Communication & Creativity Research Flagship - Projects
The Searchers: Australian Information Seekers & Citizens
Project Code: ARC LP0775215
The Searchers is a three year Australian Research Council linkage project examining the strategic challenges for major public libraries presented by the development of on-line information provision. The project is being undertaken by the The Swinburne Institute, Swinburne University of Technology in partnership with the State Library of Victoria. SLV is contributing $30,000 per year to the project as well as an in-kind contribution of facilities, staff time and data collections. The project commenced in 2007 and will run until May 2010.
Research Team
Chief Investigators: Prof Julian Thomas and Prof Denise Meredyth
Research Fellows: Dr Vivienne Waller and Dr Ian McShane
Publications and Other Research Outputs
- Publications
- Public Libraries and the Future of Search Conference
- Media Coverage
- Audio Visual Material
Context
The recent and prospective proliferation of online full-text and multimedia searching raises new questions about libraries’ complex social and civic objectives. While it is clear that online searching systems, driven by advertising and converging with media industries, have already had a significant impact on electronic commerce and publishing, their ramifications for reference and research libraries have only recently begun to receive attention.
The new information environment challenges the traditional role of major libraries as expert mediators of public information, but it also raises questions about the library’s role in creating and maintaining digital public space, the library’s role as custodian of cultural memory, and the significance of libraries as physical places.
In addition, new forms of knowledge production and consumption enabled by Web 2.0 technologies promote a new participatory relationship with library users, supplementing traditional conceptions of library authority. At the same time, libraries need to continue to demonstrate the effectiveness of their service provision, negotiating the conflicting rhetorics of informed citizens and information-seeking consumers, and demonstrating the public value of their operations, especially where this involves new commercial partnerships.
While the Internet was hailed as a democratizing force in terms of enabling free public access to information, whether or not this potential is realized depends largely on the balance of commercial and public interests in the provision of content and online search capabilities.
The Searchers project seeks to locate these new developments within long-standing debates about the role of the public library as an ‘information commons’, as a centre for accessible public information, as a custodian of collections, and as an instrument of democracy and equal opportunity through self-education.
Research Programme
The project has three components: research on current information-seeking and the role of public libraries in on-line information provision, analysis of wider developments in online environments and search models, and evaluation of the policy and strategic implications for public libraries highlighted by the research.
Phase 1
- Analysis of existing literature on information searching, the role of libraries, and digital technologies
- Observation of SLV activities and informal discussions with SLV staff
Phase 2
- Quantitative analysis of use of the SLV library website
- Socially grounded case studies of the library’s publics
- Analysis of developments in digital technologies and digital content policy
- Critical application of the newly emerging policy framework of public value to the changing and expanding role of major public libraries
Project Outcomes
The project will contribute new thinking on the role and position of major libraries in the digital age, especially relating to questions of authority, information provision, equity, resource use, and profile in the on-line environment. In addition to providing strategic input to the development of future library service models, this research will contribute to wider debates around the future of public access to information, and the scale and seriousness of information poverty.
Reference Group
A reference group with representatives from State and Federal government departments, the library sector, academia and the ICT industry has been established to provide overall guidance to the project and facilitate the dissemination of project findings to key organisations and individuals. By ensuring that the research outcomes are widely disseminated, the library sector more generally will benefit from the research.
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