EconTech

The press release can be found here. And the homepage for the new library is here, with lots of information, most of it locked up for only the University of Chicago community (however, I cannot access it through the proxy; aka, this community member does not have access). My commentary then is based on less than full information, which is common as the UofC has never been known for being transparent.

As of my last use of the library system, there were several serious issues that required addressing:

1. Stack Space: The UofC system has millions of books and is continually looking to grow its collection. At the same time, there are serious constraints on where the school can grow its campus due to (probably valid) community objections. This means that density is probably the key to maintaining a collection on campus, which persnickety users such as me demand.
2. Book retrieval and placement efficiency: This is of course a difficult issue to solve, even with loads of person-power. It is important because as collections grow, the wait time for a book, once off the shelf, to get back to the shelf, increases. This wait time of course means that the people looking for that book cannot use it. I am told that placement times were up to a week in the current library system. When courses are 10 weeks long, this kind of wait times for course-relevant materials puts the first finder at a serious advantage (though the course materials reserve system significantly alleviates this problem for the most obvious materials).
3. Missing Books: Books in stacks go missing due to a) misplacement, b) theft, and c) the book monster (related to its more annoying but less serious cousin, the sock monster). I know I have been tempted by the latter (do you have any idea how many people want the one copy of Woolridge’s cross-sectional ‘metrics text?), but hopefully those who act on such impulses burn for eternity, especially in light of the fact that the law school’s stacks only ever had about 30% of the books I was looking for.
4. Study and Reading Space: For most of the quarter, it is possible to find areas to study. Some are less ideal than others, with a significant number of them being rather cramped and/or excessively isolating (except when you want to be absolutely isolated, then you can stay there for days without being bothered, even by security when the library closes on Friday and Saturday nights). During midterms and finals, only the most remote study and reading spaces are available. If you want a group room, especially one with a blackboard or dry-erase board, you better have a team of people searching. Even during non-peak times, available group study spaces can be hard to find. The point remains that space was becoming an issue and that a variety of spaces are needed to provide for different types of work (research, study, group collaboration, etc.). Do not get me started on how the university has continued to increase the student body without appropriate increases in faculty to teach the kinds of courses these students come to the UofC to take.
5. The Catalog: The library’s online cataloging system must be using search technology from circa 1995 Excite. The number of times I have known the author, title, and year of publication of a book and had the catalog software spit at me absolutely unrelated junk in troves is uncountable. It has an interface that may make you think it can search by subject, do not be fooled. Such results are mostly useless. Combine that with an all JavaScript interface that effectively prevents the use of tabbed browsing (even with the most effective tabbed browsing browsers and extensions), and you have an all around miserable library experience.

Now, we have a picture of a Louvre-like dome that is supposed to be a reading room, computing lab of some kind, and a preservation space with a basement of an automated book retrieval system. I have several concerns with the design of the dome. One is that it is hugely energy inefficient. It is a trademark of UofC energy policy that they make mention of the ability of the mostly-glass structure to keep sun’s heat generating radiation out: “The high performance glass will reject 98% of the solar heat while admitting 20% of the visible light,” but make absolutely no mention of its other insulating properties. Anyone who has spent time in Chicago knows that keeping heat out of a room is an issue for 3, maybe 4 months out of the year, while keeping heat in is terribly difficult the other 8-9 months. It reminds me of the energy efficiency push they had in the dorms my first year, asking students to turn off unused lights while keeping the heat on at such a level that, even in the dead of winter, I was opening my window and wearing shorts to keep from sweating through my homework. Add in the terrible design of the the four story open spaces that were mostly not utilized, and you have an enormous amount of energy savings from better environmental control policies and building design choices. Maybe it is a great conductive insulator, but there is no such mention in the documentation. Missing the forest through the trees.

My second problem with the dome structure is that it only gives people a single floor to access. If space is tight, why in the world will you not give more space to people. Sure, you have this nice, pretty, terribly expensive space in which it would be great to enjoy a coffee and conversation, but the layout and openness to the outside mean that this is an environment designed to maximize distractions. Critical thinking does not thrive in Starbucks (why do you think so many bloggers flock there?). But back to the space issue. A library with an open, conversation free area is a great idea. But having someplace to go (say, the four stories you didn’t build on top of it) could still be used for more serious work. These other study spaces could even be designed with more natural light and openness in mind. It completely ignores issue 4.

The automated book retrieval system (I believe inspired by Amazon’s warehousing technologies) will help to solve the first issue. Books no longer have to be stored according to subject which means space efficiency issues can dominate book placement decisions, allowing for incredibly dense, on-site book storage. Without a doubt, such system will be even more effective than the sliding stacks now used to increase stack density. Further, it will help to reduce the person-power needed to replace books to the stacks while reducing the time that books are essentially lost in the system, awaiting placement on the shelves. But . . .

I cannot make myself believe that such a system will be conducive exploratory research. First, consider issue 5. The ineptness of the software procurement process at the library cannot be overstated, well, it isn’t as bad as the FBI’s vaporware. But it is up there. I cannot trust them to improve the situation. The next point is that the situation has to be improved on three fronts: 1) browsing books, 2) browsing collections, and 3) search. If the only way research was conducted was to look for what you are looking for, finding it, then repackaging it and adding some on to it, all you would need is the search functionality.

Alas, research is a discovery process. Much of this involves writing and thinking through your own thoughts. Revising them where you find conflicts, and starting over when the resolution fails. However, it also involves walking through relevant sections of the stacks, picking up books you have never heard of and reading through them to see if there is anything interesting or new in them. Of course, you ALSO go to the works often referenced in what you find to see what the more popular (and hopefully better, but not always) researchers have had to say on the subject you are studying. This process should bring you more new information than a two hour Wikipedia reading spree. Search FUNDAMENTALLY will not give you this capability. It is designed to feed you what is, in terms of network effects, most relevant. But these will also be the most popular and easily found works. In fact, chances are good that you will already have heard of them! (If this reminds you of one of N.N. Taleb’s points in The Black Swan, that what is relevant in a personal research library is not how many titles you have read but how many you have not, it would be because I am just now finishing up his book. I might write a review of it later. I am not very happy with it on a couple of levels. Another day…)

I have not seen any software that makes for intuitive perusal of book collections or books themselves. Scrolling is slow and webpage load times are slower. The software available now is horribly inadequate to deal with books being warehoused. The degree of improvement necessary to maintain the current situation is enormous, and I do not expect it to occur in the next two years (the time they expect the new library to open). This is not to say that I am not looking forward to the completion of the library digitization project, especially if Google and others will be extracting and linking bibliographic information in the books. My point is that kind of information is all geared towards search. Browsing is often my priority. The school has made a nod to this need, but I am not sure the selected criteria are optimal.

A friend of mine has harped the missing books issue and that this new machine will help to solve it. I do not disagree that that is largely true, but I believe that effective use of RFID would be just as helpful in locating misplaced books. Stolen books are a more difficult issue, but I am unsure of how helpful the new system will be in preventing books from being stolen.

In summary, increasing the use of sliding stacks can help alleviate the density issue without locking students and faculty out of the stacks. The use of RFID can help to alleviate the need for a super efficient book replacement system, as any books lingering for placement can still be tracked to their location with RFID. This will also largely solve the misplaced book problems (with theft remaining an issue). The new system will increase the need for improvement to the catalog, an improvement that has been needed for years and has not been acted on in a timely manner, making future improvements doubtful. The design of the building does not address the space issues the university is continually having to deal with due to its urban location except insofar as it has a highly dense book storage system.

With all that said, I will be happy to find myself wrong a couple of years from now.