STL Questions for
Gary Wiggins
1. What would you say to new science graduates
who are interested in a career in librarianship?
During decades of
counseling people about careers in librarianship, I met many science graduates
or students who were not sure that they really wanted to be scientists. Hence, they were investigating alternate
careers. While I cannot say that my love
for science librarianship infected all of them, quite a few did go on to
library school and have had rewarding careers in this field. Despite the fact that some short-sighted
companies have chosen to close their libraries in recent years, I would still
advise science graduates to carefully consider the career path of science
librarianship. The reference tools and information
handling techniques learned in a library and information science school will
amaze typical science students, most of whom depend
almost exclusively on Google and perhaps one or two standard commercial
databases during their undergraduate years.
There are many areas where great satisfaction can be found in science
librarianship. For those who like
working directly with the public, reference work can be very rewarding. Few scientists take the time to really learn
the intricacies of searching the many available online databases, so there is
still opportunity for those who can communicate with scientists to serve as interfaces
to the databases, particularly in the area of patent searching. The move from print to electronic forms of
information has created a variety of opportunities for those who enjoy
evaluating and building science collections in libraries. There are also many jobs for those with
library school training to work in areas such as the creation, management, and
marketing of science databases. For more
information on this subject, some good general advice can be found in the
Information/Library and Intellectual Property sections of “Careers in
Chemistry” at: http://cheminfo.informatics.indiana.edu/cicc/cis/index.php/Careers_in_Chemistry
2. What are the biggest changes that you have
witnessed, and the biggest surprises?
I began to work in
science librarianship at the start of the 1970s. My first professional job was as a science
cataloger, and everything was done manually, from typing catalog cards to
searching and verifying the authoritative forms of author names and subject
headings. There was a lot of drudgery in
that work, not to mention the potential for errors and oversights in the manual
processes. The computer changed all of
that. Today’s integrated library systems
make the processes of acquisition and cataloging of materials a snap by
comparison, and they provide library users with unparalleled, timely access to
information. By the mid-1970s, computer
searching of commercial databases was well established. Initially, of course, the databases were
small and included literature only from around 1970. In recent decades, all of the major databases
added pre-1970 backfiles to their offerings and vendors provided many search
enhancements. In my own field of
chemical information, the biggest breakthroughs were the development of
substructure searching and the rise of end-user searching systems, such as
SciFinder. The inclusion of analysis
tools in such products and the expansion of their contents to include numerical
data (for example, turning the Chemical Abstracts database into a huge
“handbuch”) are also important developments.
Combined with the
availability of electronic versions of scientific journals (many now with backfiles stretching all the
way back to volume 1), these events set the stage for a shift of research
activity away from the physical confines of the library to the office and
laboratory. No longer was information
gathering limited to a single location within an organization or constrained by
the hours of operation of the library.
This is the single most dramatic change that all science librarians have
witnessed, resulting in far fewer visits to the library by the traditional
clientele.
As for surprises, one
of the biggest to me has been the longevity of the commercial online searching
enterprise and the relative stability of the search systems employed in that
industry. One can judge the continuing
demand for online searches of Dialog, STN, and other systems by the fact that
STN established in 2007 a free library school program to train students on
their search software. Another surprise
was the enthusiasm with which the scientific community embraced the electronic
journal. In just over ten years, the
print journal has effectively been supplanted by its electronic counterpart. The Internet has, of course, had a dramatic
effect on librarianship and librarians.
The tremendous increase in cooperation among science librarians is in
large part due to the ease of modern communication over the Internet, and Web
2.0 innovations are beginning to have a significant impact on the way people
communicate. That makes it even more
surprising to me that an older technology (listserv) is still popular as a
means of communication. My personal
example is CHMINF-L, the Chemical Information Sources Discussion List, which I
started in 1991, and which to this day continues to have many devoted
subscribers.
3. What advice would you give to mid-level
librarians looking to further develop their skills and become more integrated
into the researcher communities?
Take advantage of the
great continuing education opportunities at professional conferences. Not only are the formal courses and
presentations at such meetings extremely rewarding, but the chance to network
with like-minded individuals in your profession is also invaluable. Get involved in the inner workings of your
professional societies by helping to plan programs and serve as an
officer. Organizations are always
looking for new faces.
In the work
environment, there is nothing like face-to-face contact with your clientele to
gain an understanding of their information needs. Despite the many effective ways of
communicating electronically nowadays, I would advise mid-level librarians to
more actively participate in the research activities going on in their
organizations by physically attending research group meetings and seminars. Jim Mullins, Dean of Libraries at
4. What were your greatest satisfactions?
Despite the fact that
I tended to shun administration over the course of my career, I am happy that I
was able to run an effective branch library in a major university and to serve
as coordinator of the science libraries during my last four years in the IU
Libraries. There is sometimes a gap in
understanding among high-level library administrators with respect to the
real-world problems of rank and file librarians, and I feel that I had some
success in making those concerns known to our administrators over the years. That we were able to successfully integrate
modern methods into the IU Chemistry Library without disrupting traditional
services is a source of great pride.
Another area in which
I drew a great deal of satisfaction was library instruction. It was always gratifying for me to read the undergraduate
student comments at the end of the semester that reflected their amazement at
how little information gathering skills they really had when they entered my
course, despite their prior acquaintance with Google. On the graduate level, I am very proud of the
program to train chemical information specialists at the IU School of Library
and Information Science. Approximately
sixty people graduated from that program while I served as advisor. Finally, the last four years of my employment
at IU were spent as full-time director of the bioinformatics and
cheminformatics programs in the
5. Any other questions you would like to ask
(and answer)?
No,
but thanks for the opportunity to share my thoughts with your readers.
Gary Wiggins
Librarian Emeritus