All futurists agree that the world of tomorrow is the world of information and that those persons who enter the 21st Century unprepared to live and work in a world characterized and shaped by the revolution taking place and evolving in telecommunications will be the "have-nots" of society. John Naisbitt refers to telecommunications as "... the driving force that is simultaneously creating the huge global economy and making its parts smaller and more powerful" (Naisbitt, 1994). In his Global Paradox, he waxes enthusiastically about the telecommunications revolution and speaks of its impact on the world’s largest industry, that of travel. He devotes substantial discussion to the need for new forms or codes of ethical behavior on the part of those living and working in the information age. He devotes a good measure of his discussion to the emergence of China as a world economic power and how it might assert itself in the information age. He also devotes chapters to opportunities in other parts of Asia, and in Latin America. One striking characteristic of his 379-page prognostication is that he does not anywhere discuss the need for instructing people to use the technological future that he envisions.

2. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LIBRARIES AND COMPUTER CENTERS

Back in the more realistic world of higher education, many are concerned with posturing their colleges and universities so as to take full advantage of the increasing realization and implementation of information technology. Time was, just a few decades ago, that computer centers and libraries existed on university campuses almost in total isolation from one another. It was barely a quarter of a century ago that the first batch mode efforts were made by libraries to use computer technology. In a very real sense, enormous progress has been made since then, but the results of all efforts directed toward the utilization of computer technology to harness and to transmit information resources have been uneven. In the United States at least, there is very wide disparity in terms of the convergence of libraries as information sources, and of computer or information centers as facilitators of information transfer. A good overview of such convergence or collaboration was presented by Creth (1993) in her paper, "Creating a Virtual Information Organization: Collaborative Relationships Between Libraries and Computing Centers."

Creth reviewed traditional relationships between libraries and computer centers, devoted discussion to collaborative relationships, spoke of some of the realities facing both computer centers and libraries in dealing with primarily fiscal pressures, and discussed opportunities in what she termed the virtual information organization (Creth, 1993). Marilyn Sharrow has also written about "Library and IT Collaboration Projects." She identified in her paper nine different challenges which libraries and information technology units needed to address in any effort to share resources, both human and fiscal, in any collaborative effort. (Sharrow, 1995) It is probably fair to say, at the time of this writing, that collaboration between university or college libraries and computing centers (or by whatever name they might be known) is more uncommon than common. It is clearly and unmistakably, though, a trend, and all indicators are that such cooperative or collaborative efforts will increase in number. The purpose of this brief paper is to describe some characteristics of a collaborative effort between the Library at The University of Memphis and the University’s Office of Information Systems.

3. THE CASE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS

In 1994 The University of Memphis opened a new library building which, from the inception of its planning, was designed to accommodate all known or anticipated information handling and processing technology. The result of such planning is a building which includes 517 fiber- optically wired data outlets, a new system of library automation and, at this writing, some 125 terminals or workstations available for public use. Of these 517 data outlets throughout the building, some 156 are located in faculty and graduate research carrels. Software provided by Data Research Associates (DRA) in Saint Louis, Missouri, in the United States, allows for a wide array of capability for persons making use of the hardware installed in the Library. The DRA software is loaded on the University's main frame computer, and a Novell Local Area Network (LAN) serves all terminals within the building. Faculty and students can access the LAN and the DRA software by using one of the numerous terminals in the building, or by dialing into the campus mainframe and selecting the Library menu. This menu allows for access to online catalogs of six other Memphis area libraries, the United States Library of Congress, the UnCover service offered by Carl, to all OPACS available over the Internet, and to the Gateway service offered by Data Research Associates. It is through this Gateway service that users obtain access to 11 different databases provided by OCLC through its FirstSearch service, to the full text of 350 different journals available through Expanded Academic Index, to the full text of 400 other journals available from the EBSCO MasterFile Index, and to 15 different CD-ROM products available on a server accessed via the LAN.

It was apparent during the design of the building that some capacity for instruction in the use of bibliographic and electronic resources would need to be provided. To accommodate this need, there are two separate instruction rooms within the building. One provides seated access to 16 terminals with an additional terminal provided for an instructor. This terminal is connected to an LCD panel which allows for projection of the instructor's PC screen onto a larger screen. The other instruction room is designed more for lecture purposes and not for hands-on intensive kinds of training. It does include a PC connected to a projector which allows for display of terminal screens onto a larger screen. During the past year, heavy use has been made of both of these rooms, in addition to ongoing one-on-one instruction by library staff at the array of terminals located in the public areas. The schedule for use of the instruction rooms may be viewed at URL http://www.lib.memphis.edu.

On one hand, student and faculty reception of this new library building has been overwhelmingly positive. Traffic in and out of it has been consistently 160+ percent of what it was in the former main library facility. The DRA system allows for an online "suggestion box" and users make frequent comment about the building, the DRA system, the availability of databases, and the laser printing capability of text obtained from databases.

Prior to 1995, The University of Memphis' organizational structure included a department entitled Computer Services. This Computer Services Department provided some more or less traditional kinds of services to the academic community. These included the typical array of software packages used by various graduate student and faculty researchers. Upon the retirement of the Director of Computer Services, a reorganization was initiated, and the position of Vice President for Information Systems was created. As a result of a national search, an individual with expertise in strategic planning and in information technologies was appointed to the Vice President position. Immediately upon the appointment of this individual, exploratory overtures were made by him and the Director of Libraries to identify those ways in which his office and the University Libraries could collaborate so as to provide the very best package of instructional services to the greater University community.

At the time of this writing, an initial phase of an ambitious undertaking resulting from meetings between groups from Information Systems and groups from the University Libraries about the feasibility of Library and Information Systems Internet Training collaboration has just been completed. The outcome of these meetings was a decision to involve both library personnel and Information Systems personnel in an effort to find common ground upon which could be established a program of instruction to students, faculty, and to staff. The resulting recommendations were:

1. Priority Setting

2. Funding

3. Staffing

4. Areas of Responsibility

5. Awareness of Effort

6. Levels of Authority

7. Communication

8. Personalities, Trust, and Respect

9. Campus Climate and Politics

It will be instructive here to comment briefly on each of these challenges as they were part of the decision-making process which resulted in the offerings described in this paper and, particularly, how human factors were part of this decision-making.

REFERENCES

Naisbitt, John. (1994). Global Paradox. New York: Avon Books. p. 61.

Creth, Sheila D. (1993). Creating a virtual information organization: collaborative relationships between libraries and computing centers. Journal of Library Administration, 19 (3/4): 111-132.

Sharrow, Marilyn J. (1995, Winter). Library and IT collaboration projects: Nine challenges. Cause/Effect. pp., 55-56.