Digital services in academic libraries: The internet is setting benchmarks

Abstract

Academic libraries have taken on various roles over the course of their history. They are long-term guardians of knowledge, competent brokers of information and reliable guarantors of quality. In the future, a further role will gain central importance: the role of service provider2. The volume of holdings or the excellence of a collection will no longer constitute the strategic critical success factors.The academic library of 2007 will put the user (or customer)much more at the centre.This will no longer be implicit, in the sense of well-meaning provision by the library information professional: in the future, customer orientation willmean that all library activities will bemeasured by whether or not they represent a worthwhile service for the end-user. Success is defined by user acceptance. The Internet, in developing as an authoritative cross-sectoral platform for digital services, has become a frame of reference for their design. Academic libraries can no longer ignore the general performance characteristics of Internet services: intuitive usability even for non-experts, easily comprehensible functions, strong performance, quick changes from one service to another, permanent availability, as well as the "guarantee" of a successful outcome. Somemuchloved library customs and traditions will have to be very carefully considered, from the users' viewpoint, and measured against the service benchmark of the Internet, to see whether they are sustainable. Libraries can no longer learn only from other libraries. Success can also be achieved through the careful assessment and analysis of services from other business sectors, less in terms of content than in terms of methodology and structure. Learning from the Internet does not, however,mean that its recipes for success should simply be copied. Libraries have their own traditional strengths, which they should creatively incorporate into new services. Examples of such strengths are the neutral evaluation of information sources, the categorization and filtering of relevant content, the concern for cost-effective access for the user, as well as the securing of long-term access to information. Academic libraries consider themselves to be guarantors of a high-quality supply of literature for the academic community.What does the provision of information services mean today? How do we define digital services in the age of the WorldWideWeb? The following article attempts to answer these questions and in so doing to help orientate libraries as they set an important new course for the future. © 2008 Springer-Verlag London Limited.