Notes on Lorcan Dempsey's talk at King Library

Lorcan Dempsey of OCLC, Vice President for Research and Chief Strategist

Date: November 16, 2007, 9:00 am to 10:30 am

Topic: Libraries in the New Network Environment

Lorcan Dempsey highlighted the fact that in the Network Environment “discovery happens elsewhere”—researchers often don’t start their research on the library web site. So libraries must build service around the user’s workflow (we need to go where the users are). Since attention is scare and resources are abundant, we have to compete for attention by taking our services to our users.

Dempsey also discussed people as “entry points” to information as opposed to institutions. Examples are people’s Facebook or Myspace or Delicious or Library Thing pages. What about librarians as entry points?

How do we deliver our network into the integrated local user environment? How do we increase our library’s web presence?

Through: Personal workflow (rss feeds, toolbars, tagging)
Institutional workflow (portals, class management systems)
Network level workflow (search engines, online presence)

Providing better “discovery environments” means integrating the management environment (library web site, ILS) with the user environment.

Users want a search followed by rich navigation like Google Booksearch (citations, maps, related content, context) and Ask.com. Both search environments offer a richer view of the world and information in context. Users like to share, give and receive recommendations, review, and rate items. They are looking for enriched data in a catalog (similar searches, related items, user tagging, etc.).

Discovery Happens Elsewhere:

• Putting your catalog elsewhere
• Social networking sites
• Places links in Wikipedia entries to library special collections
• Syndicating services (putting them elsewhere): RSS (catalog or subject feeds from it); Portlets; Integrate into course management systems

Providing Better Discovery Environments: (A few ideas)

• Library presence in Blackboard by class and subject area
• Library Del.icio.us page with suggested links and tag clouds for subjects (see Stanford’s page: https://www.stanford.edu/group/ic/cgi-bin/drupal/delicous)
• King Library Facebook page with services embedded in the profile (catalog, subject guides, reference help, etc.)
• Library Blog for FAQs or comments

Academic Library 2.0 - Friday November 2, 2007

These notes are meant to summarize the content of the conference: Academic Library 2.0 hosted by the Librarian’s Association of the University of California, Berkeley on November 2, 2007.

Keynote Speaker, Meredith Farkas
Meredith Farkas is the Distance Learning Librarian at Norwich University in Vermont. She was named a Library Journal Mover and Shaker in 2006.

Link to the full set of slides

First, Meredith explored the question: what is library 2.0?

• Web 1.0 is democratized access to information. The model of Web 1.0 is consumer-based and exclusive.
• Web 2.0 has democratized participation. In this new web environment, anyone and everyone can contribute to the development of the web.

Revising our 2.0 state of mind:

According to an OCLC survey, use of the social network has gone up while use of catalog has gone down.

Our 2.0 state of mind, as Meredith puts it, should incorporate the following philosophies:

• Working toward change in order to meet our user’s needs.
• Radical Trust: trusting our users, their feedback, and their ability to tell us what they want and need in an open forum. Opening up comments on our catalog or web site is an example of radical trust.
• Getting rid of the culture of perfect (don’t try to create the perfect web 2.0 application). Web 2.0 requires experimentation and being open to trying new applications.
• Being aware of emerging technologies and opportunities
• Looking outside of the library world for applications, opportunities, and inspiration (museums, public libraries and institutions, etc.)

The drive toward Library 2.0 is….

About knowing your users

• Ask students what they value. Don’t just jump on the bandwagon; ask students what they want and need out of library services.
• An example Farkas gave is using Facebook to have conversations with students about library collections, or to answer their questions. (Example: Bennington College librarian on Facebook). But don’t just create a Facebook account to be where your students are—create a Facebook account to be USEFUL where your students are.

Communicate better with patrons

• BECOME MORE TRANSPARENT. Reach students at point of need (when students are given an assignment). For example, think about having library presence on a class web site.
• Set up a blog to have conversations with patrons. This will illustrate that we do care about them and what they think and are willing to discuss their issues in an open forum.
• Virginia Commonwealth University Suggestion Blog: An example of a library Blog where comments are given and answered in a Blog format
• Ohio University Business Blog – provides help for specific assignments
• McMaster University Director Blog – although this is pretty buried on the site, it does allow open conversation

Using 2.0 to highlight collections

• Use Flickr to highlight historical collections and archival images. NCSU has its photo collections on Flickr
• University of Alberta has RSS feeds to highlight new books collections – students can sign up to receive alerts when new books for their favorite subject come in.
• Put links in relevant Wikipedia articles that point back to library collections. This is especially useful for archival/primary collections.

Go where your users are

• If students aren’t using the library web site but are constantly on Facebook and Myspace, consider creating a library page on these sites.
• Example: University of Miami on Myspace. On this Myspace library page, you will find links to style guides and an Internet Messaging meebo widget. This is a perfect example of a service point on sites other than the library web site. The look/feel of the library’s Myspace page mirrors the library web site in order to maintain continuity.
• Norwich University has a library link on its WebCT course pages (this would be akin to integrating the library into SJSU’s Blackboard). This page explains the program
  

Build participation

• Let users help build a resources Wiki (in a subject area). This offers a way to collaborate and share knowledge. It also offers an excellent hands-on exercise for library instruction.
• Allowing social bookmarking – PennTags: “members of the Penn Community can collect and maintain URLs, links to journal articles, and records in Franklin, our online catalog and VCat, our online video catalog.”
• McMaster Library Experience Wiki: allows comments from students

How do we build Academic Library 2.0 internally?

Develop a learning culture

• In-house continuing education like PLCMC’s Learning 2.0 Program; a discovery learning program designed to encourage staff to explore new technologies.

Develop a risk tolerant culture

• Always put something out there, evaluate it, query users, and make changes accordingly.

Collect knowledge internally

• Such as a Wiki to collect knowledge from reference librarians.

Capitalize on your network

• Use Facebook as an online rolodex (Farkas has a very active professional Facebook profile). Ask questions of your peers outside your institution.

Be transparent

• McMaster U “transforming our future”. This Blog discusses the process of transformation to 2.0. It allows staff to give input and celebrates the fact that good ideas can come from anyone and anywhere (like student workers). Have mechanism for feedback from everywhere in the library.

“Use 2.0 to introduce 2.0!”

Nurture talent

• Appreciate your employee’s talent. Encourage their creativity and ideas.
  

Have an enabling culture

• Involve staff in decision making and planning.

Avoid technolust

• Don’t just do it because it is the technology of the moment. Think about need; think about communicating internally.

Understand staff member’s needs and limitations

• Understand that employees resist change.
• Post emails to Wiki to encourage use of it.
• Not everyone learns through documentation. Some need a training space. Offer help to those who are not comfortable with the technology.
• TIME: give staff time to embrace the change.
• Make keeping up a part of people’s job descriptions. Make it a part of one’s job so that they feel the institution values keeping up

Questions to Meredith Farkas:
On having parameters for Myspace, etc. – tread lightly. Do not invade a student’s privacy. Have policies for inappropriate comments. Give careful thought and planning to parameters in this space. Market your Myspace page: like have an Ipod raffle to encourage use of a Myspace page. Have policies of acceptable use (no ads, no off topic posts, no use of profanity). This has a need for moderation on a frequent basis.

Marketing: Web 2.0 offers much in terms of marketing outside of the library and traditional library venues. Getting students to use your Web 2.0 spaces requires aggressive marketing.

Closing Remarks Academic Library 2.0

“The Case for Mutability: Library 2.0 and Implications for Academic Library Staffing, Organization, and Leadership”
James Neal, University Librarian & Vice President for Information Services, Columbia University

Link to presentation

Library 2.0 is all about mutability and fertility
• high levels of productivity
• growing and developing
• joint authority and responsibility
• being actively involved in a matter or event

Library 2.0 embraces
• rapid technology development and deployment
• professional maturation
• library role diversification (doing new things in new ways)
• complex relationships and information flows
• perpetual assessment
• challenges to the PTB (powers that be)
• low tolerance for management by cliché (not building library by cliché) but still making sure that ideas are solid
• boundary erosion (within and outside the library organization)

Hildreth on System Design applies to Library 2.0
• audience suitability (focus on audience)
• metaphorical/vocabulary consistency
• simplicity of design
• ease of navigation
• searching power
• User interface: physical, organization, communication space

Lib 2.0 is the ascendancy of individual and technology
• Decline of deference to authority
• Massively distributed collaboration
• Constant partial attention

Lib 2.0 does pose challenges to our library values:
• Intellectual freedom and privacy (sharing inquiries and information)
• Confidentiality
• Stability/Integrity – providing materials of integrity is what we do. How does this fit with 2.0?

Responding to user expectations - THEY WANT:
• Content
• Access
• Convenience
• New capabilities
• Participation
• Cost reduction
• Individual productivity
• Individual control

Library 2.0 presents opportunities for Marketing the Library:
• Matching capabilities with the needs and wants of the community that we serve
• Existing products to existing markets: Market penetration
• Existing products to new markets: Market extension
• New Products for Existing Markets: PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
• New Products for New Markets: DIVERSIFICATION

Enhance the student experience with Lib 2.0:
• Technology ubiquity
• Web based services
• Places for experiment and fun
• Privacy space
• Support services
• Information fluency (lifelong skills)
• Post grad access (lifelong skills)

Enhance faculty experience with Lib 2.0:
• Scholarship and research
• Collegiality
• Librarysupport
• Opportunities to experiment with technology

Rethinking library space planning
• Learning/social/collaborative spaces
• Flexibility and adaptability
• Less about physical space more about dynamic/digital space

Organizational preparation for 2.0
• Put in place maverick units and entrepreneurial enterprises in addition to the central planning and resource allocation systems
• Is too much time spent on planning and not on doing?
• “Is there enough communication and collaboration?

Leadership imperatives
• Succession imperative (new blood)
• Strategic imperative (requires new kinds of library leaders – openness to new ideas and new directions)
• Performance and business imperative (quality)

How to make Library 2.0 happen:
• Encouraging people to be creative
• Effective and caring mentorship
• Quality training programs
• Individual development plans
• Less planning more action
• Develop the workforce
• Employment strategies
• Retention strategies
• Leadership development

Closing comments:

It is our job to make quality convenient! Lib 2.0 is not just about Wikis and Blogs – it is about the opening of doors to the production of the web and inviting users to create their own content while all the while tolerating messiness.

People like to connect with others that are open. They want you to be socially aware. Don’t be scared.

There is a sense of chaos in this new future; and yet the things that 2.0 offers us are extraordinary opportunities to establish a new personality and relationship with our users and extending that relationship into new areas, etc.

Raised by Wolves: The New Generation of Feral Professionals In the Academic Library by James Neal: http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlevents/neal2-05.pdf

Academic Library 2.0 Breakout Sessions

While the breakout sessions for the conference had morsels of useful information, by and large they did not meet my expectations. The descriptions of the sessions were slightly misleading and there was less context/big-picture and more "how-to" than I wanted.

Breakout session 1: Collaborative Technology: The Read Write Web
http://collabtechforlibraries.pbwiki.com/

This session focused on Social Bookmarking and del.icio.us. The speakers illustrated how to use del.icio.us as a way to organize links and useful web sites.

The Just-In-time Reference application currently under development at UCB was then discussed. "Just-in-time reference is a way to aggregate reference resources for library users and write them to a PBWiki web page for later use." Essentially, this application allows you to save your resources as you are helping a patron and write it to a wiki for later use. Here is the application: http://librrc-rh.berkeley.edu/jitref/

Breakout Session 2: Self Service Reference

This session featured Michael Buckland and others from UCB's School of Information. They were speaking about their design of a system that will empower users to find information on their own.

I'm not sure I can eloquently summarize their work, but essentially they want to be able to build context into information. So if you have an online biography, their system would allow users to link out to a variety of resources from the biography. An example is Wikipedia: within a record you have the option to link out to other sources. This is limited by the fact that you can only link to other Wikipedia entries. The idea is that the UCB design will link to a wealth of online information and resources in a useful and contextual way for researchers.

The speakers highlighted the "Importance of inverting the relationship" – start with who, what, and where and then link to resources:
1. context finder: search from text to reference works
2. context builder: making/retaining notes/linking to reference works
3. context provider: enriching reference works by providing reference links

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