The future of Information Sciences

Cases studies in American resources centers

Julien Cammas
Institute for Policy Studies, International Fellows Program, Johns
Hopkins University
Institut for Urban Planning and Development of the Paris Ile-de-
France Region

Purpose
According to the INSEE1, the French Institute of Statistics, one French
people out of four uses Internet daily. Internet is the first source for
practical information (do-it-yourself, kids’ needs, duties, personal
development …), and one household out of four has an Internet
connection. The French government promotes the development of
Internet by equipping public spaces with Wireless, or by disseminating
civic information and downloadable reports on Internet. Recently, the
French Government decided to stop the printed edition of the “Official
Journal of Laws”. Now, it is available online only. This Website proposes
many services : documents available by topics, full-text search, last
published documents…
This example illustrates the evolutions that happened recently with the
development of the Internet technologies : users can now reach
instantaneously the full-texts documents from house without any help.
Therefore, the first purpose of my study is to draw up the current
assessment of the Internet’s offer in term of content management. The
second purpose is to know how is the impact of this technological
development on libraries : about users’ statistics frequentation ; about
librarians’ daily practices. The last purpose is to try having a prospective
vision of the future of information sciences, while taking as a starting point
the practices of Americans libraries.
This report also gives me the opportunity to bring new ideas to the
IAURIF’s library and to develop the Urbamet network towards the USA.

1
Internet au quotidien : un Français sur quatre.- Insee Première, n°1076, Mai 2006.
www.insee.fr/fr/ffc/docs_ffc/IP1076.pdf

Julien Cammas – May 2007 1

Method
I first expected to focus on librarians’ practices with Internet. But I
understood that the development of technologies for everyone change
completely how people use libraries.
My tools for this study were :
- An online survey with 20 French librarians
- Investigations in the USA with 8 librarians in public and private
libraries. Closed-questions and discussions.
- Visits in many public libraries in major cities
- Readings to determinate the context of the study and to bring data
about the impact of Internet on the libraries
- Web searches and self-training with new Web 2.0’s tools

Information sciences with the Internet

The Internet has been settled by the American government in 1962. For
few years, the Internet has been in an exponential development. In 2003,
there were more than 600 million of Net surfers in the world, that is to say
3 times more than in 1999. Now, Internet’s technologies have evolved :
users are able to publish content on the web and many companies like
Google and Amazon.com offer technical solutions to manage digital
documents on the Web.
Therefore, several conclusions are to be extracted from the analysis of the
new free services of Web 2.0 :
 the capacity given to the user to publish contents for free on the
Internet leads to an exponential development of information in real
time ;
 the passion of the Net surfers for this kind of services shows that it
correspond to the users’ expectations ;
 these tools give the possibility for users to have a direct relationship
with documents. They don’t need librarians anymore to search,
organize, disseminate and share documents
 libraries lost the knowledge monopoly

Internet and Libraries : the impact on the statistics of frequenting

Are there less visitors in libraries because of the new technologies ?
According to the CREDOC2, there are two times more visitors in libraries in
2007 than in 1989. However, various sources agree to say that the
development of the practices of Internet affects the libraries-going.
Indeed, the user seems especially attracted by the service of free
consultation of Internet in the public libraries and by the loan of digital
supports (CD, DVD…). Thus, books are not the main consulted support in
the libraries anymore.
Therefore, the improvement of the libraries’ frequentation might be
conditioned by :
 New services : exhibition, music shows, debates …
 The lending of new medias : DVD, CDROM, audio-books …
 Free access to the Internet
2
La fréquentation des bibliothèques publiques a doublé depuis 1989.- Consommation et Modes de
vie, n°193, Mai 2006 : www.credoc.fr/pdf/4p/193.pdf

Julien Cammas – May 2007 2

  Visibility and good quality of services on the library’s website

The Internet and librarians

There is more and more information available on the Internet, that should
secure the future of librarians. However, search engines and technologies
help users to be more autonomous. Librarians will have to be more
qualified to use technologies and the profession is going to be more
technical.
According to an investigation carried out by IDP for the Archimag
magazine in 20063, the librarians’ profession should be divided in several
specialties in big companies (Web manager, knowledge to manage,
intelligence manager…) and should request many skills in small firms and
local public agencies.
These cases show that the future of information sciences is going to be
digital. Therefore, we could summarize the future changes in information
sciences by the following syllogism : “Documentation is the science of the
document. But documents in the future will be digitals. So the future of
documentation will be digital. ”

The analysis of the online survey with 19 French librarians in the FNAU4
network shows that :
 French librarians use the Internet mostly for searching information.
They don’t use the Internet to manage information. They
communicate with users by e-mail
 Librarians think that new technologies could help them to improve
there work
 But technologies have to be improved to fit with their hopes
 Librarians are aware of the profession’s changes : repositioning
librarian in the company, needs training in new technologies

Public services in American libraries

The frequenting of Americans’ private resources centers is stagnating. At
the same time, the frequenting in public libraries is developing. The
American Libraries Association5 seems to mainly link this phenomenon to
the free access to Internet in libraries. However, other facts may be
identified :
 Public libraries are accessible : in big cities, libraries are downtown,
next to public transportation and other public services ;
 Americans public libraries’ buildings are prestigious : libraries are
often in huge historical buildings easily identifiable and known by
the inhabitants ;
 Equipment : furniture is comfortable, Internet accesses are
numerous, WIFI, and holdings are accessible directly ;

3
Les nouveaux horizons de l’infodoc. Etude prospective sur l'évolution des différentes fonctions de
l'information-documentation.- Archimag, 2006 .- Communiqué de presse :
http://www.forumdelageide.com/fileadmin/Forum_2006/Espace_Presse_actu_EXPOSANTS/CP_horizon
s_infodoc_forum_geide.pdf
4
Fédération Nationale des Agences d’Urbanisme
5
www.ala.org

Julien Cammas – May 2007 3

  Services to the citizens : the American libraries adapted their
services to the users’ needs. The Internet access is free, exhibition,
conferences, films, free courses about search of information…
 Librarians are available for public’s needs : librarians’ offices are
located in the reading room and librarians are able to teach the
users how to search information.

However, users ask for librarians less frequently, and the questions are
more technical : how to look for information on online databases, how to
search on the Internet ? Users are more autonomous.

As it is also the case in France, books are not attractive enough to keep
users in libraries. That’s why American public libraries are developing new
services. The libraries are becoming places of socialization, “civic open
spaces”6.

The analysis of the services provided on the Web by American public

libraries shows that libraries websites are not only a window which shows
services for users in the establishment. The libraries’ websites help users
to widen their fields of research by proposing full text access. The website
centralize many resources online classified by topics to help users to
become more autonomous and to emphasize information which was
difficult to reach before.
To sum up, Internet is becoming the main tool for the libraries to :
 Show services inside the library ;
 Promote activities of the library : projects in progress, topicality … ;
 Search for bibliographical information or documents in the catalogue
of several libraries and fee databases ;
 Centralize and organize online resources ;
 Process data with library’s network ;
 Work with users to improve services : to collect their feedbacks, their
ideas, their recommendations ;
 Broadcast documents from the digital library’s holding.

American Librarians’ daily practices

The Americans’ practices are very focused on digital information and
online resources :
 American libraries acquire more and more born-digitalized
documents. They also manage many digitization projects ;
 The cataloguing tasks are simplified and distributed between several
libraries, with OCLC’s Worlcat7 tools ;
 The search for information is decentralized : it’s directly done by
users, from home. Librarians are still the referent for the “where to
search” question, but they are loosing their legitimacy for the “how
to search” question ;
 Users expect more and more for full-text documents ;

6
Denise Hibay, New York Public Library
7
www.worldcat.org

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  The main task of the librarians is to manage online to improve users’
researches ;
 The Internet is a relevant tool for librarians to look for information, to
organize it, to select and disseminate it.

What could we learn from Americans practices ?

 Libraries work together with a powerful network to optimize services

for users and data processing ;
 The future of the libraries’ online catalogs is the “long-tail”, a catalog
with users’ feelings
 The development of new technologies give the opportunity to
librarians to manage projects : digitization, online catalogs ;
 Librarians use Internet in all data processing tasks : to look for
information, to manage information and to disseminate information ;
 My investigation confirms the fact that librarians’ profession is
becoming more technical and librarians will have to deal more with
administrations fields.

Thanks :

Sandra Newman, Marsha Schachtel, Institute for Policy Studies, Johns

Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

Interviews and meetings :

Lynn Stuart, Jim Gillispie and David Reynolds – Sheridan Library, Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore MD
Mary Logan – Baltimore Metropolitan Council, Baltimore MD
Matt Cook – Illinois Institute for Technology, Chicago IL
Shannon Paul – American Planning Association, Chicago IL
David Deckelbaum – University of California, Los Angeles CA
Denise Hibay and Robert Armitage – New York Public Library
Luc Declerck - University of California, San Diego CA
Joan Campbell and Rick Davis– Urban Land Institute, Washington DC
Nancy Minter – Urban Institute, Washington DC

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