very helpful. The following is a summary of the responses I received. Go over to Library Journal and see if you can find the cover story they ran recently on this topic. It wasn't quite the "moving" you are talking about, but they did interview several corporate librarians about the shift, and many have gone to completely virtual services. When I say "recently" I mean it was sometime in the last 4 months.
Sylvia Piggot wrote about her experiences in getting Bank of Montreal to a virtual library in the Fall 1993 issue of Special Libraries. Although old it has insight.
You may want to get Creating a Virtual Library, ISBN 1-55570-346-1, 1999, $55 from Neal-Schuman. I have moved two libraries, both times there were foul-ups on the other end, with shuffled books or improperly installed shelving, so you may want to walk through each step with all parties involved and go over the obvious. As manager of the UTC Information Network, I headed the initiative to redesign a network of traditional libraries to a network of virtual libraries. Here are citations for two articles I wrote on the process. I hope they help. "United Technologies Corporation Moves to Virtual Information Services." ASIS Bulletin 24(6) August/September 1998. "Corporate Makeover: UTC Revamps Its Library," Library Journal, March 1, 1997 pp. 38:41. I just moved our library from a 800 sq. ft. space to a 150 sq ft. space (approximate guesses). I work in an IT department serving about 550 patrons -- mostly programmers, business analysts and management. Many of our resources -- especially manuals that come with particular software applications- are now available only online. This initiative was a combination of planning and a last minute need for space. I knew I was going to have to move, I just didn't know when or where. So, I started the process by weeding the collection as much as possible and contacting companies that supplied us with manuals/software to see if they had electronic versions of their manuals. Most did. We got rid of the hardcopies altogether where there was electronic available. My call to move came when thirty new programmers were hired for a special project and they decided that the library was just the place to house them- I had one month to move the collection. Most of it got 'weeded' and, wherever possible, replaced by electronic versions. There are pros and cons to this. The pro is that we are spread over two buildings and seven floors- now people don't have to come to the library to find what they need- it's at their fingertips. However, as often as I get kudos for arranging this, I get 'complaints' that people don't like to read online books. For reference, there is nothing better than having the books online, for reading- not so good. IBM manuals used to take up and entire separate room (this was before I got here) and cost thousands of dollars in purchases and upkeep. They are now available on 6 disks and updated 2-3 times per year. Much easier to maintain! Magazines in the IT industry are also going online an awful lot. Datamation, as an example, issued its last hardcopy magazine last March. It is now available only on the internet. This has helped as I can simply say to the patrons that it is no longer being produced in hard copy. Some of the companies that produce manuals are also doing this.
I went through this 18 months ago on a smaller scale. I moved from a 900 square foot space to two cubicles, four filing cabinets and 40 linear feet of shelf. I am willing to share experiences and have written a couple of articles about it. See our new website at http://www.sla.org/chapter/ctor/ and look for articles from previous issues of the Courier.
Edited on September 14, 2005 |
