Future of ILL

1
Future of ILL

• Well sort of,
• maybe,
• kind of,
• well see

Mark Beatty
2
Phase 1

• Whats our environment now

3
Thanks

• For invitation
• Years of being colleagues
• My day yesterday
• As metaphor perhaps

4
Future sizes

• Little things
• Like ILL requests
• Big things
• Like World Peace
• Medium things
• Like creating policy and plans for up to 5 years
• Expectation that a job well done will avoid our
  demise
• We will speak of Medium Things

5
S. R. Ranganathan

• Five laws of Library Science. Most librarians
  worldwide accept them as the foundations of their
  philosophy. These laws are
• 1.Books are for use.
• 2.Every reader has his or her book.
• 3.Every book has its reader.
• 4.Save the time of the reader.
• 5.The library is a growing organism.

6
One re-write

• A possible new interpretation
• Patrons just want stuff
• Give it to them
• Now
• And forever forward
• Wikipedia
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_laws_of_library_
  science

7
One possible future

• Over the next five years
• Libraries that understand and adopt user
  eccentric models will thrive
• Libraries that DONT understand and adopt user
  eccentric models will lose their funding
• what have you done for me lately politics

8
Part 2

• Our competition
• Our collaborators
• Our innovators
• Our examples
• Our warnings

9
Lets look at Examples

• Stores
• NetFlix
• http//www.netflix.com/Default
• Amazon
• http//amazon.com/
• iTunes
• Desktop application

10
Lets look at Examples

• Resources - social
• Wikipedia
• http//wikipedia.org/
• MySpace
• http//www.myspace.com/askawaywisconsin
• Flickr
• http//flickr.com/

11
Lets look at Examples

• Library 2.0
• Library Books
• Mac OS X menu bar app
• Go-Go Google Gadget
• http//www.blyberg.net/2006/08/18/go-go-google-gad
  get/
• Library Thing
• http//www.librarything.com/
• WorldCat.org
• http//www.worldcat.org/

12
Importance to ILL

• Direct to User
• Discovery, request, delivery
• Informed choices, social agreement
• Long tail exposure, recommender service
• Slice and dice, more their choice in all aspects
• OCLC Environment Scan and Surveys back to the
  1950s show 1 source for information is friends

13
Consequences

• What can we do about it
• Whats our role
• What is the best of all possible worlds

14
Last Mile

• Discovery v. Delivery
• Libraries as postal boxes
• Gatecount up?
• Time spent in building down?
• It is enough to simply hold stuff?

15
Limited Resources

• Everyone cant own everything
• Everyone cant deliver everything
• Everyone cant request everything
• What if folks used libraries as hard as they use
  Amazon?
• Total chaos and collapse?

16
Management Planning

• Interoperability
• present the library face electronically to other
  libraries to interact, electronically
• Intermediaries for patrons, transparent
• Systems depend on power of customization, such as
  ILLiad
• Such as custom holdings and deflection
• Make the donuts in the back room

17
Content

• Wildly diverse resources
• Pure content and social systems intermixed
• All re-directing back to library
• Direct delivery and wish lists
• Google Banned Books page
• http//books.google.com/googlebooks/banned/
• Single search box

18
Expectations

• Library MySpace says friend
• Can library deliver friendship
• Doesnt care where it comes from
• Friend assures quality
• Trust until betrayed, get new friend
• Its easy with a friend
• How much privacy does a friend need

19
Patrons just want stuff

• Easy discovery
• Format, location, resource have no meaning to
  patrons
• Want to find what lots of everyones like as well
  as what a few everyones like

20
Give it to Them

• Delivery has to be totally transparent
• Interoperability or costs prohibitive

21
Now

• Location is ubiquitous
• Match expectations

22
And Forever Forward

• Act as if theres a future
• Have some fun
• Thanks

Mark Beatty