Cristina Watson & Gwen Kushiyama

LIS 610

Assignment #6

LIS Philosophical Position Paper

Librarian Advocacy in Academic Online Publishing

Libraries function as centers of collective information and as a source of guidance for the information sought. Within the collection, information exists in a variety of selective print and electronic formats, static or non-permanent in nature. The revolutionary printing press in 1420 increased the dissemination of information in print, formalizing the availability and accessibility of information to the public. The viability of information in the current age, however, relies increasingly on accessibility through electronic format. With the emergence of technology and the advent of the Internet in this electronic age, the digital format began to exceed print in terms of its web-based accessibility, only as long as access remains free. A library’s collection can significantly be affected by the rising costs of these digital sources, thus limiting the availability and accessibility of information. Unfortunately at the same time, the digitization of information increases at a rising rate, sometimes existing as the only available form of information for some journals. Why must academic and public libraries, as free centers for the collective source of information, be forced into the selecting and purchasing of these expensive electronic formats, in particular, databases possessing the access rights to scholarly e-journals? Most importantly, where do librarians stand in advocating a library’s right to free access? And how do librarians make the right decisions in the selecting and purchasing of online database services?

In the electronic publishing industry, three key players control the production of information, the dissemination of information, and the accessibility of information. In the area of scholarly publishing, faculty and students produce information for dissemination. The intellectual content of their research work then proceeds to the database producer for the creation, restructuring, and digital formatting of a datafile. Database producers often license the content of the work to content providers otherwise known as “database publishers,” who essentially incorporate the datafile into their database, integrating indexing and searching capabilities for accessing and dissemination in their database. In their licensing capacity, database publishers become online service providers licensing the datafile and its contents for publication online or in electronic format (CD-ROM) (Jacso 2001, 1-6). Database publishers determine the free or fee-based delivery of a database’s use. In fee-based delivery, a database’s promotional representatives negotiate subscription plan pricing with librarians. Ultimately, librarians have the final authority in determining the accessibility of information in the database. Unfortunately, database publishers continually increase subscription rates, based on various unsubstantiated reasons, which consequentially benefit the profit gain of the database publisher. In relation, library budgets remain unchanged and libraries are unable to meet the rising costs in subscription plans. This price fixing forces the librarian to cancel subscriptions to maintain feasible subscription holdings to other databases and to maintain a usable, functional collection of high quality journals. Librarians advocate for the rights of their library and the library’s community of users, weighing the costs of use against the impact of loss to academic research. Librarians must sustain a vigilant effort against the monetary demands of database publishers and maintain an equal balance between the needs of the community and the functionality of the library they serve. The librarian, thus, sustains a vigilant effort to advocate user needs by establishing evidence in cost analysis research, accepting input from its core users, and undertaking comprehensive content evaluation of databases to validly substantiate their claims. This process will ensure only the economical and qualitative selection of databases in librarian advocacy.

Information has been relegated as a commercial commodity by database vendors. Database vendors charge users for their service according to different pricing schemes. Pricing can vary according to subscription plan (corporations, colleges, government), by transaction type (search statements, record sizes and formats, printing), and the time spent searching (Jacso 2001, 241). The reasoning behind this system, database publishers claim, results from the differing needs of their users. Databases represent the corporate equivalent of libraries, offering users access to their repository of information, with the exception of charging users (subscribers) a fee for their services. With the emergence of new search technology, the rise of online services, and government databases, commercial database vendors take the service issue further. Database vendors continually push to prove who should serve as the major information service provider. Libraries possess the advantage of offering access to their services and information for free, whereas commercial database services possess the technological capabilities for more efficient access. The primary contention between database vendors and government agencies involves the free and similar provision of online services and information content as the commercial information content providers. Database vendors argue that free enterprise should be extended to the information business. They also believe business competition and “entrepreneurial effort” will allow users more choices among service providers, in effect, increasing price moderation needed for ensuring quality information service (Kibirige 1983, 97). The database industry, however, owes its development to the government which began the initiative to create database systems for providing networking systems of online information and for facilitating communication between government agencies. This type of communication qualifies such service as the government’s information service. Secondly, as part of the government initiative to provide research and public information online, the public as taxpayers, therefore, have the right to free online government information services. Public libraries as part of the government infrastructure, maintain this governmental right and its operability through the Freedom of Information Act.

Librarians must determine which information service provider would provide the best quality and most cost efficient service that will satisfy the research needs of library users and fit a library’s limited budget. With the overwhelming availability of online information services, the public seeks quality information and efficient, affordable access. The librarian’s proficiency in database searching, expertise in database systems, and experience with database services becomes integral to the selection of quality database services and for providing quality information sources in a library. In the selection of quality information sources among database services, the importance in content evaluation serves as valid evidence to advocate a library’s position in the database selection process. The librarian, qualified to comprehensively evaluate a database’s capabilities against service costs, has the authority to effectively advocate the library’s acquisition or discontinuation of an online information service. To provide evidence in substantiating a claim, the librarian must conduct extensive research and testing of the capabilities and claims of the database publisher. Database vendors and publishers make broad and boasting claims in confidence of their product, acting in their capacity to sell their product, whether authentically or not. They do not always readily volunteer information at the librarian’s request. Therefore, a thorough evaluation criterion becomes the librarian’s arsenal in measuring the capabilities, functions, and content, for competently evaluating the quality and value of database service. The effectiveness of such criteria helps to “corroborate the loosely presented claims of the file producers and publishers” on the necessary data elements and the accuracy of records in the database (Jacso, 9).

Behind the carefully-crafted and worded claims of database vendors and publishers, the actual quality of database design and service sometimes disappointingly falls short of the claims promised to libraries. The inadequacy of the database’s coverage and quality correspondingly affects end-users and the overall image of libraries as reliable information centers. In the probable event, situations do arise from false claims surrounding a database’s functionality and content, database file producers and publishers hide behind the protection of legal disclaimers. Legal disclaimers free database publishers and producers from any form of liability, attributed to either false claims made or the inaccuracies in the database content. In essence, publishers are not held accountable to the quality of their databases (Tenopir 1995, 122). So who is? The librarian possesses the expertise to determine the value of a database’s content quality and make justified decisions in representing the best interests of the library and its community of users.

What determines quality in a database and quantifies justifiable decision-making? Content evaluation relies upon the effectiveness of the criteria used to thoroughly evaluate every aspect of database. The entire process of file production, database design, software application, record integration, and online implementation can incur changes in the consistency and accuracy of data elements. Database vendors sometimes substantiate these inaccuracies in records by the varying indexing formats of each individual journal; however, this does not constitute a valid reasoning behind inconsistencies. Inconsistencies can result in the failed retrieval of information, distorted results, and inability to retrieve relevant results. The uniformity and consistency of subject indexing ensures accuracy in the retrieval of relevant results. Consistency in subject-indexing, maintained even through the updates and changes made to the descriptor terms, affects the effectiveness of searching as well as cross-database searching. The functionality of the database and the retrieval of its records depend heavily on good subject indexing. Librarians rely on the efficient and accurate retrieval of information for its users because it can affect the overall usage of the library’s online information services and the integrity of its resource collection. Records in the database should contain at a minimum: abstracts, standard data elements (author, title, series, journal source, descriptors), and value-added data elements (hyperlinking, bolded key words, printing, e-mailing) to adequately provide enough information about the resource for a general understanding of its usability and relevancy to the searcher’s query. Other objective factors in database evaluation involve the measurement of scope and source coverage. The database size can be measured by the amount of records in the database. Further testing must be done, however, to check for duplicate records and the handling of review articles. For example, one review article may contain several reviewed items. The database may often treat the single article as one record or entirely separate the records, creating one record for every reviewed item in the article. The latter handling of such a document can certainly inflate the total number of records in the database supporting unrealistic claims in size by the database publisher. Time span coverage of a database may be important, depending on the subject of coverage. Some subjects, especially science and technology, have much shorter half-lives than subjects like psychology and history. Currency, or the turnaround time of the database to create records from issues of journals, should also be considered. The frequency of updates to the database may be weekly, monthly or quarterly. Librarians should be aware of the needs of their users to ensure efficiency in delivering current information significantly integral to the research of scientists and those in the medical profession. The degree of geographic coverage and available languages depends on the needs and research nature of the end-users (Jacso 2001, 27-247). Research on international topics benefits from greater geographic coverage and access to documentation in various languages. Although the database vendor may validate the strength of their database through demonstrations, promotional advertisements, and recommendations from scholars and researchers, the librarian should never select a database based on these premises alone. Authentication of these claims, from the necessary elements in content evaluation, can result in the identification of discrepancies and anomalies within the database in contradiction of such purported claims. Librarians can support their decision of whether to subscribe to, continue, or cancel the library’s subscription from evidence gathered through comprehensive evaluation criteria.

The users and subscribers of online information services deserve to know the value in the strengths and weaknesses associated with such services. Several notable librarians and information science professionals apply their expertise in evaluating online information services in order to heighten public awareness of the quality in online information service providers. Their form of advocacy on behalf of libraries, librarians, and the public informs users, subscribers, and online information service providers of the essential information needs and issues regarding information retrieval systems. Librarian and information science professional advocates such as Marcia Bates, Peter Jacso, and Carol Tenopir maintain active an involvement in advocating the rights of subscribers and end-users of online information services. Their participation in conferences addresses the problems and concerns affecting libraries, librarians, and users in the service provided by online information systems. The publication of articles in respected journals prominently identifies the strengths and weaknesses of current online information database systems.

In the endless onslaught of increasing, available sources of free online information, and the rising costs of online subscription databases, librarians wrestle with decisions of providing access or no access. The decision of whether to charge fees for the access to expensive online information sources remains difficult because librarians uphold the value of library service and the free access to information. Many academic libraries have decided to limit their subscriptions to journals in order to maintain free access to other respectable journals in their collection. The Cornell University Library deflected costs of the expensive Elsevier subscription plan by canceling subscriptions to some Elsevier journals (Cornell University Library 2003). Although Elsevier publishes many scholarly journals, their pricing strategies allow libraries few alternatives in changing subscription plans. If libraries cancel subscriptions to some Elsevier journals, the prices for other journals continue to increase. To legitimize any decisions made in collection management, libraries conduct serial reviews to determine the needs of its users, the frequency of journal use, the cost analysis of journal subscriptions with budget appropriations, and the overall value of a database’s content determined from comprehensive content evaluation testing. Librarians realize, though, higher costs do not necessarily indicate quality content. Free databases often offer better content quality and the same journal coverage as their expensive counterparts. Initiatives between libraries and the academic community have arisen in order to combat price gouging from database vendors and maintain important access to respectable online journals. The Scholarly Publishing Academic Resource Coalition (SPARC) represents an effort between research libraries and organizations to “correct market dysfunctions in the scholarly publishing system” (Cornell University Library 2003). Librarians must advocate the rights of their users in their right to receive free information and the right of the library to provide free access to information. Although information is now considered a commercial commodity to online information services, libraries must uphold their inherent right to provide free access to information. Unfortunately, budget constraints force some libraries to reconsider this decision or force libraries into canceling access to respectable information sources. The decision is a personal and also professional one based on the budgetary restrictions and user needs of each library. However, the librarian becomes the instrumental force in the advocacy for information and the only qualified person to undertake the challenge of determining the quality of online information services and working with those who use those services.