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By Gary Price
The research comes from the Arts Council of England and is found in a report titled, The Library of the Future. This research has found that public libraries are trusted spaces, open to all, in which people continue to explore and share the joys of reading, information, knowledge and culture. It is clear that people value the services that libraries provide and will continue to do so. Indeed, there is a clear message that there is a compelling and continuing need for a publicly funded library service. The research also reminds us that public libraries face many challenges in the coming years, including: advances in technology, which affect the ways in which people want to connect to information and culture; reduced public expenditure; the increasing involvement of citizens in the design and delivery of public services; and the needs of an ageing population. Envisioning the library of the future and the work that comes from it will help us and our partners in the library sector to set out the value, role and purpose of public libraries with more clarity, pointing out ways they can respond to change in order to remain at the heart of their communities. This will provide the focus for our work in the future. The research began in January 2012, and comprised three phases during which researchers spoke with more than 800 people. The research included an online survey which had over 1,400 responses, and 10,000 people viewed the online conversation. Read more on the research methodology. Four priority areas In order to foster a successful, sustainable library service in light of these challenges, the Arts Council has set out four priority areas for development which have been tested and corroborated by stakeholders: place the library as the hub of the communitymake the most of digital technology and creative mediaensure that libraries are resilient and sustainabledeliver the right skills for those who work in libraries
Among the more recognized and often repeated findings emerging from Ithaka S & R’s faculty research studies, including the recent 2012 report, is the revelation that faculty primarily perceive the academic library as their purchasing agent. [...] Four levels of user experience (column titled “Building Customer Communities is the Key to Creating Value“) and how to get there:
1. In Level One the organization is perceived by its customers as simply the supplier of some commodity 2. A Level Two experience would represent an improvement for librarians because it moves beyond content to a state where community members believe you help them accomplish something, but it’s more than just basic productivity. 3. At Level Three there is more engagement, emotional connection and relationship building. 4. the library achieves platform status.
Academic and public libraries are much different today than they were even 15 years ago. And with even bigger changes on the horizon, what lies in store? In this systematic attempt to speak to academic and public librarians about the future of library services, Hernon and Matthews invite a raft of contributors to step back and envision the type of future library that will generate excitement and enthusiasm among users and stakeholders. Anyone interested in the future of libraries, especially library managers, will be engaged and stimulated as the contributors: Examine the current state of the library, summarizing existing literature on the topic to sketch in historical backgroundProject into the future, using SWOT analysis, environmental scans, and other techniques to posit how library infrastructure (such as staff, collections, technology, and facilities) can adapt in the decades aheadConstruct potential scenarios that library leaders can use to forge paths for their own institutions. The collection of knowledge and practical wisdom in this book will help academic and public libraries find ways to honour their missions while planning for the broader institutional changes already underway. http://bit.ly/15Wbo4U
By David Brooks: Why would your local library, a symbol of print-on-paper respectability, embrace open-source software, a symbol of the digital world’s most anti-establishment streak? Money, mostly. Open-source software, which can be used and tweaked by anybody and which carries no corporate charges, is reasonably close to being free. But that’s the only reason, say some area librarians who are about to switch circulation, acquisitions, Web development, and other functions to one of two major open-source systems for libraries, called Evergreen and Koha. “With proprietary (software), if you want an enhancement, a new feature, you’ll have to wait until demand builds for it. With Evergreen and Koha, you have access to a developer network worldwide that can work on it,” said Charlie Matthews, director of the Rodgers Library in Hudson. It is about to switch to Evergreen, originally developed for the Georgia state library system.
RT @benshowers: How important will analytics be to libraries, now and in the future? Community Survey Results: http://t.co/nEHFpnUIUM #jiscLAMP\ Library Analytics – Community Survey Results (Nov 2012) from joypalmer Survey on SlideShare here: http://www.slideshare.net/joypalmer/survey-library-analyticsfindings We wanted to get a better handle on how important analytics will be to academic libraries now and in the future, and what demand might be for a service in this area, for example, a shared service that centrally ingests and processes raw usage data and data visualisations back to local institutions (and this, of course, is what LAMP is exploring further in more practical detail). We had response from 66 UK HE institutions, and asked a good number of questions. For example, we asked whether the following functions might be potentially useful:Automated provision of analytics demonstrating the relationship between student attainment and resource/library usage within institutionsAutomated provision of analytics demonstrating e-resource and collections (e.g. monographs) usage according to demographics (e.g. discipline, year, age, nationality, grade)Resource recommendation functions for discovery services
Better off Read: Municipalities are reinventing libraries for the digital age: http://t.co/RKv1DxdjwL Three reinventions: 1. San Antonio’s BiblioTech 2. Project Ingeborg 3. Underground Library
Stan Alcorn:
1: THE BOOKLESS LIBRARY
2: LIBRARIES AS SCHOOLS
3: LIBRARIES AS MAKER SPACES
4: POP-UP LIBRARIES
5: THE OCCUPY WALL STREET LIBRARY
Face it: most librarians are probably cooler than you. After all, their job is to wrangle books, attract readers, and then get the two together — one of our own favorite activities. Though for many years, the librarian stereotype was a severe old lady who couldn’t stand excessive noise, the mold has changed (to the extent that even the New York Times has noticed). Now, many librarians are punk-rock agents of social change, complete with tattoos, tech savvy, and new ideas to get books to the people. After the jump, meet just a few of the very coolest librarians alive — and since we know there are hundreds out there, add your favorite book lender (or yourself) in the comments.
Beyond using the library as a place to study, here are some other ways students can make use of library services provided by their universities: • Check out laptops, iPads or calculators • Go beyond Wikipedia and Google Term papers and theses rely on more than a simple Google search. Professors encourage students to use scholarly and peer-reviewed articles. University libraries have more than 600 databases... • Ask a librarian 24/7
A meeting place for librarians around the world: The pilot program is just about off and running! Participants have been matched and over the next few days, we will be sending each person contact information for their program partner.
By Alison Nastasi: We gathered a few passionate statements from 20 writers that emphasize why libraries aren’t “sentimental” institutions. See what Neil Gaiman, Judy Blume, Ray Bradbury, and other writers have to contribute to the conversation, below.
Microsoft and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have partnered and begun work on software that takes 22 years of news archives to try to predict the future.
Using New York Times archives, Wikipedia, and 90 other web resources, they hope to prevent future diseases, riots, and death. This is one of a number of future-predicting initiatives, including “Recorded Future,” a site that analyzes news, blogs, and social media. Researchers are also trying to use Twitter and Google to track flu outbreaks. The researchers at Microsoft and Technion say that their software has the advantage over humans because of it’s ability to learn, research continuously, has no bias, and has a larger access to news.
By Steve Coffman: Today's librarians face two futures and two questions. Will we live in an all-digital environment? Can we succeed in a digital future, whether all digital or hybrid? ... SUPPLEMENTAL CONTENT - The Doomsday Scenario (RT @glambert: So Now What?
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A look at how America's central libraries are struggling to adapt their forms and functions to a rapidly changing world (RT @WSJ: The future of libraries isn't an open book. By JULIE V. IOVINE: "The relevance of these gloriously inflated book boxes is being questioned in an age that looks to the Internet for its intellectual resources."
Here are some images from numerous resources that typify something unexpected in a library. They draw attention to libraries and open up the idea of "library" to new understanding and new customers...
Catherine Armitage: The State Librarian of NSW, Alex Byrne, says librarians no longer expect or want libraries to be places of quiet solitude. Rather than walking around saying ''shhh'' and waving their steel rulers to enforce silence, he said contemporary librarians understand that ''using information, learning and reading are not just solitary activities''. ''We have quiet places in the library for people who want to concentrate but we don't insist on quiet libraries. That is because we realise it is a social activity'', Dr Byrne said. In navigating the complex new world of information overload, people don't just read books any more. They interact with information, and with each other to make sense of it. Thanks to the public library's role as a gateway to e-government services, a librarian today is as likely to help you apply online for a parking permit or submit a legal form digitally as find you a book. They are the ''third space, not business, not the home but a third and neutral working space'', said Dr Byrne: ''We like to think it is a mall of ideas and knowledge.'' Silence is not so golden in the modern library... Librarians no longer expect or want libraries to be places of quiet solitude. Rather than walking around saying ''shhh'' and waving their steel rulers to enforce silence, he said contemporary librarians understand that ''using information, learning and reading are not just solitary activities''.
Via Leanne Windsor, Anjan Das
By Jeff Hicks: "Some libraries are solemn stone penitentiaries for bound pages and gagged mouths. (Cambridge libraries go beyond the bookmobile http://t.co/Ig3OfiXR7a Congrats to @CLibraries An innovative place! [...] Ideas Unlimited has been their slogan for two years. Cambridge staff even wear clothing with the slogans. No other library in Canada has its own fashion line. [...] A first-floor library dining experience is on the menu. A teen dungeon will spread across the basement. A family library and terrace promises second-floor views up and down the Grand River. A digital lab on the top floor pledges a mash up of 19th century columns and high-tech gadgetry. This will not be your grandma’s library, crammed inside an 1884 heritage building. “It’s a great idea,” Ridley said. “I hope they can pull it off.” And ideas, not books, are the foundation of their business."
by Ellyssa Kroski Info Today’s informative Computers in Libraries conference just wrapped up yesterday in Washington, DC. If you didn’t get a chance to attend you may want to check out these terrific presentations by talented info pros!
Public sector cuts have led to a rise in the number of social enterprises running library services, but sustainability is a problem [...] Social enterprises are, however, offering much more than books and computer access – the mixed-use community hub, argues Dunn, is the library model for the next 30 years: "We're open longer now than when the local council ran the libraries. I really believe that there's a wider range of services that we offer from our libraries now... There are things that the local council do well, no question. But they are unable to move quickly and introduce new services quickly when the community asks for it." The reason why social enterprises can, he says, "is that we are the local community – there is no them and us."
Hugh Rundle: We are in an era of unprecedented change for libraries and the life of information. Bookstores throughout the western world are closing down. Libraries in the USA, UK and some in Australia are being defunded or closed. Many question the relevance of libraries, including some librarians. I am again surrounded by defeatists and the hopelessly optimistic. Many librarians appear to be searching for One Big Technology to save us. I believe that just like in Tasmania in the 1990s, this is a flawed search. [...] There are many other systems for sharing ideas. Why do we need libraries? What is our ‘unique value proposition’? Libraries are a system for sharing ideas in a way underpinned by the values of PRESERVATION, OPENNESS, FREEDOM and PRIVACY. This is our ‘Unique Value Proposition’.
On Feb. 15, the Archive Team, a loose collective of programmers and netizens, received its equivalent of a 911 call: The founder of Posterous, a blogging platform,announced the site was shutting down -- and taking its users' content down with it. After years spent convincing people to trust Posterous as the repository for their baby photos, recipes, musings and travelogues, the company gave its over 15 million users just ten weeks to back up their information before it would be permanently deleted. A handful of Archive Team volunteers quickly convened in a chatroom to figure out -- like they had many times before in similar situations -- how to save Posterous' millions of posts from disappearing with the site itself.
Chief Librarian
Natural History Museum Los Angeles County:
"I recently had the pleasure to be ‘interviewed’ via e-mail by the Royal Society Publishing (UK) newsletter editor for their regular feature “Spotlight on a Librarian”. Here is the URL if the link doesn’t work for some reason: http://newsletters.royalsociety.org/q/1N7XofzaQvq0eb/wv.
Topics I discuss in the article include open source content access and affordable pricing to research articles among other points."
Japan’s Seikei University has ingeniously designed isolation spheres which can be used for meetings or for group work.
Via Trudy Raymakers
Tom Gauld has created a new fantastic cartoon. This time we can see how he imagines the library of the future.
Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC's Vice President, Research and Chief Strategist, presented these slides in his keynote on 23 January 2013 at the 21st annual BOBCATSSS Conference in Ankara, Turkey. In his presentation, Lorcan compared the traditional "outside-in" library model and the new "inside-out" model, evolving as the library positions itself in a changing network environment. The traditional library was built on an "outside-in" model: information materials were brought to the institution and made available for use. This was appropriate in an age of information scarcity and high transaction costs. The only way effectively to interact with a large body of knowledge was to have it assembled close to the reader.
Download: http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/presentations/dempsey/insideout.pptx
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/lisld/the-inside-out-library "Once the library assembled a collection and people came to the library to use it. Now, people build communication, workflows and behaviors around a variety of network resources. The library needs to think about how it is visible and relevant in those workflows and behaviors."
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An update to the original draft of 1973 guidelines!