Overcoming disintermediation: a call for librarians to learn to use web service APIs
| Published date | 19 March 2018 |
| Pages | 180-190 |
| Date | 19 March 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-03-2017-0056 |
| Author | Richard Manly Adams Jr |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information user studies,Metadata,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Overcoming disintermediation:
a call for librarians to learn to use
web service APIs
Richard Manly Adams Jr
Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to argue that academic librarians must learn to use web service APIs
and to introduce APIs to a non-technical audience.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper is a viewpoint that argues for the importance of APIs by
identifyingthe shifting paradigmsof libraries in the digitalage. Showing that the primaryfunction of librarians
will be to share and curate digital content, the paper showsthat APIs empower a librarian to do that.
Findings –The implementation of web service APIs is within the reach of librarians who are not trained as
software developers. Online documentation and free courses offer sufficient training for librarians to learn
these new ways of sharing and curating digital content.
Research limitations/implications –The argument of this paper depe nds upon an assumption of
a shift in the paradigm of libraries away from collections of materials to access points of information.
The need for libraries to learn AP Is depends upon a new role for libra rians that anecdotal evide nce
supports is rising.
Practical implications –By learning a few technical skills, librarians can help patrons find relevant
information within a world of proliferating information sources.
Originality/value –The literatureon APIs is highly technicaland overwhelming forthose without training in
software development. This paper translates technical language for those who havenot programmed before.
Keywords Digital libraries, Software development, Programming, Information literacy,
Information curation, Web service API
Paper type Viewpoint
Librarians have always been an essential part of the supply chain of academic
information. By relying on the curation efforts of librarians, reflected in collection
development policies, library catalogues, and reference interactions, researchers have
depended upon the library as a key component of the academi c information environment.
Libraries were essential to research because they collected, curated, and organized much
of the research supply chain.
This supply chain of academic information is shifting, however. The dominance of
search engines like Google and JSTOR, the growth of full text repositorieslike HathiTrust,
the popularity of free information tools like Wikipedia, and the increasing acceptance of
open access journals are signs of a shift in the supply chain. Researchers, be they students
or faculty, have more direct access to reliable and vetted information than ever before,
access that often does not rely upon the library. As that supply chain shifts, librarians
areindangerofbeingleftoutoftheresearchprocess. Some analysts of library science,
like Tara Brabazon, have used the supply chain language of “disintermediation”
to describe this shift and identify that functions of librarians and library services are not
as essential as they once were, now being served by content producers and distributors:
“For librarians, they are displaced in the process of collection development through the
sale of publishers’journals and ebook bundles, the open-access movement, and Google
Scholar”(Brabazon, 2014, p. 192). Libraries are no longer the exclusive homes of content
that patrons cannot get elsewhere. Librarians must ask, therefore, what role they will have
in this new information environment.
Library Hi Tech
Vol. 36 No. 1, 2018
pp. 180-190
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/LHT-03-2017-0056
Received 18 March 2017
Revised 8 July 2017
Accepted 2 August 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm
180
LHT
36,1
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