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 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?

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. 

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!

 

Parents on Facebook

As I was in the car last Friday I tuned into the local public affairs/call-in show hosted by Patt Morrison and happened to hear this great segment on parents using Facebook (note that you will need Realplayer to listen). 

It's an interesting discussion of how parents are using Facebook to stay in touch with their kids, and how kids are reacting.  It also has some great discussion about generational differences on issues like privacy.

One of the things that was most striking to me was that, while some parents were a little bemused by Facebook's popularity (one parent described it as "a bit silly"), there was none of the sense of fear bordering on hysteria that I think would have been an inevitable part of a discussion of social networking sites not very long ago and a much greater appreciation for the way in which Facebook facilitates staying in touch than I was expecting.

Then again, reflecting on how three generations of my family use Facebook to stay in touch maybe I shouldn't have been surprised!

Twitter for Libraries

People who follow this blog or visit my Facebook page may have noticed that I have been putting information out on Twitter .  A few weeks ago, during a period in which I was sending out "tweets" much more frequently than I have been doing more recently, my kid brother sent me a Facebook message asking "What is Twitter and why are you doing it?".  Good question!

For those who don't know, Twitter is what is known as a "microblogging" application.  It allows you to use either the Twitter website ( www.twitter.com ) or your cell phone to send out very brief (only a couple of lines long) messages, sometimes called "tweets".  You can elect to have these messages appear on Twitter's "public timeline" or use "widgets" (downloadable mini software applications) to have your Twitter posts automatically appear on your blog or Facebook account.  You can also "follow" other people who have a Twitter account and receive their Twitter messages either as messages in your Twitter account online or as text messages to your cell phone.  Likewise, people can "follow" you and automatically receive your tweets on their cell phones or in their Twitter accounts.  Finally (at least as far as my knowledge of Twitter is concerned...there's probably more you can do!) you can set up Twitter so that you are notified every time a tweet containing a certain word or phrase, like "library"  or "Palos Verdes" is issued by anyone.

That answers the question "What is Twitter" but not why I use it!

As an individual, I've been experimenting with Twitter as a way of adding brief updates to my blog and Facebook without having to actually log in to Typepad (my blogging software) or Facebook....and it updates both at once!

As a Library Director, I'm interested in exploring how we can use social networking technologies to offer library services or promote the library.  Back in October I wrote a post about my initial experience with Twitter and some early thoughts about how libraries could use it, and last week I was excited discover how the Brooklyn Museum is using Twitter to promote museum events and activities (sorry I can't remember whose blog pointed me to this one!)

Not only does this allow someone to join Twitter and "follow" the museum, staying up to date on its activities, but the "tiny URLs" (which Twitter creates automatically everytime you include a hyperlink in a tweet) link back to the museum's blog and website so you can get the full story if you want.   And because the tweets appear on the public timeline its another way of letting serendipity work its magic.  Who knows who will find their way to the museum via this path!

A very cool idea!  Now we just need to find the time to set up the PVLD Twitter account and telling people to "follow us"!

The Library of Congress and Flickr

From the Library of Congress blog – the Library of Congress is partnering with Flickr to "help address at least two major challenges: how to ensure better and better access to our collections, and how to ensure that we have the best possible information about those collections for the benefit of researchers and posterity." [And thanks to David Weinberger over at Everything is Miscellaneous for sharing the link]

The Library of Congress blogging? Posting to Flickr? Tagging? How cool is that!

I love the idea of The Commons – using Flickr to share the world's public photo collections. We've already used Flickr for our 40families project site, and it would be great to get all of our local history photos into The Commons.

This quote from the end of the post is also great -

"From the Library's perspective, this pilot project is a statement about the power of the Web and user communities to help people better acquire information, knowledge and—most importantly—wisdom. One of our goals, frankly, is to learn as much as we can about that power simply through the process of making constructive use of it."

To Matt Raymond and the folks at LoC – thanks for helping light the path through the social web.

The Power of Conversation/The Power of the Internet

Today I had one of those serendipitous experiences that would not have been possible without the Internet. One of the blogs I read regularly is Christoper Carfi's The Social Customer Manifesto which often has interesting stuff about interacting with customers in the age of the social web. A few weeks ago I saved this post on the power of conversation to go back and re-read. That post led me to the World Cafe Community Blog and a post which included this fabulous quote from Chilean biologist Humberto Maturana – "We bring forth our worlds through the networks of conversation within which we participate".

That got me back to thinking about the role that libraries can play in fostering communication. Take a look at this video, and then imagine hosting a "world café" in our Annex, with people of all ages coming together to discuss an issue of common interest

What a powerful way for the library to fulfill its mission of connecting people, information, and ideas!

My exploration of the World Cafe website led me to the Dialogue Project website where I learned about the amazing Dialogue Project public art installation, which is intended to spark conversations between people who may not even know each other. I loved this little scroll of conversation-provoking quotes that the Dialogue Project has put on its website for all to share:

object width="250" height="170">

I also loved the idea of bringing the Dialogue Project to the library. I can just see the panels in our foyer! I've emailed the Dialogue Project to see what is involved….so stay tuned.

Most of all I loved the way I was able to use the Internet to follow a chain of concepts from website to website, picking up new insights and ideas for the library along the way.  Would that have happened in the pre-digital era?  Maybe, if you had endless time to spend browsing your way through the library - certainly not in the 20 minutes I spent today.

Web 2.0, the Presidential Campaign, and Loss of Control

I've posted quite a bit about Web 2.0 and how it is shifts control away from "experts" (like librarians), so I found this article from the December 9^th New York Times Magazine about the impact of the Internet on the presidential campaign very interesting. I thought this description of the uncontrollability of the social web particularly apt –

"In the new and evolving online world, the greatest momentum goes not to the candidate with the most detailed plan for conquering the Web but to the candidate who surrenders his own image to the clicking masses, the same way a rock guitarist might fall backward off the stage into the hands of an adoring crowd." [emphasis mine].

The article goes on to talk about how smart businesses long ago realized that "since they can no longer expect to unilaterally define the market the way they once did, they may as well let the market have some control over designing and branding the product" and contrasts this approach with that of the political establishment in Washington where "…for decades, presidential campaigns have been the exclusive province of a small bevy of ad makers and strategists who profited from the illusion that they, and only they, could foresee the electorate's every reaction to everything. The results of that period are now in: a marked decline in voter participation, an uptake in cynicism toward public service, and a heap of critical policy challenges that have gone unaddressed."

I read the article while I was travelling home from a meeting with Beth Jefferson of Bibliocommons and representatives of several northern California libraries who, like PVLD, are contemplating becoming early adopters of the Bibliocommons online catalog platform. Two of the hallmarks of the Bibliocommons product are the extent to which its design is grounded in extensive research into how civilians (as opposed to librarians) use the library catalog, and the way that it allows users to become recognized as trusted sources of advice with librarians in effect becoming just some voices among many. In short, it transfers control from the expert librarian to the user, and forces librarians to earn their credibility by the quality of their input, not just by virtue of their qualifications or position.

That's why I thought the last lines of the NY Times article was as true for libraries and librarians as it is for politicians –

"Neither party's candidate [KG –substitute "librarian"] will escape the impulses, best or worst, of a newly empowered citizenry. The best they can do is to fall backward, and hope to be carried aloft."

What a great image!

Bibliocommons - more on the social catalog

Last Friday David Campbell and Erik Adams and I had the opportunity to actually see what the folks at Bibliocommons are up to. We were blown away! In essence Bibliocommons has developed a replacement for the online library catalog that allows users to make meaning out of the catalog for themselves – for example by "tagging" catalog records using terms that are more meaningful to them than Library of Congress subject headings, or by writing reviews and synopses, or by creating lists that group books in a way that is meaningful to that individual reader – and then sharing what they have created in a way that allows others to make their own meaning. This interview with Beth Jefferson of Bibliocommons give some indication of how smart these folks are, and how much they really "get" what David Weinberger and others have been writing about – that the power of the Internet is not in the individual bits of information that it contains, but in the ability to create links and connections between the bits of information in a way that creates meaning. I love the idea that the role of the library is not "expert navigator" of information resources but as facilitator of community in a way that helps people make their own meaning from information. I also love the idea that the library can play a role in encouraging and supporting the large majority of people who do not currently participate in the so-called social to do so.

What an exciting time to run a library!

Staying in Touch Web 2.0 style

Last night I was pleasantly surprised to get an email via Linked In (a professional networking site) from a guy I had worked with in Australia back in the early 90s. Michael and his now-wife Sara were both part of a project team I was on, they are now living in San Francisco, and Michael found me via Linked In and decided to get in touch.

This got me thinking again (or maybe that's still!) about how technology can enhance connections between people. When we first moved to Australia back in 1989 we were amazed to learn of a concept called "long service leave". Essentially after 15 years of employment with a company, or in some cases an industry, you get a 13 week paid leave of absence. Then someone explained the roots of the practice. Back in the days when the only way to get to Australia was by ship it took 6 weeks to sail from Australia to England. Long-service leave was designed to provide people with an opportunity to make a once in a lifetime trip home to see family – six weeks to sail to England, a week to visit, and then 6 weeks to travel home. In between people relied on letters – which if they were sent to the "old country" also took six or more weeks to reach their destination. Writing a letter took effort, so you probably only maintained contact with a few people other than those who lived in close proximity. You might not learn of important events in the lives of loved ones – births, marriages, deaths – until months after they took place.

Contrast that with today's world where a former colleague can find you via LinkedIn; you can keep up with what is happening in the lives of family and friends via personal blogs, Facebook, or Flickr photostreams; email and instant messaging allow communication whenever you want; and an international phone call using an Internet service like Skype costs nothing and might even include the ability to see the person you are talking to on video.

To those who bemoan the onslaught of technology I say this - which world would you rather live in? For all the risks of online predators and information overload I'll take today's technology thank you very much….although if you want to give me long service leave as well that would be just fine J