Editorial: For Every One Dollar Invested Libraries Add Six More
As an IUPUI student or as a citizen of Indiana, you live, study, and work in an extremely resource-rich environment. Within walking distance or your finger tips on the computer keyboard, you have access to extensive information that will meet your educational, cultural and personal needs. You are in the middle of the Information Age - physically and virtually.
A growing number of librarians provide information guidance services that help people meet important information needs in school, on the job, and even at home. That's right. A knowledgeable librarian can provide guidance not only to the collection, but help you select from millions of documents at IUPUI, across the city, or online around the world. "More than something good to read, they also meet your information need."
And best of all, these services are provided for the common good. As a citizen of a caring community, you have invested in these resources and services. You should expect quality assistance in return, and at no or very little additional cost.
Times have changed. Most information is no longer neatly packaged and lined up on the shelves of the library. Many librarians specialize in development of online search programs that help people sort and filter to find the best information possible. So, where do libraries, and the professionals who manage them, fit in the new globally connected information commons? And how does this all benefit you? Read on.
Librarians make a positive impact on learning.
Parents understand learning to read is an important milestone for their children. Many don't realize, however, that getting ready to read starts long before the child enters school. Special sessions held at the public library introduce parents to children's literature and pre-school reading techniques that Mom and Dad can introduce at home. Children's librarians conduct these programs to increase the possibilities that children in their community will enter school better prepared to learn even more.
In an elementary school where a certified school library media specialist is employed fulltime, you are more likely to find application of electronic information technologies as part of the teaching process than in an elementary school without such a fulltime professional. In collaboration with classroom teachers, school librarians can provide more organized contacts with community learning resources and guidance in selection and use of online instructional materials. School librarians teach information search and selection skills that help students and teachers make better choices of materials from the Internet.
The presence of a fulltime school media specialist increases the likelihood of a school website containing links to quality instructional experts and the school obtaining more grant money for technology support. Studies in Indiana and other states indicate a creative school librarian managing the school's media center is a strong, positive predictor of higher student achievement in language arts skills - including the processes of writing, vocabulary development and reading comprehension.
Librarians provide guidance to online resources for higher education.
Librarians in your state have combined resources and expertise to establish one of the first online networks to access full-text magazine, journal and encyclopedia articles. INSPIRE is available to any Indiana citizen and can be searched at home or from any school, museum, public or academic library - any place you can get access to the Internet. Millions of searches each year now provide many of the resources students use in elementary and secondary schools and Indiana's colleges. Combined with the special print and electronic materials gathered especially for you at your college campus, your studies can be supported with in-depth information as never before possible.
Librarians have also developed and maintained information systems for professionals, including medicine and law. On and near the IUPUI campus, specialized libraries and archives give access to a full spectrum of resources that support life sciences, arts and recreation, as well as engineering, business, education and the other social sciences. Your University Library continues to be recognized as one of the "most wired" libraries in the nation. Expanding spaces are given to group work activities, because learning is more than reading. Learning includes discussion, debate, and team-planning.
Libraries revitalize and strengthen communities.
A recent cost-benefit study of the Seattle Public Library concluded that the city's new central library would add value to the downtown economy in two ways: as an important information resource for businesses and as a destination for visitors who seek cultural, recreational and personal information. Return-on-investment studies conducted over the past few years in several other cities have reached the same conclusion—public libraries add nearly six dollars for every one dollar invested to the city economy annually.
A decade ago, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley began investing in new or refurbished branches to anchor redevelopment in blighted neighborhoods. His strategy paid off as the libraries brought families and children together and became the center of the communities.
In Indianapolis, over five million visits take place each year to the libraries in the Indianapolis Marion County Public Library (IMCPL) System. This is more than the visits to museums, symphonies, and athletic events combined. Plus, a growing number of electronic contacts are made. Nearly two million website and electronic mail information requests were answered last year.
Libraries add economic and cultural value to the local community.
Consistently over the past twenty years, the quality of local school and public libraries has been rated as an important factor to determining the cultural and property value in a community. Agencies that help parents identify good schools include good school and public libraries high on their recommendations.
In this issue of Insight, read how libraries are critical to innovation and research in the central Indiana corporate world. At the Baker & Daniels law firm in Indianapolis, for example, services from the librarian save time and money for busy attorneys. When small businesses in central Indiana need information, they call on the Business Research & Information Center at the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. And in Brownsburg, as a common example, the public library staff offers computer classes and introduces customers to subscription databases - part of the "Deep Web" that is not visible to most people.
Read how the InfoZone ties the Indianapolis Children's Museum to its neighborhood and helps kids from around the state extend their learning beyond the excitement of a visit to our city's world-class museum. Learn about the nearby Indiana State Library, where documents related to Indiana history are preserved, and librarians guide you to electronic access through a multitude of genealogy records. Among the many special libraries within one mile of the IUPUI campus is that of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Librarians and researchers help to provide data to make sense out of March Madness as well as other historical and current information necessary for promotion of college sports.
Read all about it here and online -there may even be a career for you.
Information services on your campus and in your city are very diverse, and so are the careers in the library and information science field. The graduate programs at IU Indianapolis and Bloomington graduate over 200 students annually. From IUPUI alone, over 100 graduates with a master in library science enter professional service jobs each year in Indiana. Along with nursing and pharmaceutical services, the library field is listed by most career planning services as an open job market for the coming decade. This is not only because of the emerging technology support and community outreach responsibilities of new librarians, but also because over one third of those in the profession will retire by 2012.
Many of the stories in this issue feature graduates of the IUPUI School of Library & Information Science and some graduates have also authored several of the articles. Their jobs are varied and exciting, as they navigate the high-tech information world to find just the right answer for their customers—from toddlers to corporate CEOs.
In addition to libraries illustrated in this issue of Insight, SLIS MLS graduates serve as information professionals in such diverse institutions as Eli Lilly and Company, The Indianapolis Christian Theological Seminary, Ivy Tech, The Indiana Institute of Technology, The Indianapolis Art Museum, and the Indianapolis Star.
You can join them. If you like working with people and information, and have a strong liberal arts, science or technology undergraduate background, we'd love to talk with you about a career as a 21st Century librarian.
Indiana University has again been ranked among the top ten ALA-accredited graduate programs by US News & World Report (2006).
Daniel Callison
Former Executive Associate Dean
School of Library & Information Science - Indianapolis
David Lewis
Dean, IUPUI University Library
Visit our homepage and your links not only to what is housed in the University Library, but to millions of other documents, man full-text online, at http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/
Article reprinted with permission from the author and Indiana Insight, a publication of IUPUI.
