STRAIT to the future

8th Asia-Pacific Specials, Health and Law Librarians Conference

Turning network delivery around: providing services that focus on WWW publishing

Lloyd Sokvitne
Tasmania Online, State Library of Tasmania

Keywords: Internet publishing, information management; library roles and functions

Abstract

Traditional Special Library functions are increasingly coming under pressure due to the desktop delivery of networked electronic information and the increased control that users themselves have over meeting their own information needs.

To counter this trend, Special Libraries have the opportunity to expand services into areas that are emerging from the increased capacity of organisations to provide and publish information over the World Wide Web. Although physically easy to publish information using the World Wide Web, it is in fact difficult to reach users effectively, a fact not always appreciated by organisations and authors alike.

Special Libraries can offer new services to individual authors, business units, and entire organisations that meet the needs of electronic publishing and information retrieval. These services include client needs analysis, presentation best practice, information and site design, retrieval design, the identification of organisation liabilities, and standards compliance.

Although librarians may have the correct conceptual background, they will need to develop specific new skills that are focused on networked information delivery, and be prepared to keep maintaining those skills as the networked environment changes.In addition they will need to develop the skills to market these new services and negotiate their corporate acceptance.

Introduction

Although it has never been the case that a love of books and print is a necessary prerequisite for librarianship, it certainly is the case that many organisations and organisational managers view libraries as places that specialise in print materials and where expertise focuses on access to print resources. The past twenty years has seen a lot of hard work to re-orientate special libraries into dynamic providers of information in a variety of forms. But it is sad to note a recent comment during a discussion amongst experts in the Information Technology field:

"The library is where information goes to die"

To the librarian, information is actually a commodity that is not defined by its format, but rather by the needs of the user. These needs determine the type of information and how it is delivered. Against this context, many librarians have seen the World Wide Web as just another type of electronic information resource, enabling desktop delivery and direct user access to resources.

Taken as just another way to deliver information, the Web offers traditional and safe expectations for the librarian. It is easy to argue that the role of information broker is critical on the Web. We need someone to guide and train the client, to evaluate and sift through a variety of potential information resources, or to act as the intermediary between the resource and the user.

It is my argument that this perception of the Web, although not incorrect, offers no long term role for the library and in fact misses a key element of what the Web is actually providing the organisation: the ability to publish and interact with its community of needs.

The World Wide Web - a reality check?

It is common to hear exaggerated claims about the Internet and the World Wide Web that do not measure up against the reality of what we see around us. The term 'reality check' is often used to test these claims. However, 'reality checks' are also used to downplay the need for change and to reinforce traditional views. The World Wide Web 'reality check' that I want to discuss is one that argues that we still underestimate the importance of the Web. It is the exaggerated claims that point more clearly to the future than those that downplay its effect on our immediate environment.

Claims as to the size of the World Wide Web vary and have no absolute or objective credibility. So to say that there are 320 million pages on the World Wide Web is interesting but not meaningful, the real total could be half or double that number. What is meaningful is what any such large number actually means - that Web publishing is fast and easy. Those millions of Web pages were created with surprising speed, they change at a breathtaking pace, and they can disappear almost as quickly as they appear. Whether these are advantages or disadvantages should not disguise the fact that Web publishing is now a major activity of individuals and organisations alike. It will not go away because it is unstable, nor is it compromised because of the variety of content or by the variety in quality.

In the modern electronic world, perceptions of value are as important as real value. The fact that Amazon.com has not yet actually made a profit on the Internet has not prevented its market value from reaching dizzying heights. Web site addresses are now appearing in television ads, in magazines, and even on buses. Major corporations are spending millions of dollars on Web publishing.

In the competitive world of modern business, simple brand presence in the open community mind space can justify costs and activities that could not be justified by a traditional cost-benefit analysis. There appears to be a belief that there is inherent value in just being part of this new environment, and that benefits will accrue in due course, or in ways that cannot be predicted. From another negative viewpoint, not being on the Web is a risk that few organisations are prepared to take.

This rush to become part of the World Wide Web affects non-profit organisations and Government Agencies in much the same way, although the drivers are at times different. Market penetration for Government is becoming very important, and there is an increasing perception and insistence among politicians that Government Agencies should be able to demonstrate that they meet the needs of their customers - the community and the voter. Directives from Government require that services and information should be made available to as many people as possible, and the Web is becoming one of the ways to do this. Again perceptions and expectations are as important as reality: there may or may not be widespread penetration of the Internet into the community, but policy makers believe that there is, or soon will be.

For those organisations that thought Web publishing was of no value because they had little requirement to reach an external client group, the Intranet emerged as the 'killer application' for internal networks. The Intranet can reach employees throughout the organisation, provide them with information and coordinate their activities, make their work more efficient and even deliver cost savings to the organisation if done correctly. As an added benefit, policy makers soon realised that the organisation can leverage skills from one area (either the Internet or Intranet) and apply them to the other.

Many of us remember when the World Wide Web was new and an interesting challenge for those who wanted to be part of a developing online experiment. It then went through a trendy phase, where cool things happened almost daily. We are now at the next stage, where Web publishing is a necessity. This is the reality, but a reality that disguises the fact that many organisations do not know what Web publishing is about, how it should be done, or what the risks are.

Web literacy

The extent of pages on the World Wide Web illustrates how easy it is to create and publish a page for all to see. However, this does not mean that good or effective Web design is easy to achieve or even considered by many authors and publishers. The effective combination of text and graphics is difficult. It has taken five years to reach a point where mainstream sites now actually balance the use of text and graphics to ensure delivery performance in a variable networked environment.

Librarians should be aware that the design of Web sites goes beyond graphic design and should include the design of the content and access methods. The way a client navigates through the Web site must be intuitive to the user, site structure must make both browsing and targeted searching easy, and must cater for a variety of user perceptions and needs. This requires more than adding the design graphics to an uncoordinated array of content components. It is the creation and placement of content components and access points that are the key to effective Web site use.

We should all remember that we live in a GUI age, where icons and quick visual snapshots are key components in Web use and computer use generally. Most clients don't or won't read in detail until they have found what they want. Research has shown that the Web page author has only seventeen seconds to deliver the physical page before the user gives up and moves on. Against this context the content designer has to deliver the contextual information quickly and provide simple but effective ways to navigate information content.

This is an undeveloped area where expertise will grow rapidly and one that suits the information handling skills of librarians.

Corporate exposures

Many individual Web page authors are unaware of the copyright and intellectual property issues that surround publishing generally and Web publishing in particular. Because it is so easy to publish Web pages, few of the normal organisational checks and balances that surround traditional print publishing come into play. Copyright breaches are common. Even for traditional experts on copyright, the extra-territoriality of the Web makes for some interesting legal questions about jurisdictional coverage of copyright law.

Other copyright, intellectual property, and trademark issues are hidden. These can include the unlawful use of terms in metadata to act as bait to attract visits, the ownership and use of hypertext links, and the framing of external content within an existing web site.

Corporate liability on the Web is also a neglected area, where incorrect information can lead to legal liabilities and lawsuits. In a recent court case an organisation was penalized because it had failed to update a Web site with new fees and charges. As a result the client had to be charged the old fees. Other liabilities can include the failure to meet external standards such as accessibility requirements for the disabled.

The World Wide Web also raises privacy issues, from what is said about others on Web pages, to the use of information an organisation gathers through 'cookies, to what the organisation does with the e-mail addresses of those who contact it. Bad publicity and legal penalties can be an unwanted outcome for organisations that do not treat the Web seriously.

Publishing on the Web may be easy but it requires defined responsibilities and processes within an organisation if risks and exposures are to be contained. For although it is likely that it is an individual within an organisation that creates the Web page, it is the organisation that will be held responsible.

Being on the web is no longer enough

Being on the Web is easy, but being found is difficult. The size of the Web is such that there is hardly any point even being on the Web if serious efforts are not also taken to ensure that the target audience can find the site. This involves three component processes: page design, the addition of metadata, and registration with search engines.

Web pages need to be structured to maximise their retrieval potential. This includes the use of appropriate titles, designing the pages to be search engine and results display friendly, and of course the use of metadata. Some of these strategies must be focused on maximising the ranking that a site receives when retrieved.

Having a Web page indexed by any modern Search Engine is only of marginal value if that Web page does not rank in the top twenty or so hits of a directed search. Librarians may be horrified to hear that Web sites can now pay to be given a high ranking in some search engines, but this is the reality of the world in which our sites must be found.

Imperfect though they may be, the major search engines are widely used and registration with them must be part of an organisational publishing strategy. This is a process where knowledge of search engines and their requirements is needed to ensure the widest and most effective coverage. This process should include registration with subject gateways, and inclusion on any other sites or portals where that site is both sympathetic and likely to attract an audience who may in turn be interested in your content.

Gifted amateurs or skilled professionals?

What I have described is an environment where the ease of Web publishing disguises the need for a skilled and extensive support infrastructure. The tools for publishing are widespread and the physical process is easy, but the real outcomes of creating a web page may not be immediately evident to the individual creator.

Organisational Web publishing support should not simply be an attempt to tightly centralise and control Web content creation. Web publishing support should accommodate disbursed creators who are attached to business units, because it is these business units who are best able to identify their publishing needs and develop appropriate content.

The organisation needs to provide individuals with a rational and effective publishing infrastructure that ensures high quality professional output for the organisation, the effective delivery of the information itself, and a retrievable and effective presence of the organisation on the Web itself.

Publishing support needs

Publishing support should begin with the development of a policy framework for corporate Web publishing, and then deliver the ongoing processes that provide individual assistance and quality assurance. Although the organisation needs support for the hardware and software components of Web publishing, this support should be clearly delineated from the support needed for content production.

The corporate policy framework needs to include a clear definition of standards and responsibilities for content ownership, development processes, quality assurance, legal obligations, internal coding, and graphic design standards.

Against the organisational framework, specific support services should then provide information and content design assistance to help creators identify their users, establish the nature and style of appropriate content, and develop delivery goals and methodologies. At this stage, individuals may need help with the hidden technical issues at the application level. This may cover HTML coding assistance to ensure the easy delivery and usability of content over networks with varying capacity and to a variety of browser platforms and capabilities.

Finally there is the responsibility to ensure Web site maintenance processes are in place. These include ongoing quality assurance, updating procedures, metadata addition, and standards compliance.

A close-fit skills match

Most of these skills needed to provide the type of Web publishing support needed by organisations already exist within the Library. This support can and should cover both Intranet and Internet publishing. Librarianship is a profession with almost the exact mind set that is needed: user orientated and client focussed, holding the view that information has no value unless it is used, technologically competent, and skilled in information retrieval issues. Within an organisation, the library has the organisation wide perspective to ensure the overall needs of the organisation are met as well as the needs of the individual business units, and the overall knowledge to assess whether the organisation is meeting the potential offered by the Web.

Competitors

The organisation doesn't necessarily know who should be providing them with this set of skills and processes. Nor does the librarian have an open and empty field in which to ply these new services. The IT support industry has by default filled certain components of this support vacuum, but with mixed success. Librarians often dismiss IT professionals as having no real expertise in the use of information at the application level. However, this is not a valid assumption and we should recognise that many IT professionals are developing skills that compete directly with Librarians.

It will be up to Librarians to prove to organisations and clients that they have the appropriate skills. This will include selling their role and their competence to the organisation. Other internal contenders may come from Information Technology, Records management, and policy development sections, but the Special Library should be able to counter any such claims if it adequately sells its strengths to management.

The commercial sector offers large organisations another alternative. There are a growing number of specialised information consultants who bring together the skills of the IT industry with traditional library information handling skills. Out-sourcing is also a common approach for organisations seeking to address specific skill deficits.

Out-sourcing or contracting, however, is not a model that suits the changing Web environment. The dynamic nature of Web publishing argues for a skill base that is inexpensive for the organisation to implement quickly as and where needed, and then change just as quickly. The organisation will need to make Web publishing decisions on a regular basis and should have the understanding within its structure to make informed strategic decisions. Out-sourcing does not provide this, and makes it expensive to constantly seek new advice whenever a new challenge emerges.

The library may itself charge the organisation or its business units for Web publishing support. It may be difficult for Special Libraries to take on a new support role within their organisations without either reducing other activities or increasing their resources through internal service fees. The dynamics of each organisation should decide the strategy that is appropriate for that library.

However, it may be that Special Libraries in the future become information production hubs for their organisations and that traditional services disappear. Whether there is a long term need for the services that Special Libraries currently provide is another issue, but the closure of libraries offering such services within large organisations is not a rare occurrence.

Conclusion

Organisations need a support infrastructure for World Wide Web publishing. This is an open field, in that it may not yet be obvious to organisations what type of support they need, or who should provide and manage it.

It is my argument that Special Libraries are the appropriate places to provide this Web publishing support infrastructure to their organisations. This is not because Librarians currently have all of the skills required, but because they have a professional ethos that can ensure the organisation develops information outputs that meet both its needs and those of the user.

To build on this ethos, Special Libraries will need to adapt their traditional information handling expertise to the new electronic environment rather than simply treating the World Wide Web as another information resource. This adaptation may not suit all, and will not be easy when Libraries are already under-resourced. But it is a strategy that will be necessary if Libraries are to survive beyond the next decade.

Librarians will need to accept the professional costs of working in this new electronic environment: short technology lifecycles will necessitate continual re-assessment and re-skilling by those managing it. Librarians will survive only by their ability to adapt to this change. It is my view that it is not a love of books that should be a pre-requisite for the profession of Librarianship, it should be a love of change.