Re: One Report, Two Findings: Library Roles Changing, Open Access Not Compelling

[Laval Hunsucker <amoinsde@yahoo.com>]

> . . . libraries are increasingly viewed as information 
> purchasing agents inside academic institutions rather than 
> intellectual partners.

With all due respect:  this has the look of no more than loose 
self-serving cliche rhetoric and the mobilization of a quasi 
straw man. I assume it was nonchalantly scribbled down without 
much second thought.

After forty-seven years of intensive direct experience ( both on 
the faculty/researcher and on the librarian side ) in many 
academic libraries in numerous countries of North America and 
Europe, I can without hesitation say that I have never 
encountered an example of a faculty member or researcher viewing 
the library as an "intellectual partner". The notion even has an 
absurd ring to it. That such was a "fear among librarians", to 
the [uncertain] extent that this is in fact true, says more (in a 
negative sense) personally about librarians subject to such an 
emotion, than about any meaningful aspect of our purpose, our 
work or profession. If librarians and libraries are indeed 
operating on the expectation (or the presumption or the hope) 
that they are, or should or will ever be, considered intellectual 
partners, then they've got their priorities pretty well messed up 
and it should surprise no one that their future is anything but 
bright.

I have good hope, nonetheless, that there are indeed still many 
colleagues -- that there are *some*, I know for a fact -- who 
have a more realistic sensitivity to the traditions and the 
social psychology of the academic enterprise.


- Laval Hunsucker
Breukelen, Nederland


----- Original Message ----
From: Philip Davis <pmd8@cornell.edu>
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Sent: Fri, April 16, 2010 12:06:15 AM
Subject: One Report, Two Findings: Library Roles Changing, Open Access Not Compelling

One Report, Two Findings: Library Roles Changing, Open Access Not 
Compelling by Kent Anderson

Scholarly Kitchen
April 15, 2010
http://j.mp/92pRAi

quote:

"It's been a fear among librarians for decades, a perception 
among publishers for years, and now a survey shows it's now a 
clear opinion among faculty and researchers -- libraries are 
increasingly viewed as information purchasing agents inside 
academic institutions rather than intellectual partners.

An unrelated perception that's been argued for years is that open 
access is of dubious value to scholars, with their dedication to 
its ideals hardly rising above lip service."

****