The Information Arcade: A Library and Electronic Learning Facility for 2000 and Beyond Copyright CAUSE 1994. This paper was presented at the 1993 CAUSE Annual Conference held in San Diego, California, December 7-10, and is part of the conference proceedings published by CAUSE. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage, that the CAUSE copyright notice and the title and authors of the publication and its date appear, and that notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information technology in higher education. To copy or disseminate otherwise, or to republish in any form, requires written permission from CAUSE. For further information: CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301; 303449-4430; e-mail info@cause.colorado.edu THE INFORMATION ARCADE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA LIBRARIES by Anita Lowry Head, Information Arcade Planning for the Future When the Information Arcade in the Main Library at the University of Iowa opened its doors in August 1992, it marked the culmination of nearly two years of planning for an ambitious new library facility designed to support the use of electronic resources in teaching, learning, and research across the curriculum of a research university. In the words of University Librarian Sheila Creth: "The goal of the Center is to bring new information technologies into the teaching and research process of the University of Iowa campus, using the library as the primary focus in order to link traditional print materials to the electronic information sources."1 The original name of the center was to be the Interactive Information Learning Center -- not nearly as catchy as "Information Arcade," but indicative of the emphasis on teaching and independent learning in the conception of the Arcade. Established with a three-year, $752,432 grant from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust supplemented by $400,000 from the University and $50,000 from the University Libraries, the Information Arcade is a cooperative effort of the University Libraries, the Office of Information Technology, and the academic faculty. Over 50 people, drawn equally from these three groups, were involved in the planning process, which was designed not only to draw on the diverse expertise of faculty and staff from around the campus but also to ensure that the major stakeholders in the project would be represented and committed to it from the start. Two major advisory bodies, the Steering Committee and the Advisory Council, were established for the entire three-years of the Carver grant and are likely to continue to in some form even after this initial developmental period. The Information Arcade Steering Committee comprises Sheila Creth, the University Librarian, Lee Shope, the Director of the Weeg Computing Center (formerly Acting Director of the Office of Information Technology), and John Huntley, professor of English; this is the group that provides guidance on long-term goals and major policy issues. The Information Arcade Advisory Council is a much larger group, with members drawn from the Libraries (representing Reference; each of the three subject divisions: Humanities, Sciences, Social Sciences; the Library Systems Analyst), Academic Computing Services (representing Second Look Computing, the multimedia development studio; the Personal Computer Support Center; and the Personal Computer Information Center); the academic faculty (currently we have representatives from English, Library and Information Science, Political Science, Biology, and Nursing); and a representative from the University Video Services. The purpose of this group is to contribute a variety of perspectives and expertise to discussions of issues and policies and to facilitate communication with their colleagues. In addition, during the planning period prior to the opening of the Information Arcade, task forces on space utilization, databases, instructional software, tool software, and operations, along with a Technical Advisory Committee, worked together to develop the specifications for the Arcade. These task forces did an extraordinary amount of work in a relatively short time and have since been discharged, their duties now being the responsibility of the Arcade management and its advisory bodies. I hasten to add that I cannot take any credit for this initial planning process and its coming to fruition, having been hired after the Information Arcade officially opened and arriving to take over the reins as Head of the Arcade in January 1993. Needless to say, these groups all served, and in the case of the Steering Committee and Advisory Council continue to serve, important political as well as practical aims in reinforcing a collaborative ethos and in strengthening the institutional position of the Information Arcade. A Blueprint for Collaboration What is the blueprint for collaboration that makes the Information Arcade a reality? The Library is responsible for managing and staffing the Arcade; for selecting and purchasing appropriate electronic resources; for helping faculty and students to use these resources and to integrate traditional and electronic resources into their research and teaching; for assisting faculty in the development of curricula that incorporate electronic materials; and for assisting students in developing class projects. The Computing Center is responsible for managing the Arcade servers, network, and networked laser printer; for providing and supporting the "core collection" of Information Technology Center software on the Arcade server; for assisting in the selection of tool and instructional software; and for providing multimedia and instructional software development support for faculty. The Academic Faculty is responsible for developing courses to be taught using electronic resources; for teaching in the Arcade; for evaluating courses and methodologies; and for assisting in the selection of information sources and software. The full-time staff of the Information Arcade consists of the Head, who reports to the Libraries' Director for Information Systems and Technology. The Library Systems Analyst, who has a masters degree in Instructional Technology, devotes approximately 25% of his time to the Information Arcade providing technical support and participating in management and planning. "Front- line" information and instructional services are provided by six half-time graduate assistants and a number of undergraduate and graduate student lab monitors. The Arcade has formal collaborative relationships with the managers of the Distributed Systems Group, the Network Services Group, and the Information Technology Centers, as well as informal relationships with the managers of Second Look Computing (the multimedia development group) and the Instructional Software Development Group -- all these units are part of the Weeg Computing Center. And, of course, the staff of the Arcade work closely with the staff of the University Libraries, especially those in Information and Instructional Services, Library Automation, and with library selection officers. And what happens after the grant-funded period is over? The University administration has made major commitments to ongoing funding for the Information Arcade, including supporting the six graduate assistantships as well as providing substantial funds for upgrading equipment and for acquiring software and databases. The Libraries have re-allocated a permanent professional line to the position of the Head of the Arcade and will provide funds for lab monitors, facilities, and resources, while the Office of Information Technology will continue the technical support and cost-sharing that it currently provides. The Environment Let me briefly sketch for you the environment of the Information Arcade. Located just inside the door of the Main Library and adjacent to the Main Reference Department (with its full complement of printed and electronic bibliographic and reference tools), the Information Arcade is approximately 6,000 square feet in size. The electronic classroom covers approximately 1,400 square feet. It is equipped with 24 Macintosh student stations and seating space for two students per station (Quadra 700s); the instructor's station has two computers, a Macintosh Quadra 700 and an IBM PS/2 Model 57slc, to which are attached Apple and NEC CD-ROM drives, a Pioneer Laserdisc player, a Sony VCR, a SyQuest drive and Spin read-write optical drive. Images from the instructor's computers and/or peripherals may be projected to the front of the classroom using a Sony Multiscan Projector or a Sharp LCD panel (e.g., in cases where simultaneous projection from both computer screens or from a computer screen and a laserdisk are desired); sound is projected via an amplifier and a system of built-in ceiling speakers. One wall of the classroom is floor-to-ceiling "privacy glass;" with the touch of a button the wall can be made opaque (to shut out distractions from the rest of the Arcade) or clear (to enable Arcade staff to monitor the room when classes are not using it) -- this is always a big hit with visitors! The Information Stations located outside the classroom are used to access the Internet, CD-ROMs, and other local and remote information databases, as well as instructional software; at present, there are ten NeXT Stations, five IBM PS/2 Model 56sx's, and three Macintosh IIci's (there are relatively few Macs because the Macs in the classroom can be used as Information Stations when a class is not in session). There is a cluster of Multimedia Stations designed to enable students and faculty to use existing multimedia databases on CD-ROM and laserdisk and to create their own multimedia presentations and programs; this cluster has 7 Macintosh Quadra 700s (4 of them equipped with 21" color monitors), one Macintosh IIci, and one IBM PS/2 Model 57 slc, along with a color scanner, 2 black and white scanners, VCRs, CD- ROM drives, laserdisk drives, and removable storage media (SyQuest drives and Spin read-write optical drives). The Course Preparation Lab, with 2 Macintoshes and an IBM and IBM-compatible, CD-ROM drives, and a laserdisk player, is used mostly for consultations with faculty and by librarians and faculty preparing instructional materials -- though it is not meant to be a full-service multimedia or software development lab. The Information Desk is prominently located -- that's where patrons come for all manner of assistance in using the resources of the Arcade -- and it houses the growing collection of manuals, reference works, newsletters and journals, and other information sources. The offices of the Head of the Arcade and of the Graduate Assistants and a good-sized equipment/work room complete the visible picture. The network infrastructure is invisible but just as crucial to our operations. All the Macintosh and IBM computers are networked to the Information Arcade file server, an IBM PS/2 Model 95 located in the Weeg Computing Center across the street and managed by the Distributed Systems Group at Weeg; the NeXT Stations are connected to a NeXT Station server, also at Weeg. We use an Ethernet network, the server software is Novell Netware 3.11, and all the microcomputers in the Arcade have access not only to the local resources, but also to the campus network and to the wide world of the Internet! Beyond Bibliographies Information technology has penetrated nearly every aspect of the modern research library, so what is unique about the Information Arcade? In a nutshell, the Information Arcade is without precedent in its emphasis on: * non-bibliographic electronic source materials in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, including electronic texts, image and multimedia databases, numeric data, courseware, information access and management tools, software for analysis and simulation, and programs for multimedia authoring and for collaborative work; * the analysis, manipulation, and creation of information in electronic formats; * the integration of computer-based resources and techniques into the undergraduate and graduate curricula as well as into library instruction; * the provision of expert, in-depth information and instructional services to support computer-aided teaching, learning, and research. To date, the application of information technologies in libraries has been directed primarily towards the creation, management, and access of bibliographic records, whether in the library's online public access catalog or in the collection of bibliographies and indexes on CD-ROM or in facilitating access to remote library catalogs via the Internet. But in recent years there has been an explosion in the creation and publication of primary source materials in electronic formats. Initially this occurred in the sciences and social sciences with the development of numeric databases, like censuses, or voting records, or economic time series data, and special databases, like chemical structure databases. But the humanities have now gotten into the act as a number of scholarly electronic text projects have made major primary source text databases and sophisticated and user-friendly text analysis software available to scholars in the humanities. To give just a few examples, there are the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae database that includes thousands of ancient and classical Greek texts, the American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language Database that includes over 2000 literary, philosophical, religious, political, and scientific works from the 17th through the 20th centuries, the Past Masters series of British and European philosophical texts, and the WordCruncher Disk that includes the Complete Works of Shakespeare, the King James and New Revised versions of The Bible, selected texts from the Library of America series of American authors, and a large number of historical documents relating to American constitutional history. And, increasingly, primary source image databases and multimedia databases are enabling scholars and students to have ready access to rare or difficult to locate images, for example, the AVIADOR laserdisk database of architectural drawings from the great Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University or the Videodisc Encyclopedia of the Twentieth Century that reproduces over 80 hours of clips of news footage from the turn of the century to the present -- a veritable gold mine of sources for students in history, political science, literature and the arts, journalism and mass communications, education, the history of science, and interdisciplinary cultural studies. And it is worth noting that the materials in the Video Encyclopedia of the Twentieth Century are all licensed for re-use so that students and faculty may use it to create their own video compilations on video tape or in digital multimedia programs, so long as it is for non-commercial, educational purposes. With the increasing importance and availability of electronic primary source materials, today's scholars and students must learn not only how to identify and locate, but also how to analyze, manipulate, evaluate, and even create a wide variety of sources in printed and electronic formats. The true electronic library of the future is one that facilitates not only information retrieval, but also information analysis, enabling its users to bring computer-based tools and methodologies to bear on the data at hand; it also provides means for them to incorporate digital information directly into research documents and teaching tools of their own. Accordingly, the resources of the Information Arcade include: * electronic source materials, with an emphasis on scholarly electronic texts and image and multimedia databases; * text analysis software (e.g., WordCruncher, TACT, TALLY, Micro-OCP); * information access and management programs (e.g., Internet navigation tools like MOSAIC to help people make better use of the resources available on the Internet, EndNote Plus, FileMaker Pro); * scanning, OCR, and sound and image-capture and manipulation software (e.g., Ofoto, Photoshop, AccuText, TypeReader, Premier, SoundEdit Pro); * hypertext and multimedia authoring and presentation software (e.g., HyperCard, SuperCard, Storyspace, Persuasion, Passport Producer Pro, and interText, developed at Second Look Computing at the University of Iowa) * statistical and mathematical analysis and simulation programs (e.g., Minitab, Maple, Excel, and MathCad); * graphics and desk-top publishing applications (e.g., PageMaker, SuperPaint, Corel Draw, Morph). Teaching and Learning in the Information Arcade And in a world in which computer-based interactive learning is changing the ways that teachers teach and students learn, the educational applications of electronic resources figure prominently in the mission of the Arcade. Our collections include high-level instructional software and courseware designed for use in the classroom and for individual and independent learning. For example, we recently acquired a CD-ROM called Think for Yourself, which contains many large data sets of statistics on the environment, health, economics, and demography from a variety of U.S. and international sources; it is designed as a teaching tool, bringing together many different kinds of data and providing a menu-driven graphing program and over 10 hours of self-paced tutorials to teach students how to select, analyze, and evaluate numeric data. The instructional software in our collections also serve as models for showing faculty what kinds of programs exist and for giving them ideas about materials that they could develop for their own teaching purposes. Hypertext and multimedia instructional programs are particularly interesting, and, with the advent of easy-to-use multimedia authoring software like Passport Producer Pro, the development of such programs is not beyond the reach of an enterprising faculty member or graduate student. The centerpiece of the Arcade's educational facilities is the electronic classroom, though one-on-one consultations and small- group instructional sessions take place throughout the Arcade. Librarians and other library staff, Information Arcade graduate assistants, faculty, and professional staff from other parts of the university all participate in the Arcade's educational enterprise by teaching here. For example, the Data Archivist of the Iowa Social Sciences Institute teaches workshops on data manipulation and analysis, while staff from Second Look Computing, the multimedia development group in the Weeg Computing Center, teach workshops on various software programs for multimedia work. Information Arcade lab monitors and graduate assistants (GAs) provide "front-line" reference and instructional assistance to patrons in the Arcade during all the hours that it is open. The GAs hold half-time graduate assistantships comparable to a teaching or research assistantship and are chosen for their subject knowledge and service skills as well as for their technical expertise. The competition for these positions is keen, and they represent a creative solution to the staffing challenges presented by a high-tech facility in which students, faculty, and staff with varying levels of computer literacy work with sophisticated equipment, software, and source materials. In addition, librarians from throughout the Libraries give demonstrations and teach "hands-on" classes on information retrieval, the Internet, and electronic source materials and tools; some of the special sessions scheduled to date for this academic year cover electronic texts in the humanities, electronic primary sources in the social sciences, and electronic resources in history, medieval studies, classics, music history, mass communications, Spanish, and education. Librarians and Arcade graduate assistants provide in-depth, one-on-one consultations for students and faculty who are using or creating electronic resources for research and teaching. Librarians also work in teams with Information Arcade graduate assistants to develop new electronic information sources and teaching tools. For example: * a librarian in Special Collections is preparing a multimedia presentation, incorporating both digital images and sounds, on Old English manuscripts and modern artists' books from the Libraries' collections; * a reference librarian is combining text and images from the 1492: An Ongoing Voyage exhibit at the Library of Congress (retrieved via ftp over the Internet) with additional images, sound, and text that she digitized and wrote in order to create a sophisticated hypermedia program on the diversity of peoples in the Americas; * the bibliographer for European history developed a multimedia instructional module on the political geography of Renaissance western Europe for an undergraduate history course that she taught this semester; * another reference librarian, who is teaching a senior seminar next semester on the impact of the civil rights movement on African-American culture, plans to have her students present portions of their primary source research as multimedia programs that can be integrated into a class hypermedia database on the topic; * and librarians are participating in the design and development of the new University Libraries "gopher." But the Information Arcade has even more ambitious goals for its new environment for teaching and learning. In order to encourage and facilitate the integration of electronic resources and interactive methods into the curriculum, the Information Arcade promotes the use of its facilities, including the electronic classroom, for academic courses and special class assignments that take advantage of these new resources and methods. Faculty in many disciplines teach classes in the electronic classroom of the Information Arcade. In the words of Professor Gregg Oden, who teaches a course on problem-solving: ...the Information Arcade classroom has turned out to be ideal for this class. Nearly every class day makes use of the classroom's special facilities in one way or another. Some days, the instructor's workstation and the screen projector are used to provide multimedia lecture support. On other days, these same facilities enable me to show techniques for using the computer in helping to solve problems, with the students following along on their own individual workstations. Or, the students may work independently on applying class principles using their workstations while the TA and I are available for tutoring and trouble-shooting as needed....Although the course is still undergoing considerable development and evolution, it already seems clear that it has the potential for being a model of how technology can help in teaching general intellectual skills.2 "Literature and Culture in Twentieth Century America," taught by professor of English Brooks Landon, is another particularly innovative course that makes heavy use of resources in the Information Arcade and throughout the Libraries. In this course, the students do not write term papers but instead create their own multimedia projects on some aspect of the Columbian World Exposition of 1893. This was the Chicago world's fair that was a seminal event in the transformation of American mass consciousness about technology. It is noteworthy that in his evaluation of this course, Professor Landon was particularly excited by the fact that students in this class, inspired by his large multimedia database on the Exposition and by their opportunity to contribute to it, did much more bibliographic and historical research in contemporary primary sources (e.g., newspapers, magazines, exposition publications, eyewitness accounts) than is usually the case with undergraduates. In the words of one of his students: "The open-ended nature of the assignments is what excites me. We need to research information from virtually everywhere, employing all the resources available at the university: scanners, advanced software..., electronic mail and Internet, and even real books! We have the opportunity -- the responsibility -- to add to a large, growing base of information in such a way to illuminate the previous data in a non-trivial way."3 This Fall semester, ten academic courses met weekly in the electronic classroom; ten more met there occasionally to take advantage of the presentation and interactive capabilities of the room. These classes all have assignments that make use of special software or electronic resources in the Arcade, and in at least five of them the students prepare hypertext or multimedia projects. Letters and evaluation forms from our faculty bear eloquent testimony to the impact of the Information Arcadeon teaching and learning. Thanks in large part to the Information Arcade, at the University of Iowa the library is seen as a major player in the campus efforts to enhance the quality of undergraduate education -- a concern shared by institutions of higher education throughout the nation.4 Challenges for the Future Lest you think I'm looking at everything through rose-colored glasses -- a rosy mauve being prominent in the color-scheme of the Arcade decor -- let me assure you that there is much unfinished business in the Information Arcade. And there are real challenges here, some of which will sound familiar to managers of campus computing facilities and some of which arise from the particular situation and goals of the Arcade. * Security of equipment and data: We feel fairly confident that our fiber optic security alarm system will discourage theft of machines, but accidental, mischievous, or malicious damage to files on hard disks is impossible to eliminate in spite of our vigilance. Regular hard disk clean-up and file-replacement is the best we can do, but it is very time consuming, especially in a place where the wide variety of applications and peripherals results in many different system configurations -- and where the configurations are constantly changing as new resources are acquired. * And that very diversity and dynamism of our resource collections, which is one of the great strengths of the Arcade, complicates our information management tasks and our efforts to provide ready access to the materials in other ways. Many of our programs and information sources are produced by small scholarly publishers, even individual scholars, and while they may be wonderful resources, they often pose special installation problems, cause configuration conflicts, won't run on our server and network, etc., etc. -- as one of the computing center consultants who works with us said: "You're trying to run a lot of unusual stuff in here!" * Staffing and service: We have set high standards for ourselves in terms of expertise and "user-friendliness," but because of the breadth of our mandate it is increasingly difficult for staff to keep up with the burgeoning collection of software and resources available in the Arcade and over the Internet and the demands of a growing user population. So we are seeking to set clear priorities and guidelines for support, to develop formal and informal training programs for Arcade staff and librarians, and to involve ever greater numbers of librarians in providing reference and instructional support, especially for electronic source materials and courseware within their particular areas of language and subject expertise. * Promotion: At the same time, we must continue to promote our resources and services to faculty and students, especially to those not already familiar with electronic resources and teaching tools beyond the opac and CD-ROM indexes. * One measure of our success to date is the heavy demand for the electronic classroom, making it impossible to accommodate all requests. Fortunately, this has stimulated some academic departments and the computing center to begin planning and creating additional electronic classroom facilities, but it remains to be seen if the supply can keep up with the demand. * Remote access: At present, Information Arcade resources are accessible only in the Arcade. The technical and licensing issues involved in providing remote access are formidable and will not be easily or cheaply resolved. * Evaluation: And finally, how do we evaluate the Information Arcade? We can keep statistics to measure our usage and can collect surveys and anecdotal data, but it is very difficult to quantitatively and definitively answer questions about the impact of electronic resources and methods on research and teaching. A Model for the Future But so far, the anecdotal data looks very good! Although the Information Arcade is only a year old, it has already generated extraordinary interest and enthusiasm locally, regionally, and nationally, as reflected in a steady stream of invitations to participate in conferences and meetings and in requests for information, site visits, and formal and informal consulting. The Information Arcade has a high profile on campus and has hosted special presentations for the Iowa State Board of Regents, the University of Iowa President's Club (group of major donors), and numerous other groups and visitors; it has been featured in all the major campus publications and in recruiting programs, and its Head is a member of the campus-wide Computer-Based Education Committee. In addition, because of its location in a public institution that is prominent in its state and region, the Information Arcade regularly hosts visitors from and serves as inspiration for primary and secondary schools and even commercial concerns, as well as community colleges, four-year colleges, and universities. As a member of the Research Libraries Group and the Committee on Interinstitutional Cooperation (CIC, the Big Ten universities plus the University of Chicago), the University of Iowa and its Libraries participate in many national and regional cooperative ventures, including the Research Libraries Information Network and CICNet. So as it begins its second year of existence, the Information Arcade looks forward to participating in new cooperative efforts to provide access to and support for electronic source materials in research and teaching. Notes 1"UI Libraries Receives Carver Grant." University of Iowa News Release. May 1991. 2Prof. Gregg Oden, a letter to the author, March 12, 1993. 3Chris Mortika quoted in an information sheet prepared by Prof. Brooks Landon on his course "Literature and Culture of the Twentieth Century." University of Iowa, February 1993. 4C.f., Joanne Fritz, "Playground for the Mind," Iowa Alumni Review 46, Spring 1993, pp. 22-26.