BRITTANY YEAROUT
Assistant News Editor
As Pepperdine students use online resources like Google, Amazon and Barnes & Noble to obtain the latest information, the university’s library system is racing to keep up by focusing on digital improvements, adding an additional 10,000 books and making plans to renovate the interior of Payson Library.
The traditional library, with its repository of books, is being changed by the hand of technology.
“Libraries have been forced to re-orient their focus from being repositories of books, which is where the student would come in with a question and go through the bookshelves, to a hybrid period where digital technology and printed materials coexist and complement one another,” Dean of Libraries Mark Roosa said.
The university’s library system is working to develop varied resources because students have to use both print and electronic material to be well-rounded, according to Roosa.
Although the Internet provides an abundance of information, the challenge for the libraries is steering students toward the good information — the information that is academically reliable.
“The Internet world is moving very fast and libraries are struggling to keep up,” said Michael Dula, director of digital initiatives for the libraries. “There is so much information everywhere, the library challenge is, ‘How do you organize it?’ and ‘How do you find it? We don’t want students to just go to Google because you can get a lot of bad information that way.”
Dula said libraries are now competing with Google, Amazon and Ebay, large companies that spend an enormous amount on user customization.
“They are not credible academically, but they are incredibly credible in terms of how good a job they do in making user experience good, and that is what we try to learn from them,” he said.
Dula has several projects underway to make the Pepperdine library system up to date with technology, including revamping its entire Web site.
Dula wants to revamp the Web site to not only make it look more modern but to add more functionality and make it more interactive by enlisting the community, rather than they just being passive recipients to it.
This project includes adding interactive research resources through a Wiki software program called Confluence, which makes it easy for people to share knowledge and collaborate. Confluence will help manage information by subject area. Students will be able to get current information related to the course they are taking, such as new books or research materials, and see blog entries regarding current research issues and questions.
Dula started a Business Research Wiki for undergraduates and graduates last year and plans on adding more wikis to cover other subject areas by next semester.
Other initiatives to the Web site include personalized library pages, which will know a student’s major and what courses he is taking and provide current information on the course. It will allow a student to know what books he has checked out, when they are due back and what books he put on reserve that are now available.
Another project underway is the digital repository. According to Dula, the idea is to acquire and develop a system that will enable the library to insert unique material from Pepperdine, catalog them and store them for longtime preservation. This may include PowerPoint slides created by faculty members and videos of university speaking events. Dula said he plans on getting these digital collections up and running by next semester.
The digital projects are not the only initiatives to Pepperdine’s library system. The library bought 10,000 books to add to their Collection Improvements Project.
While performing a gap analysis of print collections, the staff noticed a need for more books to be at the level of its peer institutions and other academic libraries in the country, including Rice University and Occidental College.
“It turns out we have some work to do, so we are actively filling in those gaps by purchasing print materials, but at the same time we are aggressively acquiring electronic resources,” Roosa said.
Senior Jessica Gonzales agreed with Roosa and said Payson Library needs to update their book collection.
“I feel like, book-wise, there are a lot of old resources that the library has, so I generally go to the online database to get the information I need for my research papers,” Gonzales said. “Plus you don’t have to be in the library to do your work.”
However, some students said the library makes up for its outdated books with its numerous electronic databases and interlibrary system.
“The library is pretty small, because we are a smaller school but the best part about it is that we have a lot of electronic resources and a lot of resources from other schools through interlibrary loans,” said junior Melissa Ocepek, who has been working at Payson Library for three years. “It is also something that people know the least about because if someone doesn’t show you how to use it, you can be intimidated by it.”
In addition to revamping the library’s online resources, a renovation of the interior building is in the works.
With nearly $5 million allocated to ongoing improvements, the Pepperdine library system has already added more study rooms, 50 new computers to Payson, and a DVD viewing room with a mini theater. The changes were made based on a survey given last spring to members of the Pepperdine community regarding user satisfaction.
However, the Payson Library renovation is expected to occur in 2009 and will take up to eight months to complete.
The preliminary design includes a Barnes and Noble-style concept, with a café and reading area that will open up to a patio facing the ocean. The current entrance will be moved to the Rose Room, which faces the fountain, so that people can come in off of the square, and a reading garden will be placed outside the current entrance. More computers and study rooms will be dispersed throughout the library.
Roosa has already heard from some focus groups of students and faculty members but said more will soon be able to give their ideas and input into the renovated space.
01-17-2008