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Technology and Research
Dale Irish
Linda Farynk
By the end of 1996, additional improvements in technology compelled the university to leave the VLC. Houghton pressured the other institutions to at least shop the alternatives, but at an August meeting of the Administrative Council, the VLC members voted to stay with the current system. Houghton disappointingly recorded later that the “VLC chose to make what is, in our view, the short-sighted decision to stay with and upgrade the current system rather than continue the search.” Houghton advocated that Zahnow Library continue researching options and adopt its own system. In a lengthy Nov. 6 memo to Gilbertson and Yien, Houghton justified the decision:
More and more of the information we need is in computers. The online environment is changing forever the way we receive information and learn … As we … reach out beyond the library and university walls and enter the era of electronic full text, we must provide the best tools within our means for both our students and our faculty.
“If we want to stay in sight of the leaders and be in a position to share databases and products with our state university peers,” Houghton wrote, “we must have independence of action and be willing to move quickly when opportunities present themselves.”
A new adaptable system would create “a future computer environment in which a student could access the library catalog, search the Internet, register for classes and check on the status of their financial aid package from a single keyboard.” On Oct. 15, Houghton requested permission from Dale Irish, then director of business services, to open contract negotiations with Innovative Interfaces Inc., a library system vendor. Even after negotiating for a 36 percent reduction in price, the replacement system would cost the university approximately $25,000 per year more to implement and operate. Houghton approached a November meeting with Gilbertson prepared to move ahead with another less expensive, less attractive, option. Librarian Thom Zantow remembers that when Houghton returned from her meeting with Gilbertson, her “face was as white as a sheet.” “He said yes!” Houghton uttered in disbelief to the assembled staff. “And God bless Eric” for the decision, said Zantow, for the implementation of the Innovative Interfaces Inc. system made SVSU competitive in terms of electronic service capabilities with almost any university library in the nation. Under the direction of Linda Farynk, who succeeded Houghton in 2002 as library director, Zahnow Library began increasing its collection of online databases, allowing students to search for — and read — academic sources with only a few clicks of a mouse. By 2011, the library — in addition to physical collections — provided access to more than 24,000 e-books and nearly 41,000 e-journals.15
Technology and Research
The advent of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s transformed how students and faculty conducted research. Before 1993, students researching in academic journals needed to consult bound indices, usually published annually by professional academic organizations. Sometimes these indices were collected into databases that students could consult in a library via CD-ROM. While the Internet existed at the time, information delivery was solely by text. Thus, students could find citations in these databases and then access the journals in the library stacks. The days when students could actually read them online were
yet to come. The development of Mosaic in 1993, which allowed for images to be transmitted via the Internet, allowed the World Wide Web to explode in popularity.
Some, such as Norm Sterchele, professor of educational leadership, understood the Web’s potential almost immediately. Sterchele offered a course, “Computers in the Classroom,” as early as 1983. At a time when the number of Web sites still was exponentially small when compared with today’s levels, he presciently predicted that the World Wide Web, and by extension the Internet, was going to become a primary way that scholars taught and researched. “I think that it’s the way education is going to be moving,” Sterchele said. “The Internet should be a primary resource for people doing research … Teachers need to become research facilitators and co-learners with students. The Internet makes that extremely easy; it makes information accessible.”16
Personal computers began appearing in force on campus in the early 1980s once construction of Brown Hall, Science West and Zahnow Library began. “The equipment budget allowed us to buy such things,” recalled James Finzel, director of computer services. The computer services staff stretched to keep ahead of student and faculty demand for computers well into the 1990s, when the campus finally connected to the World Wide Web.
