Educause 2006 Interview with Paul Gandel
At the recent Educause 2006 conference, Gene Spencer conducted an online interview with Syracuse University CIO, Paul Gandel. About 10 minutes into a wide-ranging discussion covering topics such as strategies for talking with the press, data visualization, and scholarly communication, there was a section on the ideas of the library information commons and embedded librarianship which caused me to perk my ears.
Gene Spencer: Paul, you've talked here, in a variety of ways here so far, about your academic background, which I find very interesting and compelling. Undergraduate degree in history, graduate degrees in both photography and library science, and a PhD in information studies. I suspect such a diverse background gives you a wide range of lenses that you can apply to the problems and opportunities that emerge in your work as a CIO. Has this proven to be true?
Paul Gandel: Ah, yes, it has. I think, underlying everything that I do, for the most part, is really about how people communicate with each other and share information. And my interest in photography, my interest in technology ultimately, was really my interest in communication and how people, essentially, share stories, share information with each other, because I think that has the most profound effect on the way our world operates, how the relationships we form with each other, and probably, where we're going in the future.
Gene Spencer: And I suspect that your background also supplies a unique perspective on the changing landscape that librarians find themselves in. Any thought on how that discipline will evolve over the coming years?
Paul Gandel: Well, I've gotten a little bit of grief for a recent article I wrote about libraries "Standing at the Wrong Platform, Waiting for the Wrong Train?", but I do think that libraries are missing some incredible opportunities and, in some cases, spinning their wheels by waiting for or chasing after the next new technology or the next new thing. For example, I find it, perhaps, somewhat amusing that there was a big movement to create, in library buildings, these large information commons. And for me, the question isn't really how do you create this thing in this one building, but in the future an information commons will be ubiquitous, it will be all over. So the notion of trying to create one place or one spot where everyone's going to come, to me, seems like chasing the past, rather than looking to the future.
I see the role of the librarian, maybe not so much changing, but evolving. I think, in the future, librarians really have to be more involved with the notion of scholarly communication or really the scholarship of scholarly communication because that really likes at the root of research, teaching, and learning. In many ways, librarians shouldn't become experts on how to use Google, but they need to be more subject matter experts in specific disciplines and areas and understand how the scholarly communications will work in the future in those areas. And I think, that by becoming experts in them, they can become embedded or members of the team in various colleges and disciplines.
And so rather than trying to create this huge information commons where everyone will come to this outdated storage facility in the middle of campus, it would be better to get the librarians unbounded from the building and into the departments and colleges and working as part of the team to really, almost, help shape the future of both scholarly communication and learning in the future.
Gene Spencer: So the information commons may have been a step in the evolution but it can't bind us in our thinking as we move forward.
Paul Gandel: Absolutely. I mean, anymore than, I think, the spaces we use today as learning spaces will work in the future.
My library has been talking a lot, recently, about the idea of the "embedded librarian". I have to admit I am still unsure what their idea of this will be. The idea of doing liaisonship work in teams has been mentioned, but the concept seems to be teams (roving bands?) of librarians rather than any notion of a subject expert working as an equal partner with a given academic department. If anything, I sense that the notion of librarian as subject expert is diminshing.
I'm not all that sure that most librarians currently have the sort of legitimacy in the eyes of the faculty to pull off the sort of partnership that Paul Gandel suggests. Maybe we should. I'll be interested to see if he is serious about providing the library the tools and structures to facilitate this and if he is willing to work with and influence the culture of the academic departments so that librarians would be welcomed in this role.
I think he is right on the mark about the one of the librarian's role: we do (or should) have a wider perspective of the changing nature of scholarly communications than the faculty and we have an important role in informing the research scholars about their options. That's the first step, I think, for enabling partnerships with faculty.
Edit: direct conference link added
