Harold Billings
Texans are at the threshold of access to as rich an information and knowledge base for the support of a lifelong learning environment as any state in the country. This is an opportunity that can be provided every citizen of the state regardless of their age, their social status, or their location.
The basic knowledge management systems and technological foundations to support a continuum of education and learning throughout a person's lifetime are almost in place. The combination of computing and information technology to enable such programs is available and distributable. Library initiatives for school libraries, public libraries, higher education, and lifelong learning have achieved a great deal of momentum in Texas. While financial circumstances for the entire compass of the educational enterprise have become more problematic, new opportunities for the infusion of funds and for their thoughtful application through fresh concepts of transformational budgeting offer chances for libraries that have not previously existed.
The opportunity to establish a seamless continuum of learning and teaching that will incorporate the K-12, community college, vocational, higher education, and continuing education communities is ready to be seized. Libraries stand ready to be strengthened and linked to meet the information needs of this educational opportunity. I suggest the formation of "The Library of Texas"--a collaborative, networked bonding of the major digital library initiatives in the state--as a means to achieve a transformation of libraries and learning to empower Texans for a successfully competitive role in the Information Era.
Distance education and distance learning represent fresh opportunities that are already being widely considered by educators, by many of the public, and by policy makers alike as mechanisms to leverage resources cooperatively in Texas for extended learning opportunities.
There is the perception that savings in the cost of education and a broader availability of scholarly expertise, human skills, training opportunities, health services, and information resources can be achieved through distance initiatives.
The rapidly emerging computing and telecommunications infrastructure increasingly enables the provision of distance education by our institutions of learning. It also provides a means to make distance learning opportunities available for any individual who wishes to pursue them, and can provide through our libraries the distance information that both learners and teachers require.
Libraries in Texas are achieving a level of technical and human expertise that has already facilitated many benefits of resource sharing among them. And the ability of library leadership in the state--as exemplified by the Texas Library Association, the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, the Texas Council of State University Librarians, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and other library organizations--to promote support for libraries, and to emphasize the importance of libraries in meeting the state's educational obligations, has reached a level never before attained.
Educational agencies in general are feeling more pressure to work together to achieve efficiencies and to strengthen the learning experience. Competition will quickly develop for a response from the Texas educational community as distance education and learning programs rapidly proliferate in other states. This will be especially true for institutions of higher education who have experienced in recent years major downturns in financial support and demands for improved productivity and accountability. Education at every level is on the defensive nationwide.
As a result of these pressures, there have been a number of new initiatives mounted in the state to consider alternative educational programs, to transform the role of libraries, and to assist public policy definers and decision makers in understanding the technological and other changes that are at work in education, in commerce, and in society. New ways must be formulated to solve new problems.
The recently-established Texas Telecommunications Policy Institute (TTPI) has been formed to provide a research-based program and forum for digital information policy initiatives in Texas. One goal of the Institute is to assist policy makers, both public and private, to understand the technological strains and opportunities that must be sorted out to help the state make the progress it must to be competitive in the broader national and international infrastructures. Libraries will be a major element in the agenda of the TTPI.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has recognized the importance of library resource sharing and has supported the cooperative programs promoted by the Texas Council of State University Librarians (TCSUL). The Texas Education Agency has moved to bring information technology to the aid of teachers and students, and the Texas Legislature has instituted more thoughtful studies of education and the potential for its assistance through information technologies than at any point in memory.
Financial support for education, telemedicine, and libraries has developed as a dividend from the deregulation of the telecommunication business in the state. The Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (TIF) has been established by the Texas Legislature to support these basic needs of citizens through the application of new computing and communication technologies. The TIF Board is in the process of establishing an appropriate agenda and plan for the expenditure of these funds to address the purposes stated by the Legislature.
These many activities and a general state of opportunism suggests that this is an appropriate time to establish a collaborative multi-type library initiative that would promote basic literacy, promote the creation of and ensure access to information and learning resources in a networked environment, and promote the enrichment of scholarship and the enhancement of intellectual productivity through lifelong learning opportunities for Texans of all ages. It is on this basis that I suggest the formation of "The Library of Texas" as a means to achieve these goals.
Many of the elements needed for such a collaborative digital library enterprise are already in place. The Texas Library Connection (TLC), a statewide technology initiative based in the Technology Services Division of the Texas Education Agency, is implementing two means to deliver current, relevant information to citizens of the K-12 school communities regardless of their size or location. One effort is aimed at creating a TLC Union Catalog, a database that identifies the location of books, multimedia resources, and computer software in schools across the state by merging the local electronic records for these materials. This is intended to facilitate information resource sharing among public schools.
A second information source under development by the TLC is the provision of access to the electronic full text of magazine and journal articles and other information databases that are available remotely. The Texas State Library operates the Internet-based Texas State Electronic Library, created to support Texas public library needs that can be met through electronic information access and interlibrary document delivery services--distance information provided in its most comprehensive service model.
The TexShare Library Resource Sharing Program, a project of the Texas Council of State University Librarians, has had almost $2 million of funding for its initiatives appropriated by the Legislature for the current and past biennia. These funds have been deeded to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) for administration.
TexShare is providing the means by which 53 libraries in publicly funded institutions of higher education and medical centers in Texas can leverage their combined purchasing power, subsidized with appropriated TexShare funds, to achieve significant savings in access to electronic information. Other programs include a statewide borrower's card that permits anyone enrolled in a member institution to borrow library materials from any other university in the consortium. An interlibrary lending program based on Ariel technology, both on-site and distance training programs in digital processes, and cooperative collection building are other programmatic elements of TexShare.
Broad statewide cooperation in the TexShare programs has been achieved through the extensive involvement of many TCSUL members in TexShare's program development and management. The libraries of the University of Houston and Texas A & M managed the TexShare program in FY95-96, and many other institutions have contributed staff time and other resources towards the success of the program. TexShare is being jointly managed in FY97, under contract with the THECB, by the General Libraries of the University of Texas at Austin and the AMIGOS Bibliographic Council, Inc. TexShare is moving rapidly towards the inclusion of community colleges and private institutions of higher education among its participants.
A similar cooperative program has been established among the 15 University of Texas System libraries, both academic and medical, each of whom also participates in the TexShare program. A software site license has been purchased that permits the delivery of digital information from servers located in Austin to other UT System participants across the state. While this program represents a smaller scale of membership than does TexShare it offers a much larger base of digital resources. A program connection is also being established by UT Austin with Texas A & M that will allow cross-institutional sharing among the two university systems.
Other programs are at various stages of development in Texas, including an evolving program among libraries in the Texas A & M System, the multi-type Harrington Library Consortium in the Texas Panhandle, the Houston Area Library Automated Network (HALAN), and others. Thus, this seems a particularly good time to establish a means of connecting these various enterprises. This linkage can leverage efforts, help avoid duplicative effort, establish common goals and standards, and establish a management structure that will help perpetuate and enhance this broadening collaborative environment.
S. Joe McCord, president of the Texas Library Association, estimates that through
TexShare, the Texas Library Connection, and Project Link, significant electronic
information resources are currently being made available via the Internet to all state
university libraries in Texas, about half of the state's public libraries (reaching 75 percent
of the total population served by public libraries), and approximately one-third of the
state's K-12 population. With sufficient funding, he notes, expanded information could be
available in practically every library in Texas by 1999.
In summarizing the status of library automation and connectivity in Texas, as represented
by the programs above, Robert S. Martin, director of the Texas State Library, notes that
"Texans are exploring whether synergies and economies of scale might be achieved by
closer coordination among these programs."
It can indeed be possible and useful to bring the programs that support school libraries, higher education libraries, and public libraries together under an umbrella organization--called, perhaps, the "Texas Digital Libraries Alliance." This organization can promote, lobby for, and bring together in a cohesive fashion a melding of these several projects, their energies, and their capacity for leveraging into "The Library of Texas" program.
In a sense, "The Library of Texas" can be envisioned as a conceptual digital library alliance that utilizes the synergy of these several efforts and focuses it towards a commonly- shared, collaborative mission and set of goals. It can, for example, be made demonstrably visible and provide services through a shared World Wide Web site.
"The Library of Texas" can also take the form of a more traditional resource-sharing, networked enterprise overseen by the prospective "Texas Digital Library Alliance." This can function as a consortial venture, taking advantage of the funds for library programs being requested from the Legislature and the funds that are going to be available from TIF and other sources in coming months and years.
I had the opportunity in 1990, as a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Research Libraries, to participate in the formation of the HEIRAlliance, the joining of ARL, CAUSE, and EDUCOM to establish the Coalition for Networked Information. This enterprise was of significant benefit in helping shape the early agenda for the evolution of a national information infrastructure. This model can well serve for the creation of "The Library of Texas." The Legislative agenda of the Texas Library Association for the next biennium includes the promotion of funding (exceeding $6 million) to support TexShare, Project Link, the Texas Learning Connection, and the development of a plan for coordinated resource sharing among all types of libraries in Texas. This group already forms a potential base for "The Library of Texas" as a collaborative, operational, resource-sharing enterprise joining the major digital library programs in Texas.
The Texas Library Association can function as a strong lobbying and supportive arm for this initiative, and the technical experience and human expertise that has been developed at UT Austin, Texas A & M, and other institutions will be an important element in the success of this venture.
Funds are needed for each of these ventures as promoted by the TLA legislative agenda, just as substantially more funding is needed for every library in Texas, but the collaborative linking of libraries would allow the state to maximize the return on its investment in information.
It is clear that the initial emphasis for TIF funds is going to be on public schools, but it is also obvious that as public schools have an infrastructure established that allows for their expanded use of information technologies, they absolutely must have content to support their educational efforts. There does not yet seem to be a broad understanding that there must be appropriate content for a telecommunications infrastructure to deliver to both teachers and students in the learning process. Both road and load are required for a successful transportation system.
Much of the required content is being rapidly "collected" by our libraries either in their physical collections of printed materials or in growing files of, or access to electronic data, information, and knowledge, to multimedia, and to other information objects. Access to human resources is available through the same technologies and connections for interactive assistance and interactive learning at places where geography is of no importance whatsoever. In other words, technology must provide for the combination of both distance learning and distance information.
There can also be made available through such an infrastructure both interactive teaching and learning assistance, course syllabi, collaborative interactive classrooms, online library help-desks, distance reference services, shared software and systems, basic skills training, data warehouses of significant management information to facilitate programs, and so on. The point is that as the telecommunications infrastructure is constructed for the delivery of education and learning, schools and teachers and learners will need the assistance of libraries at every level to deliver distance information for much basic support. Libraries will also be able to provide truly distinctive resources for programs of excellence that can be based on the many treasures of libraries in Texas, or on the holdings of institutions around the world that can be reached through Web connections when distance would otherwise prohibit such exploration.
Partnerships between the public and private sectors will represent another area for digital collaborations within a networked knowledge infrastructure to produce the skilled labor force and the knowledge force required for the next century.
Another significant issue is that there should be an early availability of funds from TIF to benefit the distance learning requirements of schools for distance information. That point will become more apparent in time, but it would be a shame not to be able to develop a library-based content infrastructure in parallel with the development of a telecommunications infrastructure for teaching and learning.
Still another strategic factor, and a truly important one, will be the capacity that libraries can have through "The Library of Texas" to support collaboratively many of the informational needs in schools, communities, or rural areas where mature information resources are lacking, or wherever there is a large information-poor population.
Libraries will have the digital capability to reach directly into such schools or into such areas where, with connections and infrastructure in place, location is of little consequence or hindrance in the provision of distance information. Information and knowledge management stations should be available in every college, every community, every county library, every school room, or some other publicly accessible information place.
This access to information will help the student learning process, will strengthen teachers, and can support the lifelong learning needs of citizens of the state wherever they might reside and whenever they might need information. This can be a means for dealing with present literacy problems, as well as with the anticipated elevation of this problem over the next few years as dramatically changing demographics suggest will occur.
"The Library of Texas" can be a powerful tool to provide coordinated distance information in support of distance education, distance learning, and a lifelong learning environment for every citizen of Texas. The educational, economic, intellectual, health, and social needs for tomorrow in Texas demand it.
Harold Billings is director of General Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin.
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Last Modified: 3/25/1997