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.

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?

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.

What is the Role of a Library?

I've been busy lately and, to my disappointment, I've haven't been keeping up with the blogs I like to follow. So when I finally had a chance to catch up with a bit of reading last night I was delighted to come across the latest post from John Blyberg - The Darien Statements on the Library and Librarians.

The statements are the result of a conversation between John Blyberg, Kathryn Greenhill and Cindi Trainor about the fundamental purpose of libraries and librarians. In this time of increasing pressures on libraries - technological change, shrinking budgets, new competitors - many libraries are examining what they do and where they should be heading into the future. The Darien Statements are therefore a very timely, thought provoking piece of work, around which a great discussion may develop. (judging by the comments on John's blog it's already got a head of steam)

This manifesto of sorts is full of great stuff but three sentences in particular resonated with me:

...The Library has a moral obligation to adhere to its purpose despite social, economic, environmental, or political influences. The purpose of the Library will never change...

...Individual libraries serve the mission of their parent institution or governing body, but the purpose of the Library overrides that mission when the two come into conflict.

Why we do things will not change, but how we do them will...

To me, this says that libraries are about more than the individual tasks that we perform. They're not about a bibliographic record or the service at a reference desk. We have a bigger purpose. However, what we need to do to achieve those objective will change regularly (and alway has) if libraries are to remain part of the landscape. No area of library operation has a right to keep doing things 'the way they've always been done'.

What do Users Want from Your Library Catalogue?

I've just been having my first look at the most recent OCLC report, Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want. The results don't paint a very flattering picture of current generation catalogues but I don't think those findings are particularly surprising.

So what do users want? Here is a summary:

• Direct links to online content - text and media formats
• Evaluative content, such as summaries/abstracts, tables of contents and excerpts
• Relevant search results
• Item availability information - if the item is available and how to get it
• Simple keyword search with an advanced, guided search option

You should read some of the detail in the report - it's really interesting. It certainly got me thinking. I believe that the results illustrate a couple of key points:

1. Users want to start with a simple keyword search and get relevant results.
   Remember when Google just started up and the impact that their relevancy ranking had compared with search engines like Alta Vista and Yahoo! Now that's how everyone experiences the Internet and they want it in our catalogues.
2. Catalogues are good when you know what you want.
   A bit of detail in the report suggests that catalogues are good when the user is looking for known items but really let people down when they are trying to discover information on a new topic. Random results from a keyword search aren't good enough. If you can't have the full text available online then people expressed a real need for more data to help them choose the good stuff. That included table of contents, summaries and excerpts as well as faceted searching to help them narrow down large result sets from keyword searches.
3. If the whole thing isn't available right now online, 'how do I get it?' becomes the most important question.
   Assuming the user chooses a library catalogue as a discovery tool and manages to find some worthwhile resource their first preference is to link straight to the full text of the item online. If they can't have direct access there and then the detail around how and when can they get hold of the item becomes paramount.

What does this mean for the future of libraries and reference services? I see reference as the process of discovery based on identified information needs. However, the window (catalogue) to our biggest resource (our collection) doesn't appear to fulfill that need for discovery.

Does the library industry have enough dollars and/or expertise to develop catalogues that will meet our users expectations? Maybe libraries will not be in the discovery business for much longer? Should we be focussing on the delivery side of the equation? Could/should we outsource the discovery process to the institutions who are doing a better job of it (Google, Amazon, etc.) by making our collection data available to them in return for them sending traffic our way. Should reference services move to the Cloud to meet our users? Is it sustainable for individual libraries to all have their own uniques collections with an individual, self-contained discovery tool?

I see change coming and interesting times ahead.

Your thoughts? Leave a comment...

Anticipating the Future - Information Online Day 3 Keynote

The morning Keynote presentation on Day 3 of Information Online was certainly the highlight of the day for me. It was titled Anticipating the future of librarians: understanding trends and staying relevant in the digital age and was given by Andy Hines, a professional futurist. I don't think that means he reads the Tarot or has his own crystal ball, although I have no evidence to suggest he doesn't!

Rather, as he explained it, as a futurist he looks at trends along with generational changes through a number of lenses such as values, demography, lifestyle, work, education and technology to try to understand where organisations need to be to meet the demands of future clients. What I might call strategic planning. It was all interesting but I'm just going to pull out a few things that resonated with me. I encourage you to chase up the full paper through the Information Online web site when it's available though.

Firstly, he described the typical differences in values between poor, developing and high income societies, arguing that postmodern societies move beyond success as a primary goal toward self-actualisation. We're in a period where we ask ourselves, 'What does it all mean?' This is manifested in, amongst other things, a rejection of institutional authority for a greater emphasis on trust in personal relationships. Andy suggested that this could partly explain the rise of social networking and I would add that it is consistent with the rise in the use of Google for information searches at the expense of reference services.

Next Andy described the attributes of Gen-y, the future users of library services. The key point here for me was that this drive for self-actualisation is leading towards a desire for intense personalisation. Everyone has their own personal needs and your services better cater to those or your clients will satisfy them somewhere else. This makes it hard to differentiate your target audiences, let alone market to them. You can no longer expect to speak to a mass audience.

We must create personal relationships with our users and one way of helping this along is for libraries to focus on authenticity over perfection. This is something I've been thinking about quite a bit lately and has been explored by John Blyberg, Kate Sheehan, Seth Godin and others. We need to become transparent and let the community in.

What does this mean for libraries in terms of services?

Libraries need to focus on services that cater for personalisation and encourage co-creation. We need to move away from ownership toward sharing. We need to foster community connection and interaction through virtual and physical spaces...

Sounds like Library 2.0 to me.

Online gaming and problem solving

According to a recent article in New Scientist online games are solving uncomputable problems

Using the distributed skills base of online gaming enthusiasts scientists (with the help of the general public) are able to find out things which has been beyond their reach including more ideas about how proteins can be folded, and about spiral galaxies. You may want to profile some of these games in your libraries as a way of stretching people's understanding about online gaming.

I am just starting some research into the possible and actual use of gaming methodology for reference and information services. There would seem to be some really useful areas around expanding research skills as well as in other areas.

If you have never tried online gaming check out one of the games mentioned at the end of the New scientist article.

9 in 2009

LibraryThing is suggesting that people read 9 books in 9 different categories, all in 2009. Thanks to Robyn for this information.

There is a new page on the readers advisory wiki for any reading lists which this reading inspires.

I also think this has strong broad reference implications as well - how about reading 9 books of relevance to 9 different areas of referance and information services work? I will have to think about my 9 categories of reference work, but would probably include changes to reference service delivery including roving reference, community information, readers advisory work, and local studies for a start. I will let you know how my reading goes (it will be a mix of books, articles, online reports, blogs, videos and podcasts).

What are your 9 books and the 9 categories they represent?

A reference renaissance - conference

If you weren't able to be in Denver in early August you can catch up on many of the presentations from A reference renaissance. Quite a few of the PowerPoint presentations are now available from this conference.

What ideas from here inspire you? What other ideas do we need to consider for reference and information services?

Do you think there really is a reference renaissance occurring?

Beyond 4 Walls: Presentation Slides and Links (Martin Boyce)

Beyond 4 Walls: Imagining Reference Services in a 2.0 World was presentation given at the Reference @ the Metcalfe Seminar yesterday. In the presentation I looked at a possible future for reference services and argued the case for starting to plan for that future now.

You can view a version of this presentation below.

View Upload your own

If you can't read the text view the presentation on Slideshare, where you can see it in full-screen.

The links mentioned in the presentation can be found on my del.icio.us bookmarks.

If you view this slideshow or saw me present then please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Dangerous ideas at PLA Minneapolis

One of the sessions at PLA in Minneapolis was called Dangerous ideas. It included questions such as:

What if librarians would promote and participate in the development of Wikipedia?
What if we made decisions that are not based on scarcity?
What if libraries large and small invest together to adopt open source solutions?
What if teens in the library were our partners instead of our problem?
What if we learned to advertise the allure of libraries as successfully as soft drinks and junk food?

For more information see Webjunction.

What are some dangerous ideas for reference and information work?

Skilling Up for the Next Generation

There was an interesting post on the ReadWriteWeb blog recently suggesting that Sexy Librarians of the Future Will Help You Upload Your Videos to YouTube. The article presents a future where one role of librarians is to help people improve the discoverability of their online content. You should read the whole post but here is a snippet:

'Imagine a future when you go to the library with a 5 minute video you've just made about last night's Presidential debates and that librarian says to you:
You should upload it to YouTube and tag it with these four tags - two broad and two more specific to existing communities of interest on YouTube and the topic of your video. Then you should embed that video in a blog post along with some text introducing it and linking to some of your favorite posts by other people who have also written today about the Presidential debates. Make sure to send trackbacks to those posts!...
...Would that be great, or what?'

What I find interesting about this scenario is the recognition that the findability of information is a big challenge. The networking aspect of social software - blogs, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, etc allows people with converging interests to become recommendation engines. These are the spaces that potential future library customers inhabit. Libraries need to not only understand these new spaces but also to ensure that we are disclosing our content in these places so that our customers can discover us.*

So, how would your staff cope with an enquiry like this? Has your library started planning for the future skill sets your reference staff will require? Does your marketing strategy include online communities? Have you considered running a Learning 2.0 program in your library? If not, why not? Would any of the arguments in these posts sway you toward training staff in new technologies?


*See my comment on Ellen's post about Planning for the Future for a more in depth explanation of what I mean about discovery and disclosure.

Mobile reference and paging for help

Some restaurants are implementing systems where you can easily and quickly page the table staff – from table based pagers. Wouldn’t it be great if you were doing research in a library and had a question and could page a librarian to come and help you? Or from the perspective of a librarian if you could know exactly where someone was with a question without the enquirer having to leave their place at a computer or at the shelves.

It would build on, or complement, the roving reference model being effectively used by several libraries including Orange County Library Service and their mobile gamma,King County Library System (Pitney, Barbara and Nancy Slote, The KCLS roving reference model, Public Libraries, Chicago, Jan/Feb 2007, Iss 1 p 54 – 68) and and Salem-South Lyon District Library (Hibner, Holly The Wireless Librarian: Using Tablet PCs for Ultimate Reference and Customer Service: A Case Study, Library Hi Tech News. Bradford: Jun 2005. Vol. 22, Iss. 5; p. 19 – 23).

The future of reference and information services

Many of you would have heard Helene Blowers speak during the last couple of weeks. Her presentations are available from her LibraryBytes blog.

How are you positioning your library for the future of reference and information services? How have your services changed in the last 1 -2 years? How are you preparing for the changes of the next 1 – 2 years (and even further into the future)? How are you imagining the future of reference and information services? What will remain the same? What will change?