Libraries and Journalism: Same, Same but Different?

One of the topics that has been floating around of recent times that has caught my attention is the decline of print Journalism in the face of the onslaught of news on the web.  It strikes me that the newspaper industry's uncertain future echoes that of libraries. They know that the impact of the web is fundamentally altering their future and they are not sure how their business model will need to change to accommodate the cultural shift. Sound familiar? (beware... long post ahead!)

First, we had Rupert Murdoch announcing that he believes that consumers will need to pay for online news. Then as he developed these ideas he pledged to block Google News from indexing content on his News web sites.  More recently, there has been a negative response to the ABC's announcement of a 24 hour News channel, now that digital TV is gaining traction in Australia, from commercial media outlets.  Their argument stems from a belief that public funding (and subsequently the lack of profit motive) gives the ABC an unfair advantage.  By taking market share from commercial media their advertising revenue is reduced and consequently it is more difficult to stay in business.   ABC argues, of course, that more competition in the marketplace is good for consumers.

Now, I don't think that anybody is going to pay for the kind of news that is available all over the web for free.  Indeed, the word-of-mouth effect of social media - twitter and the blogosphere for instance - is making the 'race to announce' a global phenomenon.  Coupled with the sloppy journalism and rehashed media releases we see in much of the current environment's so-called news media, so often exposed through channels such as Media Watch, I think that pay-per-view news announcements are certainly not a viable business model into the future.
(Media watch succinctly sums up the debate in End of the Free Ride and Building the Paywall)

That sort of news is simply information and information will be increasingly available. No... To generate enough revenue to survive news media will need a different focus. Be it analysis or opinion or something else they will need to add value to information.

What was that?  'Add value to information', isn't that what libraries do?

Forget Google. Maybe news media are the biggest threat to the ongoing future of libraries. Are we trying to occupy a similar space in the information management landscape?

I don't think either industry will survive on the fast fact - quick answers with raw information.  Google has that covered (at least until something better comes along). All the evidence points to people finding the information they get from Google Searches 'good enough'. Google's ease of use trumps any desire to seek out best quality.  So the future for libraries, and reference services in particular, is in adding value to information. Especially in situations that warrant more than a simple answer.  But maybe that's the future for news media as well?

Do we have any competitive advantages over news media?  I actually think libraries are well positioned to take advantage of possibilities of adding value to information due to several factors:

Trust
Libraries are trusted institutions. Libraries are generally funded by parent institutions and that funding is not reliant on libraries making a profit.  As a result we strive to be unbiased in delivery of our services.  This can't be said of commercial news media.

Collections
Our collections have been developed over a period of many years. We have historical material to draw on.  And it has been maintained so that we can access the full depth of our collections. We have a long tail.

Collaboration
Libraries have a long history of sharing resources.  Because we aren't generally required to turn a profit we are more willing to collaborate and share.  Commerical media are more than willing to accept contributions but it's a one way street. They can't afford to give away what they create.

But it's not all beer and skittles.  For all the self congratulatory rhetoric from within the library industry about librarians being the information specialists, I think we have a long way to go to add the kind of value that I'm talking about.

Librarians need to get much better at Information Design. From what I've observed, librarians are very good at collating information but the presentation of that information still leaves a lot to be desired.  We could learn a lot from the field of Experience Design - bringing together disparate information and designing it to be easy to consume, yet really useful.

Let me give you an example. Most NSW public libraries collect and arrange by subject lists of useful web sites in some form or another - something like this list of resources on Climate Change.  Some great resources in there but often buried deep in the information architecture of the library web site and not a great deal of value added.

Compare that with this special feature on Hurricane Katrina from the BBC (I used the Wayback Machine to get this screen shot from a week or so after the hurricane).  It has news articles but it also inlcudes audio and video material, history and analysis and space for readers to participate. And it is prominently promoted on the site, at least while the story is still current.

Notice however, that the bulk of the content is generated from the BBC's normal news production process. I believe libraries have a wider pool of content to draw from.  Here are some thoughts about where we can really add value to information.

Focus on the uniquely local
Almost all NSW public libraries maintain a local history or local studies collection. Uniquely and intensely local material that is often not available anywhere else.  In my experience, local information is highly sought after. However, the physical objects are locked up in a collection and only accessible while the library is open and sometimes only by appointment.  Let's digitise and promote this content, mix it with the rest of our collections and set it free. I think local content is a real drawcard for local public libraries.

Get more from your Collection
Let's start making more of our collections.  Let's surface interesting content, different resource types and bring them together in interesting ways.  Let's create a useful experience for our users (we might have to abandon Dewey for this!)

Provide Participation Spaces
As librarians we can add value to information but we should also recognise the amateur experts in our community and provide opportunities for them to add value to our collections.  Let's provide digital spaces where they can bring together their knowledge, our collections and resources and data from the wider web.  The rise of citizen journalism, blogging and so on shows the will to participate is there in the community.

There are regular calls for libraries and librarians to become better at promotion and it's true, we do need to get better at that. But there is more to creating a great user experience and adding value to people's lives than better promotion.  This quote sums it up:

While there are many quick, one-time things you can do to make your content findable, we’ll address those later. First, we have to make sure that there’s a reason to promote your library and its website. If you’re not offering relevant services or interesting content on your site, there’s really nothing to promote.
The most important and effective thing you can do to make your content findable and to draw people back is the most difficult: Make a good website. Creating a website is ridiculously easy, and it takes about 5 minutes to start a blog. Filling such sites with interesting content, however, takes skill, effort, and inspiration. Anyone can hit the “publish” button, but to learn about the interests of your community and to systematically present relevant content takes time. This is what you must do.
How to Drive Traffic to Your Website: Aaron Schmidt and Sarah Houghton-Jan

 Libraries need to deliver a better product than our current offerings as we move forward (especially in our web presence).  If they don't there will be others who will occupy that space. The phrase, 'painting lipstick on a pig' might be overstating it but you know what I mean.

Programming Skills Required - Apply @ Your Library

Just read this thoughtful blog post about how Programming skills could transform librarians' roles.  The gist is that, with the increasing amount of data being made available on the web, the library of the future will be greatly enhanced by being able to blend that data with our data to increase the relevance of our offerings.

I couldn't agree more, but read it yourself and let us know what you think by leaving a comment.

Second life

I am putting this post here rather than the new technologies blog because second life is not a new tool, but I thought I might not be the only person who had not yet explored it.

Second life is an online space for interaction. I had not used it until last week when I had to prepare for a class meeting there. I am getting used to online games and this is not as smooth. My avatar did not walk (or run) with anything approaching stylish grace, although she was good at flying. I did not want to invest a lot of time tailoring my avatar and had not realised that the initial choice of avatar was so critical.

It was a useful place for a class meeting as we were all in different locations, but in second life we could be online in the one space. There are other tools for this, like games and so it was interesting to see what I had been missing by not exploring second life before now. From my brief experience you still have to make arrangements to meet people, it is not so populated that you will just bump into someone for a chat. You can both chat and type your messages. You can tell when someone is getting ready to type a message because their hands are going up and down (like typing) and there is a sound of a keyboard. This is helpful as it stops everyon speaking at once. There is another signal for when people are talking. The voice chat is clear as well.

We were there to look at a Stanford University archives project.

It was really interesting to hear one of the archivists talk about how this was going, as well as being able to see some of the digitised archives.

Second life is a series of islands and as there are no boats you have to teleport everywhere you go. You can't readily wander around and just browse except island by island. You can search the map by keywords (which is how I found the Australian libraries site), and then teleport to locations of interest.

I dropped by the Australian Libraries site a couple of times (at different times of day), but did not run into anyone.

I now have my avatar for future meetings, or to check up on anything in second life.

If Libraries=Books, Then Where to Now?

My world has been rocked.

I've long held the belief that Libraries will continue to exist into the future if, for no other reason, people associate libraries with books, and people love reading books. However, I've just come across this blog post that has made the first chip in the foundation stone of my belief in the future of libraries - Libraries for a Postliterate Society.

It's pretty clear that as a brand Libraries are associated with books. The 1995 OCLC Perceptions report makes that point very well. And despite what Amazon and others are doing online I think there is still a broad awareness in the community that Libraries are a good place to track down hard to find books. But what happens if society matures to a point where most people "choose to meet their primary information and recreational needs through audio, video, graphics, and gaming"? Where reading of longer works of fiction and non-fiction is in decline?

The post's author, Doug Johnson, suggests that libraries need to legitimise non-print materials, services and programs (eg. graphic novels, audio, video, gaming, wi-fi) and devote more of our budgets towards them. I don't disagree with this strategy and he is not arguing that libraries should abandon print material. I do, however, cling to the connection between libraries and books.

Are books a fundamental part of what makes a library? If we take the argument of a post literate society to an illogical extreme for a moment, could libraries become a place in the future where books occupy a very minor role? A community space where people come to meet, listen to music, explore their social connections, discuss civic matters but where personal learning and enlightenment through reading is not the primary focus? Would that still be a library?

A Competency Index for the Library Field

A competency index for the Library profession has been published by the US Webjunction organisation. The publication is available for free download. The document provides a concise overview of the skill-sets that are required in today's modern library.

Libraries and the Public Sphere

I've been really taken lately by Senator Kate Lundy's idea of the Public Sphere. I think that open, transparent participatory library services are, apart from being a good idea, inevitable if libraries are to survive. And if transparency and participation are good for libraries then surely they are crucial for government. The 2nd Public Sphere event on Monday 22 June 2009, Government 2.0: Policy and Practice, explored how technological and media changes have made open, participatory government much more attainable.

But where do libraries (public libraries in particular) fit in to the scope of Government 2.0? I want to explore a couple of disparate ideas and see if I can bring them together to form a scenario that gives public libraries a meaningful role in Government 2.0 into the future.

Libraries and e-Government
Public Libraries have for long time been utilised by their governing councils as a place for community consultation, providing copies of documents open for public comment for instance, due in part to their general accessibility (longer opening hours, etc). In more recent times state and federal governments have started taking advantage of this accessibility along with the ease of publishing in the digital environment to promote libraries as an access point for government services. Indeed public libraries have been lobbying for more resources as they come to terms with facilitating this new role, and not just in Australia.

Libraries as a 'Third Place'
Are you familiar with the concept of the third place? Mark Bradley explains it quite nicely in this blog post but there is a lot being written in the bibliogosphere about the potential for libraries to become a third place in the lives of their community. The idea of a third place is that most people have a need for a place other than home or work/school to explore their interests. I think that given one of the missions of the public library is to facilitate lifelong learning, they fit nicely into the idea of a third place.

Problems with Government 2.0
While I am enthusiastic about the idea of Goverment 2.0 I can still see problems, mainly associated with the digital divide. Access to the digital environment, while continuing to expand, is not yet ubiquitous. High costs associated with decent broadband connection and the skills gap still pose a significant barrier to the digital environment for a section of our society. Indeed, the proliferation of Learning 2.0 programs in libraries in the last year or so demonstrates that there is a need for guidance as people begin to engage with newer social technologies. The beauty of these Learning 2.0 programs is that now many libraries have a base of staff who have used these tools and as a result libraries are in a good position to introduce their communities to social media and assist them through the learning process.

Now, to try and bring this all together.

Libraries have long been a destination for the provision of government information and services, and are increasingly involved in this area. It would seem logical, if not inevitable, that as governments open up their services and decision making processes to more public input that libraries should be involved. But how can they add value to the process?

They obviously have a role to play for people on the wrong side of the digital divide - they provide Internet access are generally available to assist people using their technology. However, I think there is a more important role to play. Libraries connect people with information and moving forward will be more involved in connecting people with people. This is where the third place idea comes in. Libraries can be a space where people can come together to engage in public debate. I would also suggest that for people to have meaningful iput in to public policy they must inform their views with access to good quality information. We do that too!

So, can libraries be a place where people can go to learn about public issues, connect with others to discuss those issues and then participate in the government decision-making process through new media, and get help to locate the information and use the tools while they are there? I like the sound of that.

reference seminar 2010

The date is already available for the annual reference seminar - it will be 5 May 2010. It will be at the State Library and will be free for New South Wales public library staff.

For other dates of interest have a look here. Some of these conferences and seminars you may need to follow via twitter or blogs.