Cutting Hospitals in a Plague

Just wanted to share this which I saw posted on facebook during National Library Week.

Building Bridges: Collaboration

Several recent readings, discussions, and events have had me thinking about collaboration a bit more than usual - which is saying something, since I am a librarian at PALS and spend a good deal of time working with collaborative ventures. The most recent catalyst for my mental tangent was Charles Henry and Brad Wheeler's article "The Game Has Changed" in the March/April 2012 edition of EDUCAUSE Review Magazine. In this article, Henry and Wheeler encourage academic institutions to move away from "institution as an island" mentalities and work towards interdependence. They point out that while corporations have consolidated to take advantage of the power size can bring, academic institutions have dismissed economies of scale in favor of independence.

It seems as though the topic of collaboration is getting increasing library press coverage...and for good reason. The current landscape promotes and necessitates collaboration: we cannot accommodate shrinking budgets, increasing user expectations, and advancing technological needs without taking advantage of the communication infrastructure that enables us to work together at a distance at relatively low costs, when compared to travel costs and time spent away from daily work. As my work with the Minnesota Library Futures Initiative has made evident, libraries - like academic institutions - share many of the same struggles. While it is true we must balance collaborative efforts with individual needs, we all can benefit from reducing redundancies and increasing our interdependence.

In a recent conversation, I mentioned that while negotiating journal licensing with vendors, we could talk to fellow librarians to gather feedback on practices that have worked for them. One of the people I was talking to noted that a good part of licensing is confidential information. I don't think my response to this reminder was as adequate as it could have been at the time, but let me take this opportunity to say that sharing or collaborating doesn't necessarily have to be a "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours" relationship. Simply talking about experiences in general can provide valuable information to colleagues, such as which vendors are more rigid with their policies, who is hard to reach, and what kind of bribes are effective..oh, wait... In addition, sharing our experiences may help us get on the same page as a profession: what are our expectations from vendors? What can we tolerate; what is intolerable? In addition, having these conversations could eventually lead to more shared purchases, allowing us to leverage the power of an economy of scale. While Minnesota already has a great start at this shared purchasing model through Minitex and consortia like MnPALS and CLIC, further collaboration will only make these groups stronger.

At a large university this sharing of knowledge and purchasing power may not be as obviously beneficial, but for librarians at smaller institutions, those newer to the profession, or those taking on new roles within the profession, collaboration is key. And even though large universities may not see as many obvious benefits, they will gain prestige, karma, and the opportunity to refine their practices. I often notice where a practice could be improved when I explain it to others and allow them opportunities to question how or why the process is the way it is.

As noted by Henry and Wheeler, we need to move off our islands - or at least build bridges between them.

Google Glasses

Here's a trending new Future-y story read on NPR this morning. We've talked about the "what ifs" of this sort of fun stuff at our Futurist gatherings, but more through the lens (no pun intended) of education.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/23/147284699/google-glasses-frightening-or-fantastic

Library Annual Report on Youtube

2011 Annual Report for the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

-I love the idea for "neighborhoods" of collections on topics folks want...cooking, pets, weddings, home.
-Interesting data to "prove" value of summer reading
-Ebooks you can try out

The Futurist Interviews Librarian Futurist David Lankes

http://www.wfs.org/content/futurist-interviews-librarian-futurist-david-lankes

As more information moves online, traditional libraries are losing relevance, but librarians are becoming more important than ever. This is according to R. David Lankes, author of The Atlas of New Librarianship(MIT Press, 2011).

Lankes: Let me give you a thought experiment. Imagine if every time you bought an e-book-like device, they charged you 10 bucks more than whatever the cost they were going to charge, and that 10 dollars goes into a big pool. And for your 10 dollars, you can download any book you want from the beginning of time. Would it be a good thing or bad thing for libraries? If you look at libraries as a physical collection of stuff, it’s a horrible thing. They’re out of business.

On the other hand, if you look at libraries’ mission as to increase the knowledge of their communities, it’s a wonderful thing. If your ideal scenario is knowledge building, then the more information that’s available in more modes, the better.

Lankes: There is still a role for libraries to coordinate knowledge. Microfiche is still the most permanent form we have for documents. That said, things are available in digital, and digital has a lot to say.

There are studies about when you look at an object, how separable are the information aspects of it? You wouldn’t buy a house online. You need to walk through the house. There will always be some things where the physical object matters. As a society, as a community, we need to decide which ones these are, and that’s an ongoing conversation.

Learn more about the book: http://www.newlibrarianship.org/wordpress/

Creativity = Commodity

Pssst. Hey, you. Yeah, you. You're creative, you know.

In order to be successful in the future, creativity will be is a hot commodity useful in distinguishing oneself from a sea of other smart, capable people. Anyone can be trained, but not everyone can think creatively and inventively. As librarians, we need to practice our creative thinking skills and apply them to our professional work in order to help keep libraries relevant, promote innovative change, and be worthwhile citizens.

Psychology Today has a quick, easy article listing some 12 characteristics of creative thinking that we often forget about. Skim over this and start practicing.

Michalko, M. (2011, Dec. 02). Twelve things you were not taught in school about creative thinking. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creative-thinkering/201112/twelve-things-you-were-not-taught-in-school-about-creative-thinking

It occurs to me--how would you practice thinking creatively? Well, I usually ask myself questions, like "what could reference services be like in the future?" or "what other uses are there for my earbuds?" or "what if we had ears on our hands?" All require creativity, and in my little mind, the weirdest idea wins because it stretches my creative thinking the most. Doing this as a group is also fun. Try it at your next soul-sucking staff meeting.

What ideas do you have to help you practice thinking creatively?

Libraries at Webscale

My lovely and future-thinking coworker Rebecca turned me on to this document.

• Libraries at Webscale. OCLC. 2011. Available at http://www.oclc.org/reports/webscale/libraries-at-webscale.pdf

In essence this document is meant to spark a discussion (sound familiar, Futurists?) around the theme of libraries and the opportunities afforded by thinking globally and acting locally--thinking in webscale. Increase and decrease capacity. Personalize, yet globalize. The ideas raised in this document are asked through the lens of webscale and are similar to many we've been throwing around.

• How can libraries provide services that meet the personalized me-me-me expectations that the Web has created for our users?
• What is a universal library? What could it look like?
• How can libraries identify and pursue meaningful innovation? Collaboration? Partnerships? How do we build the future together?

OCLC then describes some of their initiatives to prepare for libraries operating at webscale.

Happy Holidays, all!