Virtually Irrelevant: The Digital Library Conundrum

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Virtually Irrelevant The Digital Library
Conundrum

• Professor Derek Law,
• University of Strathclyde

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Five themes

• Professional self-confidence
• E-collection development
• Content production not just consumption
• Training
• Preservation

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Clearing the Ground

• The paperless library is as likely as the
  paperless toilet
• The Kennedy Centre and the importance of staff
• Involvement or commitment?
• Ill repeat what I agree with and ignore the rest
  an SDI service!
• My examples are Scottish

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End of the story for librarians?

• The services provided by librarians have become
  less important with the development of technology
  that allows students and staff to conduct
  research with relatively little guidance
• The process of literature searches is
  substantially deskilled by online bibliographical
  resources
• University of Wales Bangor Consultation Paper
  2005

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The future..?
Oh, like you know something the Internet doesnt
know
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Scenario Planning

• Four scenarios or approaches
• Explore only preferred scenario
• Peep into what I hope well be doing
• May not be the same as we will be doing

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Scenario Plan A For babies

• Always keep a-hold of nurse, for fear of finding
  something worse
• Hilaire Belloc

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Scenario Plan B For Teenagers

• When in danger or in doubt,
• Run in circles, scream and shout
• Hilaire Belloc

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Scenario Plan C Adults

• Get your retaliation in first
• Carwyn James Welsh Rugby Coach

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Scenario Plan D Wise Elders

• Its better to seek forgiveness than permission
• President John F Kennedy or Thomas More

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Where we are now

• Hybrid libraries
• Google and the satisfied inept
• Struggling with redefinition of scholarly
  communication
• Big deals (ending?)
• E-books are toys
• Images the next frontier?

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Underpinning philosophy

• The Vesalius Conundrum
• This is rocket science not a plug in the wall
• Ease of use the satisfied inept
• IT Skills Gap is growing (Productionltdemand)
• Public sector bodies are producers not just
  consumers of information
• The Internet is AT PRESENT very flawed as a
  teaching and learning tool

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User not technology driven

• The Library as place
• Second most used public service
• University space has not grown
• Staff and students are library conservatives
• Collection focussed
• Sustainable use of heritage resources
• Failing to build research collections
• Standing on the shoulders of pygmies
• No focus on e-services

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The Bad News

• There has never been a correlation between
  library use and class of degree
• There is not a correlation between research
  quality and library quality or size
• SO, we must stake out our turf and assert
  relevance or others will move in

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More of the same?

• Sourdust Keeper of the Rituals and Master of
  the Ceremonies

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Old Wine in New Bottles

• The future lies in the past
• The International Library Movement
• Co-operation, co-operation, co-operation
• UAP and UBC
• Document Supply
• Selection, storage and support

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Trust Me Im a Librarian

• People become librarians because they know too
  much. Their knowledge extends beyond mere
  categories. They cannot be confined to
  disciplines. Librarians are all-knowing and
  all-seeing. They bring order to chaos. They bring
  wisdom and culture to the masses. They preserve
  every aspect of human knowledge. Librarians rule.
  And they will kick the crap out of anyone who
  says otherwise.
  (Olson, 2000)

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Requirements

• Go to new places
• Investigate, report and IMPLEMENT
• Let the organisation know you are doing this
• Lights are hidden under bushels for a reason
• He who pays the piper may call the tune but
  that doesnt guarantee an audience

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The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 1902
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Shared services as well as content

• 7x24 reference service with UTS
• Shared ILL Department discussed
• Shared skills training for users
• Information literacy and the death of Google

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Googlewhacking
The Whack Stack

• Your goal find that elusive query (two words -
  no quote marks) with a single, solitary result !

• Jesuitical cauliflower
• Unpowered popemobile
• Buckminsterfullerine
• sundae
• Hydroxylated marmalade
• Comparative unicyclist
• Sousaphone wasabi

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Building research collections for the future

• Endangered content
• Web sites, lab books, ephemera, e-mail, word
  processed files, spreadsheets etc etc
• Present research builds on the collections of the
  past
• This is your chance to be included!!

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Information arbitrage

• Identifying products
• Identifying value for money
• Identifying sites Los Alamos
• Is the Pareto Principle relevant?
• Information without walls supporting the
  community
• Independent, authoritative and right

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Laws Laws

• 1. Good Information systems will drive out bad

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Producers not mouse potatoes

• OAI
• SPARC
• BIOMED Central
• The end of big deals?
• The failure of the STM model
• Scientific learned societies are worse than
  publishers
• SAPIENS and HOMO SAPIENS
• Publishing supports research NOT THE OTHER WAY
  ROUND

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A rose by any other name

• Taxonomy
• Ontology
• Semantic web
• Metadata
• The organisation of knowledge

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Laws Laws

• 1. Good Information systems will drive out bad
• 2. User Friendly systems arent

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Training

• The satisfied inept staff as well as students
• 13 get information from the Library
• But its also a
• cybersandpit
• dating agency
• learning space
• 7x24 chatroom
• Training ground

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Data preservation and trusted repositories

• Building research collections for the future
• Clearing the study
• Under-resourcing the IT service
• Repository standards

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Trusted repositories the five Maori tests

• Receive the information with accuracy
• Store the information with integrity beyond doubt
• Retrieve the information without amendment
• Apply appropriate judgement in the use of the
  information
• Pass the information on appropriately

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Road Runners Rool, OK

• Grown up thinking
• Joined up networks
• Seamless Martini education
• Capitalism and communism according to Keynes
• A people at ease with a knowledge society having
  survived the information revolution
• those best able to cope with change are those
  who are already on the leading edge

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Conclusion

• Selection, storage and support remain our key
  activities
• The organisation of knowledge is our key skill
• Dont go to Bangor unless you want to observe
  arrogant stupidity

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Dereks Digital Dictums

• Make big plans and aim high
• A hot bed of cold feet
• Losers confuse destiny with bad management
• Do whats crazy, not whats stupid
• It is better to be approximately right than
  precisely wrong
• You have to be clever enough to do it and stupid
  enough to think it matters
• Do lunch or be lunch
• When you come to a crossroads take it