What are librarians worried about? Are our worries valid? Can we overcome worry and use it to motivate us to change and adapt? Can we do something about it?

Worry has always been something of a contradiction for me. Sometimes it paralyzes. Sometime it keeps you awake. Sometime it engenders the thoughts that solve problems. Sometimes it’s the worry from which you derive an insight. It can be good and bad. In small doses it’s probably healthy. In large doses it sometimes causes the sound and fury that signify nothing. Then again, there seems to be no end to worry.

The Devilish Dozen Worries for Libraries

Library Land is awash in worries this season. In this two-part column, I offer these 12 questions as a lens with which to view the challenges we are faced with. These are based in my many travels throughout the world and daily conversations with hundreds of library leaders. What’s on their mind?

1. Is technological change an opportunity or a threat?

It has become a cliché to say that the Web changed everything, but it did. Library Land has been challenged to keep up with this change. Over my career I’ve watched libraries struggle with the continuous investments required to stay on the crest of the technology wave or to at least stay just a bit behind the curve. Over the recent period, Library Land has struggled to address the increasing demands and higher expectations of its users. It has been an adventure in the best sense but also a period of continuous personal and budgetary stress and strain.

Libraries once dominated the information sphere. They were challenged to handle e-content first and adapted well, then challenged by the Web, and then by a wave of new content containers, social spaces, and the emergence of electronic innovations that multiplied like snakes on Medusa’s head. Some users’ needs were met quite well by these usually free services.

Library Land has always put the needs of its users and communities first. Like any enterprise this is essential to survival. Technological change can be quite disruptive – even as disruptive as climatic change was to the dinosaurs. Adapt or die. The challenge is determining the window of opportunity that Library Land has to adapt and the speed of change. Our worries stem from whether these current changes are climatic and slower moving or quick like a meteor.

Then, of course, we have to review how our users - who may or may not be loyal or attached to our current “right” way of doing things – are changing their ways of doing things. The meteoric rise of some technologies and the slow progression of others send conflicting clues as to what the real trend is. The topics of interest to our world are a virtual hydra monster - VOIP, broadband, WiFi, portals, interfaces, Google as both opportunity and threat, new forms of cataloging and classification tags, folksonomies, e-commerce, repositories, advanced USB storage, auctions, new devices, SmartPhones, virtual reference, and on and on. Managing today and planning for tomorrow – it’s difficult, and it’s challenging Library Land at just the point in time when they have reduced financial resources.

Library Land is populated by social institutions. We are now seeing technology providing opportunities and threats there, too. Do we compete, cooperate, or align? Instant messaging, blogs (both personal and collaborative), e-communities and other communities of practice and communities of interest, Web-based collaboration and e-learning environments – all provide hints as to the coming technologically-enhanced worlds. Few have found a solid strategy to address this trend beyond involving themselves in pilots and experiments and picking the best successes.

2. Cooperation and collaboration require standards and regulation: Which ones do we choose?

Standards have a huge influence on our profession, and, yet, the process for developing standards is very poorly understood across our sector. Libraries need to do a better job of helping their teams understand the arcane world of standards development. Even though these are largely global activities, the local and national implications for libraries are keenly important. The world is moving to one where we interoperate on a scale that has been hitherto undreamt of. The influence of bodies like IFLA, NISO, WIPO, ISO, and the rest of the alphabet soup are vital to our sector’s overall success. Yet we do a poor job of communicating this to the rank and file, and they consequently don’t see as much value in these investments as they should.

If we want to sustain relevance, we must ensure that everyone understands the consequences of new standards that may not have had the strong involvement of the information user communities. As we move to have our library services interoperate more broadly in our communities and institutions, this will become even more paramount to achieve. As we choose to interoperate large scale professional systems with open source software and open source content, we risk destabilizing without receiving the intended benefits. As new and major revisions emerge, such as RDA and FRBR, there are again new opportunities and threats. Unquestioning or zealous beliefs in the success of any movement will not serve Library Land in the long term. 

3. How do we address the changing landscape of competition and coopetition?

There are now hundreds of competitors to libraries. In the old days, when we brainstormed competition in SWOT exercises, we made tidy lists of information competitors. Now we can fill full walls of rooms with flipchart sheets listing hundreds of competitors. This can be viewed as both a strength and a weakness. Identifying competition from non-traditional information services like online publishers, Web sites, and search engines is easy. And it’s bad if we end there, since focusing on the competition from these sectors often causes us to avoid acknowledging other competition.

The information-based Web strategies of other government institutions, learning enterprises, global companies, and more pulls users away from diversified operations such as libraries and into specialized targeted operations. Are libraries like department stores or custom shops? In these new or improved competitors, we can also find the co-operators that may be partners for our new strategies. Some of these competitors will be found within our own communities, governments, and institutions.

There is intense competition for the attention of our sector for budgets. Add this to the competition for the attention of policy makers and legislators, and we live in a very competitive environment indeed. Breaking through the noise and setting priorities is a key challenge for library leaders today.

4. How do we deal with the changing learning space?

We have two challenges to worry about here. Information becomes knowledge through a process called learning. Everything that improves or impacts the learning space is of concern to libraries. Add to this a period of dynamic change and a large workforce of library workers who need to adapt quickly to new technologies, new users, new strategies, and new cultural norms – and you have a challenge indeed. This has traditionally meant that one needed to travel to take advantage of the best in-person or conference training opportunities.

Today, the providers of training have been experimenting with teleconferences, distance education, and e-learning in both synchronous and asynchronous modes. To date no one modality of learning seems to have triumphed and probably never will. Some blended strategy will emerge, but when we listen to library leaders, they worry about how to ensure their teams will be ready for the changes they see on the horizon. Experiments and pilots seem to be the words of the day. Normalizing these offerings into a coherent program is the hurdle today. This one strategy looks like a winner, but training for library workers has changed – and we must adapt with it.

5. How to address that swirling soup that is the changing demographics of our users?

It cannot be stated often enough that the demographics of our users are changing radically. It’s not just a generational evolution but a massive shift. Our users aren’t what they used to be, and our professional colleagues aren’t either. We must challenge our assumptions. The Millennials have grown up in a Web-oriented world. Generation X grew up as the first PC-based generation. Today’s seniors have been working with PCs for decades, and the Boomers are adapting quickly as the workplace, scholarship, and researchers are pushing the envelope of what technology can do.

All of this is creating a new user profile whose dynamic must be considered as we develop library services. And we should not forget that the world of library workers is not immune to these currents of demographic change. We are in a maelstrom of new generation gaps, new digital divides, and new value mosaics. These might not just be defined by educational attainment, age, or income and may be about other markers of values and lifestyles.

A good example is that the Canadian library community identified the changing nature of children and youth and supported an excellent research study into the world of children. Published by the Regina Public Library and CLA, the 2005 publication of Opening Doors to Children: Reading, Media and Public Library Use by Children in Six Canadian Cities was by Adele Fasick, André Gagnon, Lynne Howarth, and Ken Setterington (CLA, 2005). This national study on library service to children examines the extent to which children from grades four to seven are satisfied with their public library, the reasons they go to the library, their reading preferences, and the similarities and differences between children who use the public library and those who use it infrequently. This study is the first of its kind in Canada and provides data that will help libraries to better meet the informational and recreational needs of children in middle years. The study is a wealth of insights into this important user segment.

Studies such as this are the right thing to do. Associations must find the resources and funds to study the user at this key juncture. You can’t serve well what you don’t understand. There may also be national and regional differences in the way users use information and libraries. We cannot depend solely on studies done a few years ago or in other jurisdictions. The Web is really only a decade old, and studies of the recent past may be too old already. The use is changing, and what we don’t know can hurt us. Everyone worries about this, and such resources as provided by the Pew Internet and American Life Project are invaluable – but only if we read, adapt, and understand the implications of them.

6. Can we sustain the profession of librarianship?

This is probably the number two worry after financial issues that I hear. It is a real challenge to deal with the enormity of the challenge of replacing ourselves. This is driven by three key issues:

• The Boomers are retiring in large numbers, but the demographic profile in most of our libraries is still tilted to older professionals.
  
  
• The skill set required to practice librarianship has changed radically over the last 25 years.
  
  
• Many sectors of librarianship didn’t hire in very high numbers for many years, and thus there is a “gap” between the senior and newer librarians (combined with the gap in understanding with our Next Gen patrons too).

As president of the Canadian Library Association, I appointed a CLA President's Council on the 8Rs. The council is chaired by widely respected and admired CLA past-president Wendy Newman. The council will delve into the new and significant report of the 8Rs Research - 8 key issues facing libraries in the coming decade. These are recruitment, retirement, retention, rejuvenation, repatriation, re-accreditation, remuneration, and restructuring. The initial 8Rs report, entitled The Future of Human Resources in Canadian Libraries, was formally released at the CLA Annual Conference on June 17, 2005 by the 8Rs Research Team from the University of Alberta Libraries.

This report represents the culmination of nearly two years of intense research, including a survey of 461 library administrators and human resource managers, a survey of more than 2,200 librarians and nearly 2,000 paraprofessionals, and in-depth telephone interviews with 17 library administrators and three focus group sessions. A literature review and analysis of existing data were also conducted.

Ernie Ingles, chair of the 8Rs Team and vice-provost (learning services) and chief librarian at the University of Alberta stated, "The 8Rs research data is an unparalleled and unprecedented body of data from which we can start to identify strategies and tactics to address the discoveries made in the research. It is a very exciting opportunity for CLA to provide national leadership on the issues of the 8Rs."

The 8Rs research project began in response to calls for a greater understanding of several intersecting human resource challenges believed to be facing Canadian libraries.  Of primary concern was that of having a sufficient number of adequately trained and experienced staff that could succeed a senior librarian workforce poised to retire in large numbers in Canada over the next five to 10 years.

I noted at the time that, "I believe that this President's Council on the 8Rs is an exciting and critical project for Canadian libraries, and I hope it will provide a legacy for generations of libraries and library workers to come. I want to ensure that this council achieves wide support and recognition. Almost 40 leading CLA members from across Canada in all regions and types of libraries and from all sectors, representing a diverse range of points of view, have accepted my call for participation. It is this kind of volunteer effort that makes CLA and the Canadian library movement stronger."

Around the world we see similar initiatives. We must ensure that the work we are doing now, the knowledge we are preserving, and the learning we have gained is assured of life going forward.

So, there are the first six of the devilish dozen worries for librarians. Watch for the final six questions and conclusion in the March issue of SirsiDynix OneSource.

Stephen Abram, MLS is Vice President, Innovation for SirsiDynix. He is an SLA Fellow and the past president of the Ontario Library Association and the immediate past president of the Canadian Library Association. In June 2003 he was awarded SLA’s John Cotton Dana Award.  Stephen would love to hear from you at stephen.abram@sirsidynix.com.