Breaking out of the box: libraries without walls

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Breaking out of the box libraries without walls

• Terry Reese
• terry.reese_at_oregonstate.edu
• Readex Digital Institute

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• Libraries today are suffering from an identity
  crisis trapped between the traditional roles of
  a library and the current expectations of its
  users.

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Users want.
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So long as it fits on.
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Or works with this
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Or this
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Or this
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Libraries evolving roles
User Community

• Library as its communities primary information
  provider
• Research collections housed within the library

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Libraries evolving roles
User Community

• Library as its communities primary information
  provider
• Library facilitates borrowing from other
  institutions (ILL)

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Libraries evolving roles
Ejournals
User Community

• Library as an information facilitator
• Points users to ejournals
• Splintering of library services
• ILL, Virtual Reference, Ejournals, Digital
  Collections, ILS, IR, etc.

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Libraries evolving roles
User Community
Google
MS Live

• Library one of many information providers
  available to their users

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Libraries evolving roles

• Not new
• Libraries have traditionally evolved with
  technology
• But
• Libraries are no longer the central repositories
  for trusted information

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Libraries evolving roles

• Evolution isnt necessarily a bad thing
• Underlines libraries past successes
• Demonstrates a vibrant information ecosystem
  which libraries have traditionally cultivated
• Library is now just a part of this ecosystem

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• Evolving means learning a new language and new
  rules without losing some of the core library
  values.

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Library 2.0

• RSS Really Simple Syndication

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Library 2.0

• Wikis

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Library 2.0

• New Programming Tools AJAX, API

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Library 2.0

• Blogs and Blogging

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Library 2.0

• Commentary and Comments

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Library 2.0

• Personalization and My Profiles

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Library 2.0

• Podcasting and MP3 files

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Library 2.0

• Streaming Media Audio and Video

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Library 2.0

• Reviews and User-Driven Ratings

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Library 2.0

• Recommender Functionality

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Library 2.0

• Personalized Alerts

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Library 2.0

• Web Services

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Library 2.0

• Instant Messaging and Virtual Reference

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Library 2.0

• Folksonomies, Tagging and Tag Clouds

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Library 2.0

• Photos (e.g. Flickr, Picasa)

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Library 2.0

• Social Networking

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Library 2.0

• Socially Driven Content

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Library 2.0

• Open access, Open Source, Open Content

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Library 2.0

• Social Bookmarking

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Librarys place

• Digital library development needs to start with
  an understanding that
• The library needs to be more transparent
• The library needs to look outside the library
  community for usable technologies
• The library is no longer their user communities
  primary research tool of choice

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In 5 years, in my library.

• Simple aggregation of resources will not be
  enough. Databases and Websites will be replaced
  by mechanisms that fetch information into our
  users workflows.

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In 5 years, in my library

• Intermediate environments will be as important
  to consumers of library services as traditional
  end-users.

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• What are intermediate environments?
• Think mashups
• Think aggregations
• Think workflow

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Examples?
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What can we do?

• Work with partners
• No library is large enough to solve these
  problems themselves. Libraries have traditionally
  been able to talk a good game regarding
  collaboration, but tend to be short on results.

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What can we do?

• Continue to innovate
• Libraries need to do more development. Libraries
  should spend less time looking at their vendors
  to solve solutions that should be developed
  within the libraries Open Source Community.

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What can we do?

• Open our current systems to outside users
• The library community expects groups like
  publishers, Google, etc. to provide stand access
  points or harvested metadata, yet we dont build
  this facility into our own systems.

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IHP

• Interoperability
• Supporting the request and response for many
  different protocols
• SRU
• Z39.50
• etc.

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IHP

• Harvestablity
• Libraries should be building systems that allow
  users to harvest their metadata content.
• Libraries need to be willing to give up some
  control over their metadata and be willing to see
  their metadata repurposed in other ways.

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IHP

• Pluggability
• Libraries should look to build and use systems
  that allow for the use of microformats.
• COINS
• UNAPI

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• Thank You