ASEE ELD
1995 Conference Summary
The Future of Engineering Libraries/Information Access
Session 3541 June 28, 1995
Moderator: Mel DeSart, University of
Kansas
Notes by Karen L Greig (kareng@leland.stanford.edu)
Purpose: This
session explored the future of engineering libraries and
access to engineering information in
light of current and projected
advances in information technologies.
Jump
to:
Engineers and Their Information Needs: Are They Really
Different?
Serving Information on ICE: Internet Connections for
Engineering
W(h)ither the Engineering Library?
W. David Penniman, consultant to senior management in information systems, resources, and
services.
Highlights:
- Background of the
National Engineering Initiative (NEII)
- Roles of Council on Library
Resources (CLR) and ASEE
- Evidence of Need
- Champions and Critics
- Next Steps
In 1992 a conference took place in Florida to explore
the National
Engineering Information Initiative. 90 engineers attended this conference,
along
with various other interested parties. (David can provide anyone
interested with information
on how to obtain the proceedings.) There is no
national engineering library and a need for
one was perceived. Between
1992 and 1994 CLR promoted the idea of establishing a national
engineering
library, submitted grant applications, etc.
- Data Gathering (1992-1994)
Funded studies
- Pilot project funded: ICE at Cornell
- NEII Strategy Meeting (9/19/94).
The upshot of this was that there is
still a divergence of opinion. The push needs to come
from an organization
grounded in engineering, not from the library community.
In 1995
there was a change in the lead organization from CLR to ASEE. (The
1993 ASEE proceedings
includes a paper on NEII.)
- CLR:
facilitator/funder/fund seeker
- CLR: lead organization
- ASEE: champion
- ASEE: fund
seeker
ASEE's role will also be in continuing education and aggressive information
promotion. The April 1995 issue of Prism contains a statement about
this.
- External Sources (government agencies,
industry, professional societies)
- Literature review (Center for Information Studies,
University of Tennessee)
The literature review yielded a report by Don King, with Jane
Casto, and
Heather Jones entitled "Communications of Engineers: A Literature Review of
Engineers' Information Needs, Seeking Processes, and Use". This report is
available from CLR
for $25 (clr@cni.org). It is also available through the
ICE page
http://www.englib.cornell.edu/ice/lists/technical-communications.html [Link No Longer Active].
One
of the conclusions of this report was that the library is used only as a
last resort by
engineers. Instead, engineers rely on local and internal
information sources. They read
scholarly journals less than scientists.
Focus Group study:
David and a
colleague conducted a focus group study which consisted of
interviews at four institutions:
University of Illinois College of
Engineering (students and faculty), New Jersey Institute of
Technology,
Ford Motor Company (R&D, managers, engineers of all ages), and the New York
Power Authority. Ten to fifteen individuals were interviewed at each
organization.
The
focus group study showed a high level of interest from management and
engineers. There was
recognition that there are problems in engineers'
accessing of information and there are
increased expectations for solutions
to these problems. The results of the focus group study
were published in
the CLR newsletter.
When asked what are the impediments to getting their
jobs done, the
participants zeroed in on information problems. Engineers are keenly aware
of
problems and they desire timely information and data and expect modern
access techniques.
- Internal access is equally problematic.
- Competitive information (foreign and domestic)
is desired
- The clock is running faster. There's more information, more results are
expected faster, want information fed to them when they need it...
- Younger engineers have
greater expectations due to their exposure to new
technologies such as the Internet
- Parochial solutions aren't enough to satisfy younger engineers
- Strong vested interests of large
societies. Want to be "one stop shop"
for their members and are resistant to NEII.
- Strong
interest from "second tier societies" with smaller membership.
Organizing these societies
behind the initiative is the way to go.
- Skepticism regarding "real" need by managers,
including information managers
- Belief that current research will solve the problem. It is
naive to
believe this will happen without a top-down initiative.
- Accelerate efforts of ASEE
- Produce proposal for
development funding
- Engage interested societies/organizations
- Continue documenting
need
Jill H. Powell, Associate Engineering Librarian for
Reference/Instruction at Cornell University and co-principal investigator
for the ICE Project.
(jhp1@cornell.edu)
How to Access
ICE:
URL - http://www.englib.cornell.edu/, or
http://ice.englib.cornell.edu/ [Link No Longer Active]
choose ICE
Public Lynx Client -
telnet cuinfo2.cit.cornell.edu:400 [Link No Longer Active], select G(o) and
enter in the URL
shown
above.
Outline
- ICE - What is ICE? Funding, Staffing
- Ice
structure, examples
- How we use ICE and the Web for reference and instruction
- ICE
Statistics (on back of handout)
What Is Ice?
ICE is a catalog of
engineering-related resources on the Internet made
accessible on the World Wide Web (WWW). It
includes 37 subject categories.
Cornell received a one year (May 1994-April 1995) $14,000
grant from the
Council on Library Resources. This grant was for non-equipment items only.
This was enough for one part-time "miner" for one year and one part-time
student. They are
currently looking for new funding to keep one position
through 9/95.
Why the WWW and not
gopher? The Web is here to stay, company's are
spending money to be on the Web, publishing
URLs in their advertising, etc.
Jill then showed the Cornell Engineering Library home page
and then the ICE
home page. "About the server" has a fact sheet. An alphabetical index is
available. Electrical Engineering sources has been the most heavily used
page. Electronic
Engineering Times under EE is very good.
There is a History of Technology page which
includes "Engineering Successes
and Failures". This has been a handy reference tool.
Under
"Instructional Materials" is the Cornell Library Instructional
Materials page which includes
handouts covering html, patents, exploring
the WWW, jobs, and more.
Jill showed a sample
page from the HTML Authoring Class that was offered by
the library.
Access statistics were
given on the reverse side of Jill's handout. The
main ICE page is being accessed
approximately 94 times/day, from 54
countries. EE is the most popular with 620
accesses/month.
Future: A student will be working on a search engine for ICE.
Maurita Peterson Holland,
Clinical Associate Professor, School
of Information and Library Studies and College of
Engineering Technical
Communication Program (mholland@umich.edu)
Maurita's talk can be accessed
at:
http://www.si.umich.edu/~mholland/class/asee/conf95.html
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rev. 8/22/95