A TOUR OF THE LIBRARY OF THE FUTURE

Bethan Ruddock @bethanar AWHILES 2012

The library of 2020

• The foyer: library as place• The stacks: what will be on the

shelves?• The computer cluster: e-information

provision• The back office: the catalogue

The foyer: library as place

Image used under a CC licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/tzhaya/5462222662/

Not all stamping books & ‘shhhhh’

The Nancy Pearl Librarian action figure, from http://www.mcphee.com/shop/products/Librarian-Action-Figure.html

... but they do have their place!

Face-to-face interactions allow you to:• Connect with your users• Form relationships• Gather feedback

And ‘shhh’-ing?• Creating a good working

environment for your users

Libraries as learning spaces

Alan Gilbert Learning Commons at the University of Manchester http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/projects/aglc/

Library as place in 2020?

Images used under CC licences from http://www.flickr.com/photos/jhoweaa/327651705/ and http://www.iconarchive.com/show/colorflow-icons-by-tribalmarkings/wi-fi-icon.html

Where’s the librarian?

Image used under a CC licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/armymedicine/6300225700/

Here? Embedded librarianship:

Working within multi-disciplinary teams

The big question

Will ‘library as place’ remain key?

The stacks: what will be on the shelves?

Rise of e-information

Will print books/journals disappear?

Will subscriptions continue? Or will Open Access rule?

Image used under a CC licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/simplerich/2471580861/

Full-text at your fingertips

Image used under a CC licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/western4uk/438611927/

Reliability?

Screenshot from http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/b-n-ebooks-nookd-2012065/

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Version prepared for the Barnes & Noble Nook by Superior Formatting publishing

Language barriers

Taken from Doncaster West PCT’s Glossary of Yorkshire Medical Terms http://regmedia.co.uk/2006/04/24/glossary_for_international_recruits.pdf

Reliability/authenticity

• How do you know the text you’re getting is the text the author intended?

• Where might errors have crept in?• Unintentional errors• Malicious errors

• How to detect?• Checksums• Digitally signed PDFs• Contact the authors• Expertise!

Access issues

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Cost

Institutions reporting journal subscription fees as ‘unsustainable’Is Open Access the way forward?

Harvard announcement: http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k77982&pageid=icb.page498032&pageContentId=icb.pagecontent1061869

Role of the librarian?

A legitimate site?

Elly O’Brien & Lisa Hutchins noticed:• URL (http://www.rescancer.com/)• No information about who runs the site• Incorrect tags: article about lung cancer

tagged cervical cancer• Contact is a hotmail email address• No author or journal information• Charging for freely available articles• Domain owner owns hundreds of other

domains• Look at source code: website built using

free tools; does it contain hidden spam/SEO links?

The big question

Is Open Access the way forward?

The computer cluster: e-information• How will users access e-information?

• Desktops?• Phones?• E-readers?• Tablets?• ???

• Research from Pew: 85% of those who don’t own an ereader and 81% of those who don’t own a tablet have no plans to buy one http://pewinternet.org/Presentations/2012/Jun/SUNY-Libraries.aspx

Computer clusters: the past

Image from Big Lottery Fund Research Issue 7 The People’s Network: evaluation summary http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/er_eval_peoples_network_evaluation_summary_uk.pdf

Computer clusters: the present

Image of Amsterdam Library used under a CC licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/piet_musterd/2730906433/

Computer clusters: the future?

Image used under a CC licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/currybet/344024653/

Equal access for all?

Image used under a CC licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/pigstyave/2735970994/

Barriers to access

• No subscriptions• Access control problems/authentication• Sites blocked

• Twitter, flickr, Facebook, youtube, blogs• Content blocked

• ‘inappropriate’• Differing levels of resource & access levels

• Eg from Summon to library catalogue

Where will scholarly communication happen?

Blogs, forums, social media & discussion sites, Q&A sites, publisher sites, comment sections, cloud storage ...

... video chats, webinars, twitter chats, vlogs, podcasts, repositories, conference livestreams, wikis, colloborative bookmarking, tag clouds...

The big question

How will information be delivered in the future?

The back office: cataloguing

Cataloguing: vital for resource discovery?

Predictions:• Rise in copy-, collective-,

and collaborative- cataloguing

• Share records – for free?• Fewer specialist

cataloguers – mainly for rare/special

• Roles for consortia: subject/sector/user-specific

Cataloguing: alternatives?

• Full-text search & text mining• Where allowed by publishers• Where includable in catalogue

• Semantic search• Still ‘learning’

• Linked data/semantic web• Not at saturation point

• Link in external resources• APIs, RSS feeds, metadata

And if we don’t...?

The catalogue should:

• Add value• Be:

• Comprehensive• User-friendly• Knowledge-base

• Contain:• ‘Grey’ literature• Recommender functions• Expert advice

Image used under a CC licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevharb/5466078785/

The big question

Name one key feature of the health library catalogue of 2020

Where have we been?

• The foyer: library as place: study space• The stacks: what will be on the shelves?:

more e-, less print• The computer cluster: e-information

provision: opening up access• The back office: the catalogue: fewer

cataloguers, more curators

And the librarian?

• New ways to find out about and connect with users

• Research: • Market research• Ethnographic/observational• Statistics and logs

Become the resource

Image used under a CC licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/benchilada/6674045235/

Become the resource

Image used under a CC licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/russell_reno/500304827/

Become the resource

Image used under a CC licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/pkz/6222862929/

Become a colleague

Image used under a CC licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/kalexanderson/4728391136/

@bethanarbethaninfoprof.wordpress.combethan.ruddock@manchester.ac.uk