Definitions: Archives and Institutional Repositories

Photo credit: Aureusbay

I’m wondering if anyone out there has any particular insights into the varying mission and functions of an archive versus an institutional repository. I thought I had a very clear idea in my head about what an institutional repository is, or at least its purpose. However, when I began to discuss this with my university’s archivist, her response was, “We already have an institutional repository—it’s called the archive!” This stumped me a bit. I don’t think they are the same thing, but it has been difficult to articulate the key differences.

After doing a little bit of research (Google was spectacularly unhelpful in this particular case) and some further discussions with our archivist, I have some coherent thoughts forming. I think archives and institutional repositories have related, but distinct purposes, which inform their policies and practices around content, preservation, and access.

Content

University archives collect a couple different kinds of content, including administrative records and materials relating to the history and accomplishments of the university and its members. While there may be legally required collections policies on administrative records, universities and their archivists generally have a fair amount of discretion when it comes to what to collect. Finally, in most institutions the archives were created in a pre-digital era, many of the objects in the archive were and continue to be physical. The shift to digital means a couple thing, one that archive catalogs are more likely to be online (just as with libraries), and two that archives must develop new policies for preserving objects that were “born digital”.

Institutional repositories collect the intellectual and scholarly output of a university. This may mean works published elsewhere, informally published works, grey literature, or work not formerly published. It is harder to make universal statements about what does or does not belong in an IR, because universities seem to use them different, however best fits their needs. I’ve seen examples of IR software that contain image collections and audio/visual collections. I would like to say that most of the materials in IR are “born digital”, but I’ve seen IRs that have digitized versions of old campus blueprints—something that seems more like an archival object to me.

Preservation or Access?

My crude, simplistic assessment of the major difference between archives and institutional repositories is that archives are more concerned with preservation and IRs are primarily about providing access. The two are clearly not mutually exclusive, in fact, one could ask what the point of preservation would be if not to provide future access, but that is just the librarian in me. However, when I look at the policies, practices, and opinions from these two communities, archivists and scholarly communication folks, this seems to be the key difference. 

The work of archivists is to ensure the long-term preservation of objects, often physical objects that are irreplaceable. They are concerned with original object, accession order, and provenance. While online archive catalogs have enabled more access points for searching and finding documents, archival cataloging is chiefly concerned with office of origin and date of creation. Compare this to library catalogs, even prior to the move online library catalogs still provided access points for author, title, and subject. 

In my mind institutional repositories are inextricably related to the open access movement. While they may serve the related purpose of preserving scholarship, their chief purpose is to provide access to that work. Scholars and librarians have advocated and created IRs in explicit opposition to disturbing trends in the scholarly publishing industry. 

What do you think? Are there other important differences between archives and institutional repositories? Or am I trying to create false distinctions between two things that are really the same?

Meaning Making in the Library: My Response to ACRL NW 2012

It didn’t take me long after beginning my work in libraries to realize that the “librarian as guardian of knowledge” idea had become totally outdated the moment our information formats stopped being physically scarce. And Barbara Fister’s critique of the “library as warehouse of information” metaphor at last week’s ACRL NW Conference pushed me to think harder about a couple of key questions: If it’s not a scarcity of resources that gets people into the library, then what is it? Why does the library still hold such a privileged place in our collective imagination, even as it's lost that place in our collective wallet? And, finally, why do I love my job so much, what brings me such intense joy on the reference desk and in the classroom?

I think that beyond information, beyond knowledge, beyond the technology that we provide access to, there is something that the library and librarians facilitate that is as valuable now as it has ever been, and depends on our communities as much as it does on our facilities, technologies, and commodities.  I’m not talking about the writing of papers, or the accessing of e-reserves, or the time in the study room, or the reading of a call number.  I’m talking about the ideal end of all of that work: the making of meaning.

Why do we ask our students to read, to write, to solve, to collaborate?  As educators, we hope that our students’ lives will be enriched by the connections that they make in the classroom.  I argue that that is precisely the beautiful, rich, hard work that I see happening around me, daily, in the library.  What is the library if not a rich site of contextualization?   To that end:

• We provide group study rooms so that students can build off of each other’s work to make something better than they could have made on their own.   
• We fill our shelves with the intellectual work of others so that our readers can discover that their experiences have been shared, or that others’ lives are profoundly different from their own.   
• We wait at the reference desk so that we can encourage the asking of deeper, more probing, more thoughtful questions.   

I feel most exhilarated at work not when I find exactly the fact that a student was looking for, but when I can see in a student’s face the dawning of a connection between their own experience/curiosity/question with another’s work/words/thoughts.

The UW Bothell, where I work, organizes a significant portion of its Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences curriculum around the “Banking Concept of Education” chapter of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It struck me that both Barbara Fister and Char Booth, in their keynote addresses at ACRL NW also used the “banking concept” as an important metaphor to work against.  In this chapter, Freire describes a prevailing attitude toward education that conceptualizes the transmission of information as being a uni-directional flow from the teacher to the student.  This disempowering process devalues the experiences, expertise, and contexts of the student and privileges the teacher as a single authority figure who embodies the “right” kind of knowledge (Freire 72).  Freire instead advocates for a decentralized power structure in the learning environment which recognizes what every member of the community brings to that new context and remakes every student as a teacher, and every teacher as a student.  In this model, the knowledge flow is multi-directional and meaning is made collaboratively in a process that he calls “mutual humanization” (75).

It is no surprise that Freire came up so frequently at this conference, because we are at a moment in our history as a profession when we are liberated from many of the old metaphors that have hemmed us in and occupied our time.  We all know, now, that information is easy to come by, but meaningful information is created, not stumbled upon.  We, as librarians, teachers, learners, and community members, have the license to communicate openly and lovingly with our intellectual communities.  We get to support and be supported by their ideas, energy, passions, questions, and labor.  And in that process, if we are open, passionate, and hardworking ourselves--if we maintain a position of radical curiosity toward our community members, library users, and environment--we can make beautiful meaning together.

Freire, Paulo.  Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30^th Anniversary Ed. New York: Continuum, 2010. Print.

More on the value of libraries

These ideas must be floating around the ether right now. Last week I wrote a post about the persistent narrative of doom and demise of the library, in response to a similar post by Barbara Fister at Library Babel Fish. Now today, First Monday has released its latest issue, including this article by Jessa Lingel, "Occupy Wall Street and the myth of the technological death of the library." Lingel writes,

What we see here is that some of the very tools that have been hailed as signaling the demise of libraries (mobile devices, the Internet) are in fact being used to create an enduring record of what goes into the library. Here, tools of digital media are not exposing the irrelevance of libraries, but instead offer the means of developing it into a complex, sophisticated and digitally–accessible entity.

She goes on to discuss how the People's Library at Occupy Wall Street, and libraries in general, can reflect, instill, and reinforce the values of their community not just through the collection but also through the policies and decisions they make.

Returning to Shera’s ideas that libraries are a reflection of a community’s ethics and values, it makes sense that a movement founded on (at least the ideals of) democracy, free exchange of ideas, egalitarianism and openness would create a library with a collection development policy, with an egalitarian work force and open lending policy.

After I wrote the post last week, I had a discussion with my partner about the value of policies in an organization, when/why/how they are created and also when/why/how they are enforced. This article is well worth the read, thinking about how the values of a library are reflected in all the decisions it makes, even seemingly innocuous ones about what kind of software to use or the length of lending periods.

The Stories We Tell About Ourselves

A while back a friend of mine from high school visited me in Seattle, and as I was telling her about school and my plans for the future, she bluntly asked me, “Aren’t libraries obsolete?” It was not the last time that someone has declared/asked that of me in conversation, and the sentiment always rankles me. In part because I think the answer is, emphatically, no, and in part because I don’t know what to say to a person who thinks that. 

There are countless ways that libraries are invaluable to society, both the people who use them and even those who do not. Every day I see how the information landscape is changing and how libraries are integral leaders in that process. I see students needing guidance in how to sift through the vastness of the Internet and even to choose an appropriate point of entry. I see how librarians are asking the essential questions about the ethical, political, and social implications of the technologies and systems we build to create, store, and transmit information. I see libraries playing central roles in their communities. Yet there is a strong and persistent narrative in the news and even in the profession of librarianship that is always ready to declare the demise of libraries. My day-to-day reality is so far from this narrative of demise that when I come up against it, I am often flabbergasted and unable to succinctly or coherently state why libraries are definitely not obsolete (not to mention why you would probably be a better person if you used libraries more often, but I’ll leave that for another time).

I’m thinking about this today after reading this piece by Barbara Fister, The End of the Twilight Doom. Fister asks,

Why do we love apocalyptic metaphors so much? Nobody reads. Libraries are doomed. Higher education must change radically or die; no, wait, it’s already dead.  

It is almost trite to suggest that the answer is because it sells papers (or rather, pushes page views), though that is definitely part of it. I also think that there is a strong tendency towards myopia in our society, and that we often mistake change for destruction. It is this idea that we are on the edge of a precipice (or maybe we’ve already stepped off it) and this is the moment in time where society is about to fall apart (or already has) and we are the only ones who can do something about it and if we don’t act now it will be too late (or it already is too late). 

It is an engrossing narrative, but critically lacking any historical perspective. I think you could make the same argument about the narrative of demise in almost any context, but speaking specifically about libraries, it is safe to say that we have always been in a state of flux. I spent countless hours in graduate school reading texts like the U.S. 1876 special report on public libraries, Samuel Green’s "Personal Relations Between Librarians and Readers" (1876, assigned in at least two of my classes) or Vannevar Bush’s “As We May Think” (1945, also assigned in at least two courses). Though at the time I often cursed the poorly made scans and uneven typeset, the overwhelming message I got from reading these historical texts is that the core principles of librarianship remain  the same (public service, access, organization, preservation) while the superficial and technological details are constantly changing (card catalogs, print journals, etc.). Libraries are now and have always been engaging with changes in the way our society creates, accesses, and shares information.

In her post, Fister notes that the attention-grabbing, gloom-and-doom headline has been around for decades, and she suggests that it is time for libraries to create “a counter-narrative to the apocalyptic rhetoric.” I would say that a counter-narrative already exists in the profession: it is the narrative of leadership and innovation in the field of information. The problem is that this is the story we tell to ourselves, but we have been less successful in conveying the idea to others. Indeed, I have trouble imagining making the case to my friend who was sure libraries have become obsolete. We are combatting an emotional argument (Libraries are doomed!) with an intellectual one (Libraries are actually fulfilling the same role in society as they always have, and you are merely mistaking change for destruction.) It is not just that we need a counter-narrative, it is that we need one that packs the same emotional force as the fear-inducing notion that libraries are on the brink of collapse. I am now taking submissions for the parallel rebuttal, so when the next person says to me, “Libraries are obsolete,” I can respond, confidently and persuasively, “No, libraries are ________.” Please fill in the blank.

Transformed by Teaching

For the last class session of my quarter long information literacy class, my 15 students, the English and communications instructors who were a part of our learning community and I went to an Ethiopian restaurant for a coffee ceremony and to de-brief about the quarter.  The communications instructor assigned one last speech: "this will be your final impromptu speech: talk about at least one thing you learned this quarter and how it will affect your future."

While the coffee beans were roasted and ground, and the incense burned (anyone who hasn't enjoyed one of these coffee ceremonies, you're seriously missing out), the students shared incredible stories of growth that ranged from learning to measure ones own capacity for empathy to learning that there is a world of information that one has a right to access.  When I wrote my last Bookaneers post on the preparatory reading that I was doing before the quarter started, I could never have anticipated that I would end the quarter with tears rolling down my cheeks as my students stunned me one more time with their strength and insight.

When it was my turn to deliver my speech, I told my students that I'd learned three major things this quarter that would change my whole future:  

• I learned that I love to teach.  I love it so much that it got me up in the morning, got my intellect working in new and dynamic ways, and kept me up at night because I was so excited about the next day's lesson--and this came as a big surprise to me.  I got into librarianship with no idea of how much teaching is involved in every interaction--and how much classroom teaching is a part of the job description of an academic librarian.  By the time I began this class, I'd spent nearly two years teaching one shot research skills sessions to other instructors' classes, and had finally stopped hyperventilating long enough to begin enjoying the time I spent with those students in the classroom.  

But having a classroom of my own was completely different.  Over a whole quarter I had the chance to learn just what my teaching meant to the lives of the students that I got to see twice a week, every week.  And their reciprocal support for me can't be underestimated.  Though none of them knew that I was a new teacher, they instinctively reflected back to me my successes, my mistakes, and their unflagging support of my growth.  I can remember the revelation, during my first quarter in college, when we read Paulo Freire, that the boundaries between being a teacher and a student in the classroom should be wholly permeable.  Finally, in this class, I experienced that equality.  My fellow learners taught me about their cultures, their learning styles, their socioeconomic experiences, and my own teaching--and I grew, intellectually and emotionally, by leaps and bounds as a result.  In the future, I will make teaching a priority in my professional life, because I can't imagine anything more challenging or more fulfilling.   

• I learned the impact that information can have on people's lives.  Of course, my belief in the importance of access to information made me want to be a librarian in the first place, but until now, I'd ever seen the proof in such a real way.  Most of my students are in school because they want to go into social services--and almost all of them made that decision because they themselves have been helped or harmed by going through the social services system, as immigrants, as children, as veterans.  They have the experience and the passion to make outstanding professionals, but all of that knowledge is personal.  What we were able to develop in our class together, were the skills to push their personal narratives into wider-reaching reflections.  Through research, each student was able to contextualize his or her experience into a societal narrative, and marshal information resources to make their advocacy more powerful and persuasive.  In the future, I will always bear in mind the life-changing effect that access to information can have on people's lives.

• I learned about the courage that it takes to get an education.  Every one of my students' stories were different, but each of them surmounted a major obstacle to make it to higher education.  For example, one student ran away from her abusive husband when she was 15 to seek out personal freedom and education in America, though she didn't speak a word of English, and finally, at 32 she was in college.  And hers is hardly the most harrowing experience.  For many students everything about being in school was difficult: the writing, the long hours sitting still, the fear of looking stupid, the difficulty of the work, fitting in homework around children and a full time job, getting enough time on the computer to complete assignments.  But they'd made it to my classroom, and, amazingly, stayed alert, engaged, and fun during our hours together.

For several of my students, the greatest struggles were still to come.  Aside from all of the routine difficulties of college, several students faced incredibly difficult life events during the course of the quarter.  One student lost a close family member to a violent death on Sunday, and was back in my class the following Tuesday.   Another student and her children became homeless during the quarter, and she still managed to turn in her assignments to me.  I can honestly say that had I faced any of the things that these students faced during my second quarter in college, I would not have been able to complete my studies.  When I spoke to them about their amazing persistence in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, each of them made it clear to me that being in school was their greatest achievement, and that they would do almost anything to keep learning.  In the future, I will honor every student who walks through my classroom door as someone who has or who will bravely overcome obstacles to their own learning.  I will never forget how difficult getting an education can be, and I will take my teaching as seriously as they take their learning.

I'm not sure when I'll get to teach another quarter-long class, but I am thrilled that I got the opportunity to teach this one.  Although something special happens when we get to spend months in a learning environment with the same group of people, I know that all of the lessons that I am taking away from this quarter are applicable to my one shot sessions.    And so, to all of my future students, I can't wait to learn what you have to teach me, and to all of my former students, thank you for teaching me so much.

Teaching Tools Roundup

Ahoy Bookaneers!

As I'm finishing up my second quarter as a real librarian, and preparing for my upcoming quarter, I find my desk(top) covered with the new accoutrements of our profession. While many of these items bear the word "library" on them, they also bear words like "literacy," "pedagogy," "teaching," and "classroom." What has surprised me most these last two quarters is the sheer amount of teaching I have done--and the amount that I have to look forward to. This instruction takes many forms, and happens both in-person and virtually: class sessions with students I see only once or twice, one-on-one instruction while assisting a student at the reference desk, carefully detailed tips and advice in response to an email reference question, or virtual learning objects like research guides and video tutorials. This spring I'll teach a two-credit, full-quarter information literacy class as part of an I-BEST cohort, and the prospect of 20 hour-long class sessions has me both excited and just a little nervous.

I know that several of us have been experiencing the same steep learning curve as we recognize the gaps in our knowledge about teaching at the same time that we see the potential for its impact on our students. So, I thought I'd pull together some of the resources that I've found most useful in helping me grow as an educator, and I would love to hear what you all have been using, too.

• Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice by Geneva Gay has been invaluable in my process of thinking about classroom dynamics and communication styles at the very culturally diverse community colleges where I work. Gay, an instructor at our very own University of Washington, brings into focus the ethnocentricity of traditional American teaching styles, and how disenfranchising that classroom environment can be for our students. Most excitingly, Gay explores the multiplicity of communication styles represented in a multicultural classroom, and how much richer our educational experiences will be if we harness that diversity of styles in our teaching.
  

• The recent blog post "Reflective Teaching for Librarians" by Char Booth nicely summarizes the experiences I've had working with all you bright Bookaneers and the incredibly gifted educators at Seattle Central Community College, Shoreline Community College, and Highline Community College where I work and teach. Char suggests some practical approaches to collaboration, mentoring, and observation that operationalize all of the knowledge that we, almost unconsciously, absorb from our colleagues. With the brisk pace of the reference desk, its easy to forget some of the brilliant techniques that we witness daily, and it pays to be as disciplined in our record keeping as Booth suggests.

• Teaching Information Literacy: 50 Standards-Based Exercises for College Students by Joanna M. Burkhardt and Mary C. MacDonald with Andree J. Rathemacher comes as close as a book can be to the practical ideas that you get observing a colleague in the classroom. While the exercises are so concrete as to be a little limiting at times, I really appreciate the step-by-step instructions of how to plan different lessons around the various and interlocking elements of information literacy.

• While I don't necessarily agree with them all of the time, the ACRLInformation Literacy Competency Standards have been an important touchstone as I've planned classes; discussed the value of information literacy with administrators; and struggled to define, in my own mind, how the skills that I teach differ from the content of the class that I'm teaching to.

• A thousand thanks to Bookaneer Freeda Brook for sending along the brilliant In the Library with a Lead Pipe blog post on "Carleton: Forensic Librarians and Reflective Practices." Jastram, Leebaw, and Tompkins make a subtle but important distinction between teaching information literacy skills and fostering an information literate mindset, that has set my head spinning (along with Claire Murata's at Shoreline, with whom I can't stop talking about this) with ideas about how to shift my whole pedagogical paradigm.

• It's been over 10 years since I first encountered the classic Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire and the inspiring Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks, and they have been foundational to my thinking of the classroom as a possible place of liberation. Freire's simple injunction to remember that the teacher is also a student and that students are also teachers has had an amazing impact on the level of trust and relationship building in the classes that I have worked with. I've found that nothing makes students take me seriously faster than taking them seriously first.

I had no idea that teaching would form such a fundamental part of my practice as a librarian, but I am grateful that it does. Nothing takes more of my time than preparing for a class, but nothing feels as good as seeing a student's life get easier and more interesting because of something they learned in a class with me. We have the opportunity to make a huge impact on the lives of students in our classrooms, and I look forward to a lifetime of working with you all at getting better at that task.

The Meaning of Quiet, and the Value of Limits

I thought about responding to Ian's post in the comment field, but, let's be frank, those comments always get short shrift, and I want my thoughts to be front and center. That being said, let me step aside for a moment and laud Ian's post: what a great, thougthful, and nuanced discussion. I could see Ian's anxiety about seeming convoluted, and I think that's the danger of any true thought about today's socio-technical predicament (or opportunity). One can't talk about quiet in today's world without also talking about noise. One can't talk about noise, without talking about who is intruding upon our contemplation, and that means taking on capitalism. It may not seem like a clear, logical argument, but it is.

My work at Seattle Central Community College has really impressed upon me why quiet--and noise--matter in a library environment. Having come from a household where it was never difficult to find a totally silent room to read, write, or think, I always thought that the librarian's insistence on hushed voices was either a character flaw or a mad grasp at power. One can be quiet anywhere, I thought, but it's not everywhere that you can find like-minded thinkers in the same place, so why not let the people chat?

The first time a student came to the desk to beg me to supervise the silent zone, my thinking began to change. The library, for many of the students at SCCC is the only place where there's not a TV on, or a baby crying, or a hundred obligations jockeying for attention.

To be in a place where no one is intruding on your thoughts, what a relief in a world of talking billboards, pop-up advertisements, and ubiquitous product placements. How is a book like a library? We can choose (more easily) to give it limits that are difficult to maintain in many other areas of our lives. While a physical book may have references, allusions, and all sort of connections to other texts, peoples and histories, it is not hyperlinked. I cannot check my email on my paper copy of Jane Eyre (which of course I could if I were reading it on a Kindle). Likewise, a physical library has physical walls, within which certain standards are upheld: resepect for thought, freedom from coercion, help that is offered free of charge. We all need help setting limits for ourselves in a time when most of us complain of information overload and a lack of concentration.

Of course, I am already thinking of a number of counter arguments to my own points: hyperlinking is amazing, and has its roots in the paper book; communications is just as important as quiet contemplation, etc., etc. I still think it's important, though, to respect the impulse to set limits, to sometimes sequester ourselves from a world that constantly drives a hard bargain right in our faces, and, as Ian beautifully put it, to sometimes idle with our thoughts.

Where does the Library Fit?

Graduation is approaching much too quickly for comfort, and this impending end, of course, implies new beginnings. To put it more succinctly, I've started to apply for jobs. As part of a job application that I was just filling out, I was asked to write a statement on where I think the library fits into the larger academic institution. What a great question! I thought I'd share what I wrote, largely to hear what you all think about this. How have you seen the library fit into the wider institution OR if your imagination held sway over your world, how would you want it to fit in?

Ok, here are my thoughts:

There is a reason, I think, that great pieces of literature, like The Name of the Rose, or Borges’s short stories, or Something Wicked This Way Comes, have been written about the library. It is a place where minds can meet, across time, across language, and across geography, through pages (be they paper or electronic), without regard to income, or education. Libraries are beguiling precisely because they are so free—of prejudice and of cost. Libraries are mysterious because there are so many words, images, people, and potential secrets in them—but they are a mystery that anyone is welcome to solve.

While the experience of higher education is all about the meeting of minds in classrooms, and on group projects, the library gives the learner a chance to discover ideas entirely on her own terms. That is why I see the library as a perfect, and necessary, compliment to classroom learning. While we sometimes want to be guided in our learning: given a reading list, assigned a topic, asked a guiding question; sometimes we want to be able to develop our own reading list, research our own topic, and ask our own questions (of an interesting book, or of a very helpful and eager librarian!).

In my work at Seattle Central Community College, I see the library filling myriad roles in students’ lives that would not be filled in its absence. The library is bursting with students, but it is also a place of quiet study and contemplation. The library is a place with big tables and small study rooms where students can tutor each other or work together on projects. The reference desk is a first point of contact for students looking for help—help finding research, help finding the tutoring center, help using a computer or printing out a paper. It is a place, outside of the short minutes in the classroom, where students can think, work, see each other, and get assurance and guidance.

For this reason, I think that the library is a logical place to situate information technologies like computers, DVD players, and assistive devices, because they are a continuation of older information technologies (like books). It is often a logical place to house other support services like tutoring and writing centers, because students naturally think of the library as a place to turn when they need help.

Admittedly, I am library-centric, but I do believe that, just as we gather like things together on the shelves, so should we gather like things together in (or through) the library. As part of an institution of higher education, I see the library as a hub of enrichment for students, faculty, and staff, where all are welcome to inform themselves—and get help doing it. It is a place where the walls between disciplines can dissolve, and where we can all get something done.