Kingdom of Knowledge

Library at Cal. State University Long Beach Will use New Methods of Delivering Knowledge to Students

By David Cowan
Knowledge Beat


Students at California State University Long Beach should be please to know that access to the stored books and journals in the University Library will be available as soon as the Online Remote Collections Access or ORCA room is completed.

The completion of this facility will help to solve problems like availability, accessibility, technological currency, accuracy and obstacles of searching that the over 42,000 students that use the library in a week (some repeats) face on the way to receiving information.

"ORCA is a machine," said Henry Dubois, the administrative services librarian. "It’s a physical delivery machine, and what it delivers is knowledge contained in objects like books, microfilm, and some of our archival collections."

The system itself works by students first going to a browsing computer where they will have a list of all the hard copy materials in ORCA. They will put in a request for an item and the ORCA will activate.

The ORCA will remove a container from the stacks and deliver it to a station where a librarian will hand deliver the book to the student. From the request to the hand off the whole process is estimated to take five minutes.

"There are two benefits to this that we see," said Dubois. "It increases browseablilty of our existing and remaining stacks because not all books are going into ORCA."

The other benefit is by not having the shelves filled with journals used every six or eight years it increases the browseablilty and speeds up the process of finding what a student might need, Dubois said.

With the loss of tangible materials, students so far have been coping with the loss by using the Internet via the computers provided at the Spidell Technology Center to gather information.

"I’ve only used (the library) once," said Journalism major Eddie Bermudez, 30, "for the computers."

More students come forward with similar views.

"I use it for the Internet," says 22-year-old Jennifer Vandekieft.

With many people using the Internet as a source of information gathering will the ORCA even matter to students?

"I don’t think students will know or care," said Dubois. "I think they’ll become aware of it when they come and try to find something and it’s retrieved that way."

But what do students rely on until then?

"The library, since I’ve been here about nine years," said Lesley Farmer, Librarian Program Coordinator, "has a steadily improving website that provides students with research guides, with web tutorials and contact information so that will help them."

A big concern, aside from the materials being available and accessible, is that they have to actually be in the library and not slipped out in a back pack.

"The fact that these materials will be really secure (means) there’s going to be less theft so you’re more likely to get the materials you want," Farmer said.

Despite the wonders of the Internet age there still is a need for hard copy information in today’s world.

"If you’re researching the Kennedy assassination for example are you’re looking for books that where written at the time you’re going to need to use books," said Dubois. "And those kinds of books could be housed in ORCA."

"It’s very frustrating," agrees Farmer. "Not having the print journals, sometimes the faculty asks students to photocopy the cover of a journal and we only have the electronic form. Usually the databases don’t include a print cover. So that’s frustrating and the most immediate need."

For more information contact:

Henry Dubois at 562-982-8880 or hdubois@csulb.edu.

Lesley Farmer at 562-985-4517 or lfarmer@csulb.edu.

Contact David Cowan at dbcowan1985@yahoo.com or through his blog at theshadowsknowledge-david.blogspot.com