If you’ve been following this series of articles, you’ll remember that in part 1, we looked at the strengths and weaknesses of the Google types, and in part 2 we covered where the strengths and weaknesses of libraries and librarians lie.
In this conclusion we investigate the key question: Can we teach our library cats to bark? I think not. I believe that if we build on our strengths in community, learning, and interpersonal interactions, we can teach the library cat to ROAR. Here are 10 key strategies to invest in to achieve that goal.
So – Where is the Library Opportunity?
A few basic premises here: Librarians aren’t just about search; we’re about improving the quality of the question. End users are about “find and discover.” We need to be clear on that. If we focus on search, we are focusing on Google’s best game. If we focus on the question, the human touch, and overall customer experience, then we will not only survive, we’ll thrive.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Let’s be clear – that’s too long term – we need to do something now. Getting our candles out from under a few baskets will be a good start. Here are 10 ideas about key things that you, your institution, or your library can do in a Google world to compete effectively and invent the future:
1. Reposition the librarian.
Vastly more information is used outside the library than in libraries – and most of the access to that information is now largely virtual. Librarians’ and library workers’ key contributions aren’t merely collecting, organizing, and delivering the information – they are about improving the quality of the question. We are moving into a renaissance era for reference, program, and community librarianship. Feel the burn!
We must find the path that places the library’s programs and people at the center of the “questions” space. That’s different from the “search” space. In this new world, more time is spent on finding and understanding than on searching. We see tools to support this effort in technology and services from Tutor.com, Docutek VRLPlus, OCLC’s QuestionPoint, or simple instant messenger applications.
We must ramp up information fluency training to levels we have not yet imagined. This isn’t just point and click training or computer literacy.
2. Know your market.
Our communities are changing. It is not just about understanding standard census demographics on ethnicity, incomes, and homes with children. It’s about changing consumer values, and libraries with a consumer service ethic at their core. Unfortunately, it may be that our neighborhoods and kids, seniors and entrepreneurs are evolving more quickly than we are. Society is more diverse on almost any measure, whether it is language, values, lifestyles, information skills, or something else.
We must become familiar with the huge new range of market and business analysis tools, including GIS mapping tools and OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) applications exemplified in the Normative Data Project. OLAP is a software tool that allows managers to gain insight into data (like all library use statistics, from internal measures to the OPAC to Web use) in real time and through multiple points of view. Then we must derive insights, like trend analysis, from this information and act on it.
3. Rethink the repository.
Libraries are making great progress on this front. Using tools and pilots, such as OCLC’s CONTENTdm, DSpace, SirsiDynix’s Hyperion and Digital Library, JSTOR, and Project MUSE, just to name a few, we have created amazing vaults of content. Let’s do more. We must keep our eyes on open standards and open archives projects like OAIster. We should closely watch the Internet Archive project and its potential to create an open archive outside of private ownership. We should maintain a sharp focus on building the repositories that meet our core missions and not just converting the “popular” ones or those with commercial value.
We must make sure that we are not creating content islands that are not respecting users’ access skills. If there is any criticism to be leveled at the repository projects being undertaken lately, it is just that – they’re islands. Few are being built with use as their primary mandate. Plenty are focusing on storage, conservation, and preservation, but the end users’ needs seem to be a side thought. This must change. We must create a dynamic research space that aggregates and makes useful all information in these vaults and brings them together with the rest of the world’s information archives – commercial or not. Libraries are better positioned to introduce these user research and learning experiences.
4. Push content out.
People aren’t magically aware that something that might interest them is newly available. Libraries need to get better at serving these needs with such tools as alerting services, blogs, RSS feeds, and aggregators. These tools are cheap and easy. Let’s get more one-on-one with these services and delight our users as individuals, and not just as market segments. While we’re at it, let's make sure they know that it comes from their library. Let’s create a stronger brand that resonates with a feeling for what libraries really do – beyond the book and beyond the bun.
5. Get on the bandwagon early.
When you experiment, you become an expert as innovations hit their stride. We should experiment more with pilots in specific areas. I’d love to see libraries riding the crest of the e-learning wave; there’s development money here, and libraries are integrally tied to continuous and institutional learning. We should also experiment with ethical P2P file sharing and streaming media architectures in preparation for the new generation of files that hold information and cultural objects. We have a big opportunity to create social spaces where information can be created, shared, and stored. Let’s build an innovation sandbox and collaborate with each other to ensure the sustainability of libraries and our host organizations' assets.
6. Invent targeted search.
The days of little search boxes, basic and advanced search, and results displays that are just lists are so "last century." Users will demand search and display options that match their needs, learning styles, and information literacy levels. Display results will evolve beyond simple ranked lists – and libraries have the opportunity to offer ad-free results that are not influenced by anything other than the user’s search criteria! Technological solutions, such as those presented by Vivisimo, Endeca, Grokker, KartOO, SirsiDynix Rooms, and AquaBrowser offer insights into the future of specialized search and display.
We also have to get search down to the context of the question. Users shouldn’t have to search the entire universe of knowledge in a single commercial engine. Nor should they have to search dozens of repositories and resources serially. We should offer users the ability to search just the content sets that match their needs and literacy levels. We have to segment federated search so that it addresses the subject context of the user, based on where they are coming from. Biology students can search just the right databases; grade six students get the database results based on their reading level; and business searchers work in their specific R&D milieu. Federated search technologies and OpenURL link resolvers can provide solutions to address the context of users’ needs. Let’s invent this service. All of the Googles are still focused on the broad consumer markets – not a researcher’s needs.
7. Lead the wireless revolution.
We must follow the lead of wireless scholarly campuses; public libraries like those in Philadelphia, Toronto, Edmonton, and Fredericton that are involved in city-wide wireless projects; hospital libraries with their great PDA-based information services; and businesses with their Blackberry applications. Communities of all kinds must have information when and where they need it, not just during our hours or at PC stations. How do we make the library’s community Web page the default on our community wireless hot spots? And, more importantly, are we ready for ubiquitous broadband connectivity through the electrical grid? If the local experience is controlled by Google or your local hydro utility, are you ready to negotiate space to get the eyeballs to quality content?
8. Get into the community.
With the wireless revolution and ubiquitous computing technologies, we have an opportunity to spread the library’s tentacles throughout the community. Are your community development officers aimed and positioned to place library resources and services on every local Web page? Are the latest acquisitions of gardening books being fed through RSS to the garden clubs’ Web pages? Are you present for teens on MySpace? Does your college have a Facebook presence? Do you have strong alliances with the key associations, departments, governments, and clubs in town or on campus? Send out your tentacles. It will be hard to attack a library at the core of a community that feeds portlets and information throughout the community.
Also, let’s move collections into the places where they are needed and can be used and support our diverse communities by shifting collections throughout the system to ensure variety. Can we create great alliances among schools, community centers, and public libraries? We have, and we can do better. Can we make ourselves and our services highly visible in our communities? Yes, we must.
9. Make the library discoverable.
What happens when you search for your library on Yahoo!, MSN, and Google? Your Web site is there, right? On the first page of results? Good! What happens when you search for a book in your collection on Yahoo!, MSN, and Google? What happens when you search for one of your services or a special repository or local collection? Are you still on the first three pages? Use the techniques of an SEO (search engine optimizer) to ensure that your Web site is not only registered to be crawled by the major search engines, but that you use the right words to be picked up properly. Check out the access to your library through Gale’s Find in a Library or OCLC’s OpenWorldCat.org. There are ways for your users to find your library and its services – even if they don’t know what you offer or that you even exist. If we want to survive, we must place our messages where the users are seeking answers and will trip over them. Today, that usually means at Yahoo!, MSN, and Google. Once they’ve found you, then you make sure the service exceeds the Google experience.
10. Build content first.
Libraries serve many communities in many sectors. This is our context. We improve the equality of questions, organize the world’s recorded knowledge and culture, and deliver the right content experiences for our users. But, overall, we live in the context of our users. We live alongside them, not as machines and algorithms, but as humans whose aim is to provide excellent services and experiences.
We don’t create that context; our users arrive at our service points with their context full-blown and intact. It is basic to our profession that we understand deeply the communities we serve. We need to empathize with users’ goals, psychological needs, and competency levels, no matter if they come in virtually or not. We must ensure that the user doesn’t get too much content, too little context, and too few librarians.
A Changing Climate
Sixty-five million years ago, the Age of Reptiles came to a cataclysmic extinction. There is still controversy over what happened, but all theories agree that the dinosaurs died out because the environment changed and they couldn’t adapt quickly enough. We have no choice but to evolve. Evolution can be a slow process, but it can also be fast – witness the new diseases mutating across species lines now such as avian flu, Ebola, and SARS. Let’s be nimble.
Librarians are well positioned to thrive. But the future is not what it used to be. Our enterprise is no longer an extension of the past. Looking into the future today is like looking into a kaleidoscope; everything is constantly changing, quickly. We have evolved many times over the long and great history of libraries. We can do it again.
So, should we focus on the barking Google dogs? In my view – no. We should listen to our inner kitten and hear our own library meow. We will needlessly waste a lot of energy trying to get the cat to bark. Let’s just get our cat to roar.
Stephen Abram, MLS, is vice president, Innovation, for SirsiDynix. He is an SLA Fellow, president-elect of SLA, and the past president of the Ontario Library Association and the Canadian Library Association. Stephen would love to hear from you at stephen.abram@sirsidynix.com.
