Vol
9:4 pp28-32 |
The
Internet as a Virtual Social Work Library
Mark Watson
Tel: 0171 387
9681 Introduction Over the past decade
Information Technology has impacted to varying extents in different professions.
Unlike social work, the profession of librarianship has for the most part
welcomed Information Technology as an enabling technology, freeing many
from time-consuming manual procedures: software now handles tasks such as book acquisition and processing, loans and reservations in libraries of all sizes - tasks previously carried out manually bibliographic and cataloguing details to international standards can be easily obtained in electronic format - reducing the need for in-house cataloguing databases offer the opportunity for librarians and for library users to carry out literature searches in a fraction of the time than was possible previously - time that was previously employed in trawling through printed abstracts and indexes to identify literature can now be spent on reading that literature on-line and CD-ROM
databases offer access to a wealth of information not available locally
- libraries can offer access to a collection far greater than that which
is contained within its four walls, material which can be obtained either
through Inter-Library loan or material which is increasingly accessible
on CD-ROM or via the Internet. This is far removed
from librarianship at the turn of the century, when many public libraries
were 'closed access' - librarians acting as custodians of the collection,
requiring library users to fill in written requests for books and the
librarians retrieving the book from the shelves on behalf of the user
(a system still in use in archive collections such as the British Library
Reading Rooms). Information and Communication
Technologies, in particular CD-ROM and the Internet, increasingly offer
exciting possibilities for accessing 'networked' information on a global
scale. Many people refer to the Internet itself as a virtual library,
or a global database, putting forward a picture of a wealth of information
at the touch of the proverbial button. Many academic and
public libraries are enabling their users to make the most of such opportunities
- academic libraries are now expected to provide access to a wide range
of databases, as opposed to simply offering an On-Line Public Access Catalogue
to their own stock, and public libraries are looking to provide Internet
terminals for users, as an alternative to cyber-cafes and pubs. And yet, Information
Technology can be seen as a threat to libraries and the library profession
as a whole - certainly much more of a threat than to social work. An increasing
range of 'search engines', subject guides, 'intelligent' software offering
personalised news-feeds, and databases mounted on the World Wide Web (WWW)
with user-friendly search interfaces, all aimed at the end-user, could
potentially remove the need for information intermediaries such as librarians.
With electronic journals and books available digitally either via the
Internet or on CD-ROM, the need for library buildings which physically
contain material may well be receding. The term 'Virtual
Library' was in fact first used as long ago as 1980 (Harley, 1981), pre-dating
the current media fascination with the Internet by over ten years. It
is a term that is increasingly used (and mis-used), and one for which
there is no agreed definition. In addition to a range of virtual libraries,
the Internet also hosts digital libraries, electronic libraries, an Electric
Library, and even a Virtual Reality Library. Searching the Internet
via search engines such as Lycos and Yahoo identifies a range of types
of virtual library which fall into a range of categories: libraries (primarily
academic) who have either telnet access or a WWW interface allowing access
to their computerised library catalogue. Whilst they are certainly virtual
in the sense that they can be accessed from a remote site, they still
predominantly offer a search facility to their stock of traditional printed
books and journals. co-operative ventures
between a number of libraries and a regional or subject basis, presenting
a single entry-point and seamless connectivity between different sites
to give the impression of a single entity. In the United Kingdom a large
number of the 'new' universities are in fact themselves 'virtual' - being
a collection of previously separate colleges and polytechnics who remain
on their own sites although they now share a single identity. subject guides to
WWW resources. The World Wide Web Consortium, (w3), who play a leading
role in the development of the Internet, have established a high-profile
Virtual Library on the World Wide Web. However, the w3 Virtual Library
is in fact a collection of subject guides to resources on the Internet
- a collection of links to WWW sites. w3 do in fact recognise that the
term Virtual Library is open to confusion by also using the more appropriate,
but rather less attractive term 'distributed subject catalogue'. co-operative ventures
between libraries and publishers. There have been a range of projects
in recent years, primarily between university library consortia and publishers
of scientific journals who have been keen to identify barriers and boundaries
in the development of a market for electronic publications. Whilst the Internet
offers the means to publish cheaply and to reach a global audience, the
extent to which it currently offers a range of resources and services
that can truly be claimed to equate to a Virtual Library is open to debate.
An overview of a range of resources and services with respect to social
work are outlined below. Electronic Journals
It is
now fifteen years since the first attempts at establishing Electronic
Journals. Experience to date has been that many publishers have approached
the Internet and electronic publishing with caution. Commercial publishers
see the Internet not as a liberating technology, but as a threatening
one - through loss of sales due to copyright abuse, or to an increase
in competition from electronic journals, or the threat that the Internet
poses to their dominance of the printed medium. Development in electronic journals have to date concentrated primarily on scientific and scholarly journals, many funded by large national projects - such as: Sociological Review which is part of a £15m eLib (Electronic Libraries) Project. Psychiatry
On-line, offers an alternative model - a low-cost electronic journal,
which claims .5m accesses per month and several thousand registered users
- a readership far in excess of most scientific journals. However, the need
for academics to publish in peer-reviewed scholarly journals to secure
tenure and for professional recognition mitigates against the development
of electronic journals, which are seen as an academically inferior product
to their printed counterparts. In addition to journals
published solely in electronic format, there are an increasing range of
titles which are being dually published - in print and electronically.
Many of these are available through password-controlled access to subscribers
to the printed version, such as Catchword
which includes titles such as Carfax's Disability and Society. IDEAL
has recently been launched by the Academic Press, making available the
full text of a range of their printed journals on a subscription basis
to Universities through academic networks. This type of password-controlled
access for the UK Higher Education community was pioneered by BIDS
- the Bath Information and Database Services which makes a range of
bibliographic databases available to Universities on a site licence basis.
More 'mainstream'
journals, such as the British Medical
Journal and the Health Service
Journal, have developed WWW sites which typically make available some
editorial material and a limited selection of full text of recent articles
- a 'shop-window' approach, aimed at attracting subscriptions to the printed
version. Abstracting/tables
of contents For many years abstracting
and indexing services, and Tables of Contents services have offered current
awareness services to library users. A number of Internet services of
this type have been developed, although perhaps not as many as might be
anticipated. Table of Contents services, such as for Child
Abuse and Neglect, can be made available quite easily be e-mail. An
International Social Work Contents Page
Service is available by both e-mail and on the WWW, making available
the contents pages of a range of social work journals published throughout
the world. The ISI
Electronic Library Project is designed to provide users with immediate
desktop access to the tables of contents, bibliographic data, abstracts,
and full images of the approximately 1,350 scholarly journals indexed
in Current Contents - Life Sciences. The full text of articles will only
be available to subscribers to the service. The Australian
Institute of Family Studies has mounted a range of bibliographies
as part of its National Child Protection Clearing House, and Age
Concern England have a range of bibliographies on a number of topics
relating to older people. It is worth noting that both of these organisations
have well established Information Services - AIFS have also published
Australian Family Resources on CD-ROM, a collection of over 600 documents
published by eleven key Australian organisations concerned with the well
being of children and families. Electronic Books
Whilst journals are
of a size and structure which are suited to presentation on the WWW, monographs
of any length are not suited to the Internet. Whilst the Gutenberg
Project attracted a lot of publicity for making classic (and out of
copyright) novels such as Jane Austen's 'Persuasion' available on the
Internet it is difficult to see users either reading such lengthy novels
on screen, or else printing it out, when copies are available cheaply
in bookshops. A hypertext guide
to the Mental Health Act 1983 offers a rare example of a resource
which exploits the WWW interface, with access to the Act by section and
subject and with hypertext links within the text. The UK Department
of Health has recently made available the Hansard transcripts of proceedings
in the
House of Commons and House
of Lords - a particularly useful Internet resource which in its printed
version is expensive in both terms of cost and of shelf-space. Newspapers
Whilst the Internet
has WWW sites for a range of daily newspapers, such sites typically contain
only part of the content of the daily printed versions rather than the
entire content ('full text'). The most comprehensive range of full text
of newspapers is available through the recently launched NewsEyeQ service,
with charges of £20 per month and £2 per item retrieved - somewhat
more expensive than an Internet account.
Electronic Document
Delivery For many years the
Inter-Library Loan networks which academic and public libraries have developed
have in effect formed a virtual library - making any book or journal article
published accessible to any library user for a relatively low cost. The UnCover
service makes available articles from a wide range of journal titles by
fax or e-mail (following credit card payment) - a form of Virtual Inter-Library
Loan service. Whilst more expensive than traditional Inter-Library Loan,
UnCover does offer a 24 hour or faster document supply. The coverage of
social work material is limited, although it does make possible a single
transaction for a particularly difficult to obtain article, as opposed
to having to take out a monthly or annual subscription. Databases
For many librarians
the attention being given to the Internet is quite bemusing as there is
a sense of deja vu, and of 're-inventing the wheel'. Since the mid-1980s
a range of databases have been available 'on-line' at relatively low cost
(a pay per record retrieved basis). including: NASW Social Work Abstracts (no longer available on-line) DHSS-DATA - the UK Department of Health library Sociological Abstracts PsycInfo Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts Nursing and Allied Health Medline Whilst their search
interfaces have not until recently been particularly user-friendly, it
is the case that the user can connect to them with an expectation of either
finding information on a particular topic quite quickly as the content
and method of indexing each database is made clear to the user - a rather
different matter to the Internet, where finding useful information is
not a simple matter for the novice user. Many of the databases
listed above are now available in CD-ROM format, and an increasing number
of available solely on CD-ROM. SilverPlatter's
Electronic Reference Library is attempting to utilise both the WWW
and CD-ROM to offer a seamless mixture of accessibility of their databases
in both formats (including NASW's Social Work Abstracts +, and the American
Association of Retired Persons' AgeLine). The National Institute for Social Work's caredata CD, and the National Children's Bureau's ChildData are only available on CD-ROM, whilst VolNet and the Centre for Policy on Ageing's AgeInfo are both available on CD-ROM and accessible with some restrictions on the WWW. caredata CD has begun to add full-text
of articles from a range of titles (Social Work in Europe, Care Plan,
Research Policy and Planning, Elders), and ChildData contains the full
text of articles from Children and Society. It is crucial to be
aware of the range of information resources available through a variety
of channels - printed, CD-ROM, and the Internet - and to understand how
these relate to each other, to make effective use of them. None provide
a fully comprehensive resource, but complement each other. Catalogues/search engines
The Internet has replaced
a range of quite cumbersome text-based tools such as Archie, Veronica,
WAIS, gopher with the ubiquitous WWW. Until recently the WWW threatened
to standardise access to the Internet in a manner which would have made
life a lot easy for most users. However, the waters are being muddied
again with developments, often in competition, over Java/Active X, Netscape/Internet
Explorer, intranet and extranets. There are a multiplicity
of 'search engines' on the Internet each claiming their own unique service
in indexing Internet resources. Hotbot
offers a searchable index to every word on over 54 million WWW pages.
However, it frequently requires the use of 'phrase searching' and boolean
(AND OR NOT) searching to narrow down the number of retrieved records.
Hotbot also offers, quite usefully, the facility to search only material
from certain countries - which can reduce the otherwise overwhelming amount
of US material. One of the first search
engines, Yahoo has now established
country specific search engines, in competition to the likes of the
Yellow Pages. However, Yahoo's social work listings are far from comprehensive.
Virtual Librarians
- Cybrarians? There is a key role
for librarians to utilise their skills in organising the Internet, and
an making use of their experience in searching databases and in evaluating
the validity of information retrieved to make cyberspace an easier place
for other users. Many subject guides on the Internet have been established
by librarians, such as the comprehensive Internet and e-mail Resources
on Ageing maintained by Joyce A. Post at the Philadelphia
Geriatric Center. In fact, the Policy
Studies Institute some ten years ago exploring the use of Information
Technology in Social Services Departments quoted a report : 'A new breed
of 'knowledge workers' is being created on the back of the rapid use by
companies of on-line databases for crucial business or research information.
The professional information brokers act as intermediaries and specialise
in economic searches on specialised databases.' (Forrest & Williams,
1987) In order for libraries
to be used effectively by their uses, material has to be identified, collected,
organised and signposted. The Virtual Library is no different.
Virtual Library Users
Whilst a minority
of IT-literate individuals in the social work field currently make use
of the Internet, the majority will rely on an information intermediary
to locate and retrieve information for them. The vast majority of social
work agencies are unlikely to enable electronic networking amongst their
staff as an integral part of their job, one of a range of barriers to
take-up by practitioners (Schoech & Smith, 1995) Usage of the Internet
reflects the fact that the academic sector still has an advantage in terms
of low cost access, desk-top connections to the Internet, and high-speed
connections. For browsing, or grazing for information, for simply surfing
to come across items by serendipity, the Internet, both the WWW and e-mail
discussion lists suit the academic mind-set and not the practitioner (Berman,
1996). The Internet is less
suited for the practitioner, whose information needs are often of a different
type - a sudden need to find out a particular item of information, or
to find out who has faced a similar problem. The practitioner wants to
get in, search for the information, find it, and get out quickly. And
for the irregular user, this is not possible on the Internet. The Future
The resources mentioned
in this article are by no means a comprehensive listing, but merely a
representative sample aimed at mapping out the type of material currently
available electronically. The Internet and CD-ROM databases are still
at an early stage of development, and as more individuals and organisations
take up these technologies, and as more publishers and information providers
take advantage of the opportunities that are offered in exploiting a radically
new medium, the picture will change rapidly. Whether the picture
becomes clearer in time, and develops into a truly seamless, one-stop
Virtual Library with a wealth of readily accessible resources, remains
to be seen. References
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Last
updated: 3 November 2000 |
The journal has now ceased publication (2003) |