ACADEMIC LIBRARIES IN

THE

DIGITAL A

GE

I S 1 0 0 - I S S UE S F A

C I NG

T HE F U

T UR E , N

OV E M

B E R 1 7 , 2 0 1 1

Internet • Profound changes in behavior

in just 20 yrs. • Internet business valued @

$780B worldwide• Search value: Time saved,

price transparency, raised awareness

• 1 trillion+ unique URLs indexed by Google in 2010

• People signal their habits online; harnessed by others

(Source: “Impact of Internet technologies: Search”, McKinsey & Company, July 2011)

Search unlocks Value• Better matching between

customers/organizations

• Time saved

• Raised awareness

• People matching … Problem solving

• New business models

• Completely different entertainment modes

• Long-tail offerings (niche items discovery by buyers)

IMPACT OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

• Search technology will need to develop to keep pace with online content

• Continue to make search quick, results relevant

• Use of vertical search engines rising (10x’s as many product searches now executed on Amazon, eBay)

• Advent of smartphones, tablets, web connected portable devices leading to more personalized searches

• Search technology will be turbulent, leading to disruptive change, complex security issues

• Researchers (librarians) continue to make sense of it all.

(Source: McKinsey … Search Report, 2011)

FUTURE OF SEARCH

5 MYTHS ABOUT THE ‘INFORMATION AGE’1. The book is dead – NOT! More books are actually produced in print each

year than the previous • Super Thursday, Britain, 2010 – 800 new works printed in single day• 288,355 books printed in U.S. in 2009, even more in 2010, 2011• Non-traditional books – nearly 765,000 titles produced by self-

publishing authors and ‘micro-niche’ print-on-demand enterprises• Book business just beginning in developing countries: China, Brazil• Population of books INCREASING, not decreasing.

2. We have just entered the ‘Information Age’ – Every age has their ‘age of information’. We are not in an unprecedented age, just an age of changing media.

MORE MYTHS …

3. All information is available online – Only a tiny fraction of archival material has ever been read, much less digitized… judicial decisions/legislation (state and federal) NOT on the Web … regulations/reports, public and private NOT on the Web … just 12% of the 129,864,880 different books in the world have been digitized.

4. Libraries are obsolete – Librarians all over the country report they’ve never had SO MANY patrons … libraries supply: Books, videos, magazines, other material and now NEW functions: Helping small businesses with access to info, employment information for job seekers, helping patrons discover & use digitalized collections.

5. The future is digital –True. Not the entire picture – the prevalence of electronic information doesn’t spell the end of print materials, but instead enhances and enriches the environment (TV did not die when the Internet came onboard; radio is still in existence, now enhanced by satellite).

REFLECTIONS ON A DIGITAL AGE

• Now living in a crucial phase of transition to dominantly digital ecology -- a shifting information environment to be sure, but one where old books and e-books are ‘allies’, not enemies

• As books are increasingly ‘born digital’, e-book sales continue to rise Last year sales of e-books comprised 10% of all book sales, expected to rise to 15-20% this year … Print book sales are also rising as enthusiasm for e-books stimulates reading in general … rise of book ‘machines’ – to meet on-demand printing of books.

(Espresso Book Machine 2.0)

(Source: 5 Myths about the Information Age, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Darnton, Robert, April 17, 2011)

GOOGLE (2009 ASSETS: $21B)

• E-books have had “very disruptive impact on the entire publication/reading ecosystem .. multiple access devices, platforms …

• … The e-book industry has turned an important corner in reinventing book publishing for 21st century”…”

• Google Books: Lost April, 2011 anti-trust case; Court ruled against scanning, providing ‘snippets’ of ‘orphan works’ on Google.com

• Google e-Bookstore: Opened December, 2010 … “a Gutenberg moment for the publishing industry” …

(Source: “eBooks Everywhere: the Digital Transformation of Reading”, Nancy Herther, Searcher Magazine, July/August 2011 … “An Introduction to Competition Concerns in the Google Books Settlement”,New York Law School Report #23, 09/10)

E-BOOKS

REFLECTIONS ON A DIGITAL AGE

• A decline in deep, reflective, cover-to-cover reading?• The Internet supports self-publishing and e-books – is that

all bad?• New opportunities for self-publishing: e-books, tweets and

blogs on the Internet• What about Google Books

• What other opportunities do YOU see in this new digital age?

LIBRARY @ SPEED OF LIGHT

• migration from print to electronic – Library’s dual nature not only as storage for materials, but gathering place & information center

• imbedded into campus community – Librarians increasingly away from the reference desk, onto campus; interdisciplinary collaboration with faculty and students across the curriculum

• library as ‘place’ movement – For help, support, guidance locating & using digital and other resources

• environmental analysis – Constant, conducted by librarians to determine nature of on-going user needs.

(Source: Reference Reborn: Breathing new life into public service librarianship, Ed., Zabel, D., Libraries Unlimited, 2010)

ACADEMIC LIBRARY TRENDS

• Collection growth driven by patron demand, new resource types: Just-in-time … print-on-demand for books .. 24-hr. turnaround for article requests … access to full-text sources, not just discovery … e-books availability … PLs (Personal Librarians) @ Drexel, Barnard

• Budget challenges: Stagnant/reduced operating and materials budgets … affects ability to attract/retain staff, build collections, provide access to resources/services, develop innovative services … books moving off-site for retrieval as-needed

• Librarians to possess diverse skill sets: On-going training …use of non-MLS professionals working in changing environment ... Retirees = leadership gap, loss of institutional memory

• Increasing demands for library accountability and educational assessment• Social Networking … Open Source Publishing

AUTOMATED BOOK RETRIEVAL- UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, MANSUETO LIBRARY

REAL LIBRARY, REAL USERS = SOCIAL NETWORKS

• 500 million FB users : 51% log in EVERY DAY

• Libraries & Facebook: For reference services? Market to different levels of followers?

• FB status updates = Stories (Followers + Sharing)

• Library FB page = CALL to ACTION : Share information + Friend other orgs + Host discussions + Educate patrons + Post pics/vids + Target specific users.

(Source: ALA TechSource: FB in the Library, November 2011)

OPEN SOURCE MOVEMENT

M I T O P E N C O U R S E W A R E I N S T I T U T I O N A L R E P O S I T O R Y

• Provides open access to institutional research output by self-archiving it

• Creates global visibility for an institution's scholarly research

• Collect content in a single location

• Stores and preserves other institutional digital assets, including unpublished or otherwise easily lost ("grey") literature (e.g., theses or technical reports).

IMPACT OF DIGITAL ON ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

• Libraries must be nimble – willing to adopt new digital products & services• Librarians must engage in on-going professional development, stay

abreast of and create new library offerings• Librarians on the front lines teaching students & faculty about collections,

discovery & use of digital resources • Continued partnerships with faculty, students: Helping imbed learning,

teaching new digital products, imbed into course management systems, facilitate open source data/publishing

• Digital products & search tools on library websites: Provides unique opportunities for students to access and discover more library resources.

THE FUTURE – ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

• Embrace and digitize unique collections, consider institutional repository for academic work

• Librarians to be fluent in using social networking • Continued funding for librarian education & training to

relate library services to the ongoing mobile information revolution

• Decouple procedures from infrastructure – be willing to use tools our patrons use, not expect them to use the tools we want them to use.