May 1997
Newsletter #28
 

Transforming Libraries While Preserving the Past 

Library of Congress Joins CIRLA

Electronic Journals: A New Piece in the Digital Puzzle

In Our Cites: Electronic Resources

Reserve Deadlines

Reserve Materials Form Available Electronically

Special Collections Catalog Available

Honor with Books

Finding Books on the Web: Book and Publishing Websites

New Hoya's Guide

Fairchild Gallery Opens
 

Father O'Donovan in his address for the Fall Faculty Convocation stated that information technologies "will play a profound and pervasive role in transforming everything we do. Technology will play a role not only in changing the way we work, but in the ways we communicate, collaborate, interact, and, indeed, discover knowledge, share it, and, of course, teach it."

Information technology has, without a doubt, improved the researcher's ability to find and retrieve information. Online catalogs offer far more avenues of access to a library's resources than were possible in the card catalog. Periodical index databases have vastly improved the user's ability to find periodical and journal articles on complex, multifaceted topics. In a print index locating an article requires scanning pages of citations in annual and quarterly volumes. Now relevant articles can be found quickly in a database covering the past 25 years. More recently multimedia CD-ROMs have been developed which can improve learning by presenting information using text, pictures, video clips, and sound. Also, the Internet, including the World Wide Web, has dramatically expanded access to an abundance of new information resources.

Information technology is transforming libraries. However, there have been other "revolutions" that altered the information landscape without making obsolete what came before. Radio and later television, for instance, were expected to supplant earlier forms of information and entertainment. When microfilm was first attaining widespread use as a storage medium, it was predicted to be "one of the most important developments in the transmission of the printed word since Gutenberg." (Kilgour, Frederick G. "Typography in celluloid." Christian Science Monitor Magazine. September 14, 1940, p. 8). Similarly, in 1976 the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science suggested that microforms would be the storage medium used "in a worldwide facsimile transmission system which will bring to every office and home study the corpus of the world's printed product from 1456 to date." ("Microform Publication." Vol. 18, p. 101). But microforms have not replaced the printed word. They, along with audio-visual materials and more recent information technologies like the Internet, have simply expanded and enriched the resources available to scholars in the Georgetown libraries.

Increasingly, Georgetown Libraries are purchasing or licensing electronic resources. However, these new resources are still in many ways experimental as publishers and other producers try out a wide range of software, hardware and economic models. Because we as a research library must be confident that library materials purchased today will be available for scholars tomorrow, the Libraries, while aggressively experimenting with new, computerized search and retrieval options continue to acquire the undiminished worldwide output of information on paper as well. In fact, in 1996 the Lauinger and Blommer Science Libraries added 36,500 volumes to our collections, including 4,300 bound journals; subscribed to 12,800 serials; added 27,300 microforms and 360 compact discs and videotapes. It remains to be seen exactly how electronic resources will fit into the mix of information resources that libraries make available.

Father O'Donovan described how technology will transform research, teaching, and communication. The Libraries have a track record of achievement using technology so that faculty and students have new and, more importantly, better ways to discover knowledge, share it, andteach it. Technology brings new opportunities to augment the richness of resources available to the students and faculty of Georgetown University. The Libraries embrace these new opportunities and will continue to experiment and incorporate those that hold the promise of providing better access to the thinking of the ages.