Smart libraries – smart librarians!

Peter GriffithsImmediate

Past President, CILIP

LAI / CILIP Ireland joint conference 2010

Libraries using smart technology? ◦ Tomorrow’s plenary sessions – Web 2.0,

Information and society Libraries supporting smart initiatives?

◦ “The Queensland Government has a vision of a State where knowledge, creativity and innovation drive economic growth to improve prosperity and quality of life for all Queenslanders”.

◦ “Smart Libraries build Smart Communities” Smart Queensland : smart state strategy 2005-2015

What are smart libraries?

Libraries supporting smart communities?◦ Smart services are services that are informative, interactive,

innovative, improving and international in scope. Smart services enrich the lives of members of a Smart Community by enabling them to meet the business and personal challenges of the information age through the use of information and communications technology. Smart services provide networked communities with interactive software and multimedia content that is delivered through secure and private in-home, at-work or community access facilities to improve the overall economic, social and cultural well being of a community. Stan Skrzeszewskii, Building smart communities: what they are and

how they can benefit blind and visually impaired persons (paper 169-158-E to IFLA, Jerusalem, 2000)

Libraries supporting smart ways of working?◦ “McLaren F1 team formed a company that offers consultancy based on pit-stop

management – to improve e.g. aircraft turnaround, operating theatre team handovers”

EXPLOITING KNOWLEDGE How could you exploit your library’s knowledge?

◦ Moving beyond the provision of print information to clients who walk through the library door – unrestricted by location or hours of opening

Queensland , Smart libraries build smart communities

What are smart libraries?

Wired UK, April 2010

“Such countries are politically, educationally, socially and technologically advanced, however they are relatively small on the world stage; their national libraries, for example, are not global leaders in the same way as the Library of Congress, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France or the British Library. These small countries may have cultural identities under threat from globalisation, yet their very size might enable them to respond rapidly to changing circumstances. As such, they can be in a position to help each other in identifying and tackling issues of common concern and bringing solutions to the larger stage”.

“Small, smart countries”

National Library of Scotland,February 2010

Smart formats – ebooks, Kindles, Vooks and so on

Social networking◦ Generation Y behaviour◦ Information from peer networks◦ What information can you trust?

Google (plus its kith and kin)◦ “How do you know?” “I Googled it!”

New models of publication◦ Fee or free?

London Evening Standard or London Times?

Google Books settlement

Smart challengers

Adopting RFID◦ South Dublin, Antrim, Bangor …

public libraries◦ Express loans / check-in (UCD)

Implementing Web 2.0 technologies◦ Information portals

Queensland ECLECTUS portal – photo archive, arts resources and archives in a single portal delivered through library software (as well as library catalogue, Internet resources, etc)

◦ Delivering library services via mobile devices, not just services via mobile libraries

Smart practices in libraries

Social networking to inform and link students◦ Universities across the island◦ Web services

NI Library Authority single catalogue – cross-Province services and item delivery

Use of RefWorks, blogs, Twitter ◦ Queens Belfast, UU, TCD, NLI

Smart libraries in practice

Libraries and librarians putting a new perspective on traditions

◦ One City One Book Dublin City Libraries bringing this

successful format to Ireland Initiative in its fifth year

◦ Libraries preserving historic locations Carnegie libraries, former

courthouses, churches, market houses…

Smart traditions

Library under construction in former Courthouse, Ballymahon, Co Longford

Lessons from the past Ennis - what succeeded and what didn’t

High residual levels of IT literacy – and of information literacy??

Building Ireland’s Smart Economy◦ Creating roles for Library, Information and Knowledge

professionals

Pointers to the future◦ The Internet of Things –

Cork Institute of Technology key card system – tracks

A new world of embedded technology

◦ Managing knowledge in data and things

◦ Managing knowledge as well as its containers

Applying traditional skills in new and smarter ways

Smart futures

Google’s ambition is to manage the world’s knowledge◦ That’s what we do

Google wants to find and present the most authoritative sources of information◦ That’s what we do

Google wants to support communities of information◦ That’s what we do

So, how smart are we?

Google values information◦ That’s what we do

Google puts a retail value on information◦ That’s what we don’t do (even in special

libraries)◦ Information is a commodity, not necessarily

an accurate one◦ Auction results are served to enquirers

above authoritative answers

Spot the difference

where P1 = price paid by advertiserB2 = next highest-placed ad’s bidQ2 = quality score of next-highest-placed adQ1 = advertiser’s quality score

The equation that determines ranking in Google sponsored links, according to Wired

“Google acts like libraries. It is the mission of both to organize the world’s information, to make it openly accessible, to find and present the most authoritative (by many definitions) sources, to instil an ethic of information use in the public, to act as a platform for communities of information, to encourage creation”.

“Isn’t Google already running the public library of our digital knowledge?”

Jeff Jarvis, Library Journal Newswire, January 22, 2009

So has Google copied us?

BTW this was an April 1st issue!!!

Are libraries and Google inevitable enemies?◦ “Kill the book to save the book”

Hyperlinking the content of books Print is portable but wi-fi and broadband are

becoming ubiquitous Digital Britain [May 2009] FCC rural broadband report [May 2009] Ireland’s Broadband Performance and Policy

Actions (Forfás, January 2010)

◦ Are we guardians and interpreters of form or content?

◦ How can libraries be “Googlier”? Curating the web Reviewing content and creating expert online

communities

Didn’t Google already digitise some libraries?

What Would Google Do?

Libraries are organisers of knowledge

Libraries are collectors and digitisers of information resources

Google is open to anyone worldwide, not restricted bylocation or membership of a particular customer group

Libraries are currently developing universal access schemes

Google constantly values and brokers information

Google micro-auctions information millions of times per hour

How Google-ish are libraries?

◦ Information as commodity

◦ Retrieving auction results, served above answers to enquiries

◦ It has passed into the English language meaning to search for a topic on the Internet

◦ Yet users are surprised when they learn of its shortcomings

◦ Information as a free good

◦ Retrieving the answers to enquiries irrespective of cost

◦ Often a shorthand term for an image of slightly outdated service and selective stock

◦ Users are surprised when they learn of our excellence

Google vs Librarians

Jorge Luis Borges’ vision of the universe as library Every combination of alphabetical characters in a book

somewhere – so all of knowledge is there as well as every kind of nonsense

There is no order or key – although somewhere must reside a volume that is the catalogue

Related ideas are found in The Name of the Rose (Eco), Discworld (Pratchett)

The whole of information when unordered equates to a total lack of information

The role of the smart librarian facing Google’s “Last Library”

The coming search for routes to co-existence

A Library of Babel?

Defining the wider profession◦ Not just libraries …◦ Reviving information science◦ New professional interests

Archives and records management Information security and assurance Information literacy Information governance

Steps to a smarter profession

Librarianship for the 21st century◦ Adopting Web 2.0 to build Library 2.0

◦ Smart Librarians using social networking for CPD

You can follow conferences for your CPD via social networking (e.g. #CIL2010) and online

◦ Meeting user needs

◦ CILIP’s Manifesto for the UK general election

◦ Understanding the commercial approach

Google adwords are NOT an indicator of relevance

◦ Examples of good practice

Steps to a smarter profession

New roles for professional associations◦ Widening their interests, widening their spheres of influence◦ Preparing their members for the new world of information

and knowledge management◦ Lobbying, explaining, engaging with decision makers◦ Working together – LAI and CILIP Ireland, RMS Ireland Group

New roles for library and information professionals◦ Widening their horizons◦ Adapting CPD to acquire relevant new skills◦ Promoting LIS skills and potential in new fields and to new

clients

Acting and thinking smart!

Building the smarter profession

Questions and comments

Peter.Griffiths@cilip.org.uk

Text and slide layout © Peter Griffiths 2010The images used in this presentation are for illustration only and any copyrights are acknowledged