PVLD Director's Blog

Libraries and the Cognitive Surplus

I just spent an hour writing a post about this amazing video featuring Clay Shirky, and then lost it due to some mysterious glitch! Now I need to try to recreate my "brilliant" thoughts!

For some reason the video won't embed in my post, so here's the link to the DonorPower blog post where I found it.  Take a look...it's well worth the 15 minutes or so.

As I watched it I kept thinking about the implications for libraries.

Libraries originated as essentially repositories of content (think the great library at Alexandria or the monks preserving their manuscripts during the middle ages), and have evolved into institutions focused largely on content delivery.  Its interesting that some of our most "innovative" service models (and sources of heated debate) are largely about how we get better at delivering content. Think about the current debate about the limitations of the Dewey Decimal System, or the move towards "merchandising" our collections, or the often heated discussions about whether we should more heavily emphasize customer demand or professional judgement when selecting materials.  All are about more effectively connecting our customers with our collections....i.e. content delivery.

Now think about the world that Mr. Shirky describes in the video.  A world in which people expect to participate in the creation and sharing of content, not just to consume it.  A world in which an individual, using low cost technologies, can participate in the domain of content organization and delivery that has traditionally been the domain of libraries and well-capitalized businesses.  A world in which the 200 billion hours/year that has been spent watching television can be redirected to the creation and sharing of content.

I think this shift from passive consumption to participatory creation and sharing will render our current delivery-based library service models obsolete.  The challenge for librarians and library institutions is to transform ourselves so that we become active participants in this new world.

What does this mean?  Some thoughts -

Librarians need to shift from being organizers of and gatekeepers to information and content to designers of the systems that allow people to actively participate in the creation and sharing of content and the design of library services.

The boundary between the "library" and the community will become increasingly permeable.  Our staff will need to have the deep knowledge of the needs and aspirations of the communities we serve that only active engagement outside the four walls of the library can provide.  As a young library school graduate and job applicant I interviewed the other day put it - "We need to have the kind of community involvement that means that wherever we go in the community we meet people we know, and we need to develop services based on real understanding of community needs not what we pretend to know."

Our internal boundaries will also become more permeable as we rapidly reconfigure our organizations and services to adapt to changing community needs. 

Our library buildings will become just one service point in an array that spans the virtual world and the physical communities we serve.  Web-based services, cell-phone based services, widgets on the websites of others, "pop ups" at community events, micro-services at locations throughout the community (mini-collections? kiosks? book-dispensing machines?) will become the norm.

The library buildings themselves need to be redesigned to foster participation and engagement.  Service desks that have staff and customers working side by side to collaborate on solving the customer's problem? Replacement of the discreet and somewhat secretive suggestion box with white boards (physical or virtual) where customers can share their thoughts about library services and build on the ideas of others?  Spaces where staff and customers come together on a regular basis to discuss library and community issues?

Our catalogs need to move beyond inventory management systems to platforms for users to share information, make connections with people of similar interests,  and help one another find the resources that are most relevent for their needs in their particular contexts. (See my previous post on the Social Catalog and Bibliocommons)

We need to build deep and broad institutional knowledge of emerging technologies and business/service models and skill in the rapid deployment of new technologies and models.  Technology-based innovation can no longer be the sole responsibility of the IT staff.

We need to stop viewing volunteers as supplemental labor and find ways to engage the full array of talents, experiences, and knowledge that our volunteers bring to us (See Boomer Volunteers)

Most of all we need to build library cultures that encourage and respect the participation of our communities and organizational designs that foster experimentation and learning.

There is a huge store of intellectual capital waiting to be tapped - in our communities and within our institutions.  Let's tap it!

Those are some of my thoughts...what are yours?

Eureka!

This past week I had the honor and pleasure of serving as a mentor for the first Eureka Leadership Institute - a weeklong, intensive leadership development program for emerging library leaders in California.

While my official role at the Institute was "mentor", I think I learned at least as much as the participants.  It is a rare gift to be able to spend a week thinking about leadership and what it means in a library context and I came away reinvigorated (despite the 12 hour days!) and with plenty of food for thought about both how to improve my own leadership abilities and how to lead PVLD towards the future.  I also came away with a whole new network of relationships with people I might otherwise never have had the opportunity to really get to know (or possibly even to meet) and with a renewed sense of optimism about the future of public libraries in California.

I'm looking forward to continued involvement through the Eureka blog, follow-up webinars and meetings, and reunions at ALA, CLA, etc.  I'm also looking forward to working with PVLD Department Managers Eve Wittenmyer and Jennifer Addington who participated in the Institute as they work on their leadership project over the next year or so.

It would ruin the experience for future participants if I write too much about the content of the Institute.  Suffice it to say that I will be encouraging more PVLD leaders to apply, and am hoping that I will have the opportunity to again serve as a mentor in future.

Now its back to the "real world"!

Curiouser and Curiouser

I came across this gem of a video of Seth Godin talking about the importance of being curious on John Blyberg's blog today and I was struck by the role libraries can and do play in "priming the pump" of curiosity.

I was also reminded of a post I wrote back in February in which I quoted an impassioned email from one of our PVLD Librarians, Sylvia Richardson, about her perception that in their quest for relevence librarians are chasing numbers and growth and forgetting, as she puts it, that

"Our job as librarians is to engage people in growth throughout their lives, before, during and after "school" days, to be a beacon of free thought unencumbered by sales figures, which more often indicates mass market thinking than new and daring concepts; the sales curve always follows some distance behind the new concepts humans create.  (Was Van Gogh a bestselling artist in his lifetime???)  It is our job, as I see it, to include in our collections "items" that may be less than mainstream, but more important precisely because they are out of the main stream; new directions, offshoots, upstarts, wellsprings off the beaten path."

Sylvia's comments have been bouncing around in the back of my mind since she wrote them, and it was one of those interesting instances of synchronicity to first see the Seth Godin video and then, within an hour or two, to read John Berry's column in the April 15, 2008 issue of Library Journal in which he reminds his readers that libraries are more than gateways to information and librarians are more than "information professionals".  I'm sure Sylvia would agree with Berry's comment that while people do come to the library for information, they also

"... come to the library to do much more than that. Many are, of course, studying, searching, reading, seeking, and finding the recorded stuff. But many more are there enjoying, interacting, exploring, and, as old Jesse Shera once put it, engaging in “the quiet stir of thought” unrecorded, unmanaged, uncaptured."

I am a firm believer in the role libraries and librarians can play in exposing people to new authors, new thoughts, and new ideas and I'd be the last one to say that we should let the development of our collections and services be driven solely by giving people what is popular.

At the same time, I recognize that in order to expose people to Sylvia's "...."items" that may be less than mainstream, but more important precisely because they are out of the main stream; new directions, offshoots, upstarts, wellsprings off the beaten path."  We need to get them in the door (whether the physical door to our physical libraries or the virtual door to our virtual libraries), and they won't come (or won't come back) if we don't also give them what they are looking for.

Finding this balance between giving people what they want and providing them an opportunity to discover something that they will value but would not have asked for is to my mind one of the core responsibilities of the professional librarian.  It is particularly challenging given the always present limitations on money (do I buy another copy of the latest Michael Crichton or do I buy something by a little known but outstanding new author?), space (How many copies of this Sue Grafton do we need?  Should I keep our only copy of The Sun Also Rises even though it hasn't circulated in a year?) and staff capacity (do I offer another session of Clutterology, which practically runs itself and always gets a good turnout or do I take a chance on a speaker who might be a bit challenging and may only attract a dozen people?)

It occurred to me today that when making these decisions we could do worse than ask ourselves "How does this "prime the pump" of curiosity?"

More on the Library Catalog and the Dewey Decimal System

If the persistance of a topic on the conference circuit and in the blogosphere is any indication of its importance as a topic of professional discussion, then the issue of whether the Dewey Decimal System meets the needs of 21st century library users is on the minds of a lot of librarians these days.  I've blogged about this before, but wanted to share a couple more contributions to the debate.

From the PLA Minneapolis Blog put together by PVLD librarians Jennifer Addington and Debra Petersen some thoughts about ways that library collections can be organzed to better meet the needs of users without abandoning Dewey.  There are some great ideas that we can use at PVLD...and I know Eve Wittenmyer and Melissa Little up in the Circulation Department have even more ideas about how to make the collection organization more user friendly.

And I loved this from Michael Casey , whose Library Crunch blog I is one of my favorites -

Wholesale abandonment of Dewey is probably not practical for an established library, but the discussion of its relevance is healthy, and its amazing to see all of the amazing ways libraries are adapting or working around it to better serve our customers.  Look for some of these kinds of adaptations at PVLD in the coming months!

Is PVLD already a 2.0 library?

  I came across the following video by Cindi Trainor on the Travelin' Librarian today.  It displays a bit wierd so you may want to go directly to the blip.tv website

Apart from the fact that the "follow me as I type" format is pretty cool, I liked the fact that the video does not define "Library 2.0" in terms of technology but about people in the library and their willingness to experiment and embrace change.

I was struck, however, by the fact that there is not a single thing in the green "Library 2.0" circle that PVLD is not already doing and that PVLD employees have not embraced. Does that make us a 2.0 library?

I don't think so.  To my mind the journey to "2.0" (and beyond) as just that - a journey. "2.0" is not a destination, its an orientation. It's the difference between saying "we're going to San Francisco" and "we're going north". Every step that we take in the direction of "Library 2.0" also shifts our perspective so that we see new opportunities (and sometimes challenges).

Now that we've gotten our feet wet with console-based video games we are talking about how to offer web-based massive multi-player games like World of Warcraft. Now that we have a content-management based website we see opportunities to really trick out our blogs as a way of delivering content.  Now that we see how much customers like the face-out shelving in the new book section we're looking for other opportunities to merchandise the collection....

If "Library 2.0" is fundamentally, as the video implies, about being willing to change what we do so that we can enhance our ability to connect with users then the journey towards 2.0 is one that many libraries, including PVLD, have been on for a very long time.  And as this video highlights, it's not about the technology....it's about the people. 

News from the Public Library Association Conference 2008

Adult Services Assistant Manager Debra Petersen and Branch Manager Jennifer Addington attended the Public Library Association's biennial conference in Minneapolis last week and came back full of ideas and enthusiasm.

They are sharing what they learned and their thoughts on their PLA Minneapolis blog.  Check it out for some great ideas...and keep checking as there is more to come!

I think we might transform this blog into the "PVLD conference" blog as a way of sharing what we learn at the various conferences and workshops that staff attend. 

Libraries and Change

One of my favorite blogs is Indexed - I am continually amazed at how much they can communicate with a ven diagram!  I especially loved this diagram from a couple of days ago!

And speaking of change, here's a great (but possibly transient) podcast fabout libraries embracing change from my favorit library pundits Joan Frye Williams and George Needham.  Enjoy!

Web 2.0 and the Read/Write Library

I came across a couple of interesting items on the subject of Web 2.0 and libraries during my blog-surfing over lunch today.

First, courtesy of Michael Sauers at the Travelin' Librarian blog, is this video produced by British innovation and creativity expert Charles Leadbeater and colleagues about "Web 2.0" and its implications.

It's a good description of the social web and how it is transforming society, and while the Annoyed Librarian might call it another piece of "twopointopian" propaganda, it does at least acknowledge that for all of the opportunities it provides the social web also raises as-yet-unanswered questions and possible concerns.

I was just reflecting on the video when I got an email from Jackie Siminitus, "E-Rate Specialist and Library Advocate" of AT&T with a link to this very interesting post about how libraries in Chile are moving "from cataloging books to training users how to blog" from  the PBS Idealab blog.

In a world where all too often civilians (i.e. non-library people) think that the Internet is making libraries obsolete it was great to see a "non-library" blog recognize "...a larger trend taking place at libraries large and small from the southern tip of Chile to the Siberian tundra of Russia. Public libraries are no longer just points of reception; they are transforming into centers of transmission and communication, where local users take advantage of increasingly affordable digital cameras and free online tools to write and share their own local stories."

It was also inspiring to read that "nearly every library - from the southern tip of Patagonia to the northern border with Bolivia and Peru - will be equipped with wi-fi by the end of the year."  Wouldn't it be great to be able to say that about libraries in the U.S.?

Most inspiring of all was this video of Enzo Abbagliati of of Chile's national library network talking about how Chilean libraries are embracing the world of Web 3.0 (not 2.0!) as a catalyst for social change and to support participatory democracy:

Enzo Abbagliati from BiblioRedes

And his term "Catalysts for opportunity" is about the best description of what libraries and librarians can provide that I've heard!

Another bit of evidence that Web 2.0 et seq. is something to be embraced, not feared!

 

Designing Libraries for Fun

I came across this blog posting from Jenny Levine of the Shifted Librarian about her visit to DOK, the public library in Delft, Holland and I had to share it.  You've got to love a library that has designed its facilities and services around the idea that “life is all about having more fun than you can think of, and it starts at the library.”

Not all of the "ultra modern" furniture and ambience would play well in our PVLD libraries but ideas like computer "pods" and listening stations?  Collections identified by "natural language" names?  Modular shelving and display stations on wheels?  Embracing genres such as graphic novels and romance novels?  There's plenty that we could figure out how to do here....and not all of them take much $$$

Libraries on the Endangered Species List?

Last fall the Future Exploration Network, futurist Richard Watson, and strategic business consultant Ross Dawson created this Extinction Timeline, which predicts that libraries will become extinct by 2019.

Last Thursday the architecture section of the online magazine Slate.com had a slideshow/essay by Witold Rybczynski called Borrowed Time:  How Do You Build a Public Library in the Age of Google?

The slideshow and commentary provide an interesting commentary on the changing architecture of public libraries as they have evolved from civic monuments centered on formal reading rooms to "the library conceived as drop-in center" as embodied by the new libraries in Salt Lake City and Seattle.

Interestingly, Mr.Rybczynski, who by the way is a professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvaniaand a noted author on architectural topics, begs to differ with the Extinction Timeline, saying of Mr. Dawson:

"He's probably right as far as the function of the library as a civic monument, or as a public repository for books, is concerned. On the other hand, in its mutating role as urban hangout, meeting place, and arbiter of information, the public library seems far from spent. This has less to do with the digital world—or the digital word—than with the age-old need for human contact." 

Extinct?  Hopefully not.  Mutating into something with long-term viability?  I think so!

All you have to do is visit our Peninsula Center Library on a Sunday afternoon (or any afternoon for that matter) to see us playing the role of "urban hangout" and "meeting place", and the term "arbiter of information" is a very apt description of what librarians offer....and that's not just wishful thinking!