51³Ô¹Ï

As a university librarian, I¡¯ve watched Google¡¯s declining efficacy as a search engine with a certain professional interest. Searches increasingly lead with AI-generated summaries that may misrepresent the original content, or hits from Reddit, Quora and other chatrooms where opinionated threads are a poor substitute for informed content.

Sponsored content and the manipulation of search results through unethical SEO practices further muddy the waters. Techniques such as keyword stuffing, cloaking, and link spamming artificially inflate the visibility of certain websites, often at the expense of more relevant and reliable sources.

This need to sift through a sea of misinformation and biased content to find the right information only makes the teaching of digital literacy even more vital.

But not in academia, you might counter. We now have specific discovery services that provide relevant articles and books without requiring us to wade through any such nonsense. So why worry about Google?

The answer is that these discovery services pull their content from databases provided by the various publishers. The biggest of those, of course, are the ¡°Big Five¡± academic publishers, which typically offer access to large swathes of their catalogues via so-called big deals.

The problem is that these arrangements have entangled higher education institutions in an unequal and exploitative relationship with the publishers. Unlike with physical books and journals, which remain accessible even if subscriptions are cancelled, the absence of ownership options in digital content mean that ongoing access ¨C to both databases and the content itself ¨C is contingent upon payment of annual fees.?

Moreover, the ever-increasing cost of big deals puts a strain on library budgets even in times of relative plenty. In the hard financial times that the UK higher education sector is currently experiencing, scrutiny of such spending is likely to be particularly exacting.

Depending on how negotiations with publishers progress this summer, some UK universities may decide that at least some of their ¡°big deal¡± subscriptions are no longer affordable. Indeed, some institutions are already terminating their big deals early, in favour of cheaper ad-hoc arrangements with reduced journal access.

As University of Essex librarian Liam Bullingham recently argued in 51³Ô¹Ï, academic libraries can still thrive if they transition away from acting as central repositories of knowledge towards an ¡°access broker¡± model that facilitates access to knowledge located elsewhere ¨C mostly on an open access basis. But this transition carries significant consequences for research and critical thinking skills.

The current ease of access to pre-packaged information bundles may have inadvertently led to a decline in the proficiency of certain research skills among academics. A shift towards open access alternatives means that information will once again become more decentralised and dispersed, as material is spread across institutional repositories, pre-print servers, archives and even personal websites. Researchers will need to adapt and develop strategies to efficiently find and evaluate sources, cross-reference information, and synthesise findings from multiple locations across the digital landscape.

The same is even more true for students. Robust training programmes will be required to teach them how to search effectively for open access resources, evaluate the credibility of information, understand different information formats and use information ethically.

The trouble is that in course curricula, research skills are often neglected in favour of subject-specific content, leaving students to learn them independently ¨C or inadequately, through a single ¡°library induction¡±. Librarians need to collaborate much more closely with academic colleagues to embed such skills through the curricula.

This can be done by involving librarians in the design of assignments that draw on open access resources, for example, or in producing feedback on research strategies and source evaluation. Targeted workshops can be delivered that align with assignment timelines. Scaffolded learning pathways can be built that help students¡¯ incremental development throughout their university journey. And teaching staff can be kept updated on new and evolving research tools and resources.

My own institution, the University of Derby, has already implemented such a skills development initiative, led by the library in close collaboration with academic colleagues. This programme, known as , offers a range of self-guided and in-curriculum resources and workshops designed to improve students¡¯ critical thinking and research skills, among others within the 10-strong ¡°skill set¡±. A parallel programme also offers academic skills support to Derby applicants and local schoolchildren?before they enter university.?

Similar initiatives are under way at many institutions, often quietly and without recognition. By collaborating and sharing teaching resources between institutions, including via open licences that permit reuse, we can advance both the open access and open educational resource movements. This approach would particularly benefit smaller institutions, which may lack the necessary staff or resources to provide comprehensive support by themselves.?

We may lament the financial restrictions that are bringing the convenient era of the big deal to an end. But the situation offers an important opportunity to highlight the myriad ways that information professionals can contribute to staff and student development and retention ¨C further emphasising that libraries have always been more than just repositories of knowledge.

is the academic librarian (business, law and social sciences) at the University of Derby.