Week 6, Thing 15: The future of libraries

I think that Wendy Schultz is right, that the library is way more than books. We are more than our inventory. We are a community. In particular, we are a local community, responsible to our own particular users. As we move along the steps of the experience economy (from commodities/goods [books], to services [answering reference questions], to experiences [warm glow of having a family storytime], to transformation [teaching computer skills to new users]), we need to give our patrons more opportunities to customize their library experience, because individualized service in a community atmosphere is the future. Transformation is when the patron feels like a new or better person from spending time and money in the library--a common transformation for library patrons may be that they feel more like scholars or advanced computer users, from what they learn from us. For our patrons to be transformed by their use of the library requires that they get a personalized experience--everyone's transformation is going to be different. Computers especially allow us to do this (which is the entire premise of Everything is Miscellaneous--I'm a few chapters in)--let's let folks suggest books for purchase online, tag our catalog with useful categories (for heaven's sake, let's get rid of the classification "cookery"!), comment on a library blog, get instant RSS alerts when we add particular things to our catalog.... At the eVisioning conference I hosted a panel discussion on "The Library as Place: Physical and Virtual." Since we had been talking about the user-customized experience in the rest of the conference, my group started talking about what the user-customized library building and library online presence might look like. In one new library, a room that had been designed for a coffee bar that never materialized was taken over by nursing mothers, who then had a place for their other children to play while nursing their babies in a more secluded spot. Wisely, the library let the users define how that space should be used, rather than kicking the moms out! Our patrons should be allowed to design new library buildings and retrofit old ones. They should have space on our website to contribute to the library online community. And they should be in on the design and use of online libraries in Second Life and other communities. The librarian's role is changing--we are becoming facilitators rather than gatekeepers, and it's a much nicer place to be, I believe.

The participation gap (the new digital divide), the transparency problem, and the ethics challenge are things that libraries will have to work with. The millennials, although they are digital natives, may be more comfortable with technology, but they still may not have access to the technologies and skills they will need to be successful participants in American culture. Growing up with lots of media, these young people may not realize how much the media influences them. They also may lack ethical training on web participation, because publishing tools are eliminating the traditional publication tracks where they would have learned ethics from colleagues. Again, like we've seen in Shift Happens, the millennial generation will need lifelong learning skills more than any other generation. And we're going to need better search and finding tools. Like Tim O'Reilly says, "Data is the next Intel inside": data powers the web. We need proper federated search for website databases; Rollyo isn't going to cut it.

I find it interesting that Michael Stephens points out that the 2.0 librarian will have to be a trendspotter. I think he's right. We're going to have to be on the cutting edge of technology and services, and in order to be fiscally responsible in the technology we adopt, we'll need to be able to identify the technologies that will be of the most use to our patrons for the most amount of time. We need to know demographics and social data and ask our patrons what kind of technology they would like to use at the library and why. Being flexible enough to keep up with the pace of technology and modern society will be more important than ever--keep trying new stuff, and if it works, great; if it doesn't, scrap it and find out why. Just like in the learning process, permission to fail will have to be part of the "perpetual beta" of library 2.0.

Stephen J. Dubner, one of the authors of Freakonomics, had an interesting blog post on libraries and the digital economy. He points out that libraries have had an effect on book publishing that publishers may not really like--yes, libraries buy lots of books, but they then lend them out for free. The idea of licensing agreements for books is interesting and the comments are also well worth reading. Libraries are going to have to think about economics in the digital era and how different publishing models are going to affect what libraries can own, use, and lend.

To wrap up, innovation is what library 2.0 needs. The library will have to compete, kind of like a business, for our patrons' time and energy. Just because our things are "free" (if you're paying taxes, the library isn't free!) doesn't mean that people will use them. The library will have to be more memorable, create a better experience, allow patrons to create their own individualized library environment and services. It's within our reach. Fortune favors the bold--we just have to jump in.