Our development team has been making slow but steady progress on the research portal prototype. I use the word “team” but there are just two of us working on the project a few hours each week—Muzammil Sagheer (our departmental graduate assistant) and myself.
Fortunately, in the coming weeks we’ll be enlarging the circle just a bit—adding a subject specialist librarian to help us map out a taxonomy for our resource database and work with us as we think through different ways to meet user needs and aspirations.
We have a two part goal: build a prototype portal for a particular discipline and then use it to encourage other librarians on staff to adopt/adapt the software to augment (and ultimately replace) the static web guides, handouts, and other resources they currently produce. If we’re successful, we’ll get to the point where our librarians are essentially curators of online information within a discipline and keepers of the “go-to” first stop for researchers.
If you believe as I do that the percentage of users physically entering the library is in continuous and irreversible decline (irreversible at least as long as electricity and networking exist), then doesn’t it make sense to focus our energies and resources on creating a presence on the net where information users still congregate?
But, they come to the reference desk too, don’t they?
Yes. But they came in greater numbers when you had to come to the library if you wanted in-depth information (which was for the most part in print and on paper). We continue to staff the desk today both because it’s been there for years and because it’s probably still the cheapest way to deliver that level of information seeking assistance. Problem is, that level of assistance is no longer sufficient.
Look around. Most information isn’t confined to paper and most users soon realize they don’t have to come to the library to find and use it. Does it make sense to focus so much energy on services we deliver inside the building? Shouldn’t we direct ever more of our efforts toward finding ways to add value to the online information experience?
Which brings me back to this research portal project. We’re betting that combining the features of:
- a blog (a way to facilitate conversations with readers/researchers),
- a resources database,
- a calendaring service,
- discussion forums,
- relevant RSS feeds and more…
into a single, focused web resource will provide a way to get researchers and librarians working together. If it turns out we’re wrong about the utility of that sort of service, we’ll still have built a resource database for a discipline and that can be repurposed. So there’s little to lose by experimenting.
We’re several months away from having a useable (and useful) product but if you’re curious you can monitor our progress here: