Ingram Library Works to Find Balance Between Physical and Digital Resources in a World so Dependent on Technology 

In the past decade, libraries have gone through a major shift with the introduction and evolution of technology into education and leisure. The University of West Georgia’s Ingram Library is no exception to this. Blynne Olivieri Parker, Dean of Ingram Library, has dedicated her career to finding balance between protecting physical media and also accepting the evolution and prevalence of technology into the university’s system.

“Being a library, it is really a hybrid world. It is the practice of students, and sometimes easier for students, to access these information resources online, and that has really been a lot of the focus is to augment those databases, those electronic journals, ebooks for students and for teaching,” said Olivieri Parker. “Educational technology can be a very particular term that’s used in educational settings so what I’m really advocating for is tools like AI to complement and augment the research process,

“In libraries, ever since the invention of computers we have been leveraging those tools to help facilitate student research…Leveraging whatever the tools are of the day that best help facilitate student knowledge and research is definitely my approach,” continued Olivieri Parker.

Colton Campbell, Assistant Vice President for University Communications and Marketing, is also working diligently to make technology accessible and usable for all students in the community.

“[Technology] is definitely rapidly evolving and as a university we are a state entity so we kind of have to work within guardrails of technology that we want to make sure it’s safe and accessible to everyone,” said Campbell. “We work a lot with the American accessibility act, ADA, to make sure that people who are blind or who are deaf or hard of hearing  still get to utilize our website, our social media pages, our on campus digital experiences, so they don’t miss out on anything just because of their disability.”

Recently, Ingram Library was questioned by a lot of students on where their priorities lie when it comes to upholding online resources over physical resources. Both Olivieri Parker and Campbell reassure students that their intention isn’t to erase physical media but to grow alongside ever evolving technical resources.

“The documents that were in that dumpster that students were going through were particular things, they were government documents,” said Olivieri Parker. “We do focus on refreshing our physical collection so that we have the most relevant information resources for students.

“If we are calling out outdated items from the collection where we have a refreshed alternative content to best serve that academic area, any book in the library like that is state property. So we go through a surplusing state procedure and those books are eventually made up for sale through the state of Georgia. So what was in the dumpster was a particular type of government documents for which the protocol at the state level is to discard them,” continued Olivieri Parker.

The internet has the ability to hold more information and records than a physical library can, so it is important for Ingram Library to know when to keep and when to let go of some documents that aren’t the most useful for current students.

“Fortunately we have our phones and our laptops and everything where we can still save a vast majority of these materials and still be accessible for everyone,” said Campbell.

“Some of those [documents] that are produced by government entities, they’re issued every year and so we don’t need to keep a 1980ish government… guide that would be so outdated when obviously that…content is still available online,” said Olivieri Parker.

Other student and faculty concerns have been focused on waste that the library and other university programs are contributing to.

“That’s definitely top of [my list] for our facilities and development and sustainability department and they’re always looking for ways that we can reduce the waste, you know just working on a college campus there’s going to be things that have to be thrown away but making the most conscientious sustainable approach to them is always top of [my list],” said Campbell.

“Whenever we’re looking at discarding a particular physical item it is actually available on a list and it is reviewed and if there is another institution in the southeast area that needs that title or wishes to have that title, maybe they’re looking for a complete set or something, there is time for them to contact us and we send that item onto them, so discard is kind of that last option,” said Olivieri Parker.

Olivieri Parker has a history and passion for working with archival and rare pieces and knows how important it is to maintain certain aspects of history through physical books, but also puts an emphasis on how most literature in modern publishing isn’t dependent on its physical shape to get information.

“There’s some things that simply can’t be replicated in digital form very well,” said Oliveiri Parker “I used to administer special collections that had both rare books and archival materials and while I digitized a lot of archival materials, particularly those high use things related to university history, there is something in the actual artifact of an archival item that in itself provides a bit of history.

So if you’re looking at a letter written between Carroll county residents in the 1920s or 30s, that handwritten letter itself might carry some information that gets lost when it’s digitized, like the quality of the paper, or there might be an odor attached to it that helps tell a story.

“There are definitely some students that have higher comfort level with books and our… physical collections represent those academic areas that we serve on campus and we have a wonderful print browsing collection as well,” continued Olivieri Parker.

Ingram Library is constantly evolving and restructuring to keep up with our changing world. Its main focus is keeping their resources best suited for students, faculty and community.

“It’s always looking for those new and evolving technologies and who we can leverage to help UWG,” said Campbell. “The items that are here, we want it to be useful, usable and most importantly used.”