O'Connor / Sidorko Imagine Your Library's Future

Scenario Planning for Libraries and information Organisations
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-1-78063-046-5
Verlag: Elsevier Science & Techn.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 240 Seiten

Reihe: Chandos Information Professional Series

In this information age it is widely recognised that, in order to maintain relevance and to gain a competitive edge, libraries and other organisations in the business of information must continuously assess their roles, collections, services and perhaps most importantly, their business practices. Scenarios are a way of predicting and describing a future three to five years away while strongly engaging one's community in choosing the future which is preferable. The horizon in which assessments about future roles change is growing shorter and shorter. While it is almost clichéd to state that change is the only constant, differing scenarios of what libraries might be allow all of us to contemplate futures we might otherwise not allow. Drawing on extensive experience in libraries in different parts of the globe, the authors provide a rich analysis of planning, managing and implementing change in information organisations through scenario planning. Through extensive practical applications, both actual and theoretical, the authors provide a strong background understanding and direct the reader through a planning process that is both readily applicable and innovative for all information organisations, irrespective of their size or client base. - Extensive exploration of what it means to 'shape our futures' rather than having our future shaped for us - Valuable techniques for understanding futures and creating different scenarios - Practical applications are illustrated through examples and real life experience

Steve O'Connor is a University Librarian in Hong Kong. He has also been the CEO of a Library consortium and worked as a consultant and trainer extensively in different parts of the world, including the United States and the United Kingdom. He has written and talked extensively on issues relating to libraries, librarians and how they can not only survive but should thrive and position themselves for the benefit of their communities. He is currently working at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is also the Editor of Library Management and created Library Management China (in Chinese).

Autoren/Hrsg.

O'Connor, Steve

Sidorko, Peter

Leseproben

2 The complexities of our informational environment
This chapter
This chapter will examine the concept of the environment as a space in which each of our libraries exists. It will also enable the reader to see the environment for what it is while also analysing, and then beginning to understand, the impacts of the environment. There are various tools which will assist us in these examinations. By examining the environment we will then have the basis by which to understand, in a subsequent chapter, the business models operating in the publishing and library industries. What is the environment?
Geologists and sociologists understand our physical and social environments. They understand the contours, the seismic shifts, the changes in attitudes, the movement of populations and social classes. The development of their disciplines involves gathering information from a variety of information sources and integrating them to provide new information. These two disciplines have much in common with the library and information profession. The geologist and the sociologist have differences, however, in how they can garner facts from their environments. The geologist can rely on observations and investigations about the earth and geological movements. The sociologist knows that there are constant changes in the social order. Attitudes change and there are so many factors which influence the shape of society. Societal changes can be measured and tracked with quantitative and qualitative measures. Libraries and their environments
The environment in which our libraries operate varies from sector to sector. The environment in which a special library operates is different to that for a public library or an academic library. They differ because of the funding, administrative and political influences. They differ because of the salary scales on offer to their staffs and also, at a more fundamental level, because of their missions and the populations which they intend to serve. These environments need to be understood and to be gauged as to what they are telling us about the possible futures for their libraries. We will talk more about how to deal with these environments later in this chapter. The wider environments are often more difficult to see and understand but are nonetheless critical to establishing an understanding of what is possible, what is probable and why we need to change our thinking. But there are seismic shifts occurring in each of these environments and it is important to be aware of them and to appreciate, at least broadly, what they mean. The geologist would be concerned that the moving tectonic plates might upset the very foundations of the cities above them. These are the insights which will more strongly drive the scenarios which are developed in later chapters. Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve. (J.K. Rowling1) Disruptive technologies
It is worthwhile now talking about ‘disruptive technologies’. This is a business theory popularised by Clayton M. Christensen to describe how a new technology can affect existing technologies, particularly if it is unexpected. In his 1997 best-selling book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen separates new technology into two categories: sustaining and disruptive. Sustaining technology relies on incremental improvements to an already established technology. Disruptive technology lacks refinement, often has performance problems because it is new, appeals to a limited audience, and may not yet have a proven practical application. (Such was the case with Alexander Graham Bell’s ‘electrical speech machine’, which we now call the telephone.) In his book, Christensen points out that large corporations are designed to work with sustaining technologies. They excel at knowing their market, staying close to their customers, and having a mechanism in place to develop existing technology. Conversely, they have trouble capitalising on the potential efficiencies, cost-savings, or new marketing opportunities created by low-margin disruptive technologies. Using real-world examples to illustrate his point, Christensen demonstrates how ‘it is not unusual for a big corporation to dismiss the value of a disruptive technology because it does not reinforce current company goals, only to be blindsided as the technology matures, gains a larger audience and market share, and threatens the status quo’.2 More recent and relevant examples for libraries might relate to the emergence of the personal computer (PC), for instance. This was a hugely disruptive technology to the mainframe computer company IBM, who were dismissive that the humble PC would ever have any impact. They were complacent. In fact it ‘destroyed’ their central mainframe computing business. Bill Gates became a very rich man through the conversion of the IBM code into MS-DOS, a version suitable for the personal computer. It also created the software giant Microsoft. This story is detailed in the book Hard Drive.3 It is as Christensen observes: the large corporation could not see how the PC would fit into their business model and as a result of this, the PC destroyed their mass market business model. It is also useful to note that the PC had a wide-ranging effect on the rise of the ‘individual’: we could easily work on our own, in isolation from others and remote from the offices where IBM had us tied. The PC was a disruption with a manifold impact. ‘What if’ the PC had never happened? Can you imagine this? In the same way, in the next chapter we will look into the past in order to begin to see the future. Another disruptive technology is the mobile phone. The mobile phone is now replacing the paper diary and book of contacts (the paper diary itself had already been disrupted by the PDA device such as the Palm), and is also disrupting the camera (the film camera had been replaced by the digital camera). So into the one compact device, the functions of diary, contacts, camera and now music storage and player are combined with the common function of a telephone. Businesses specialising in any one of the earlier technologies such as paper diaries manufacturers and distributors, camera manufacturing companies such as Kodak, and makers of cassette or record music players have all been disrupted in a very short space of time. The mobile phone continues to evolve to provide access to a host of information resources including, for example OCLC’s (the very large ‘consortium’ company providing bibliographic data to libraries) enormous catalogue, WorldCat, with its access to collections of more than 10,000 libraries worldwide. The exercise accompanying this chapter will assist you to identify disruptive technologies and to examine their impact or their potential impact. Broad disruptive technological impact on libraries
Assuming a broad understanding of the concept of disruptive technologies, it is now worthwhile thinking about the impact of digital technology on libraries. In the mid 1990s it became possible for the first time to commercially deliver digital content via the Internet. Prior to this, digital content was restricted to the storage media of the CD (compact disc) and emerging into more compact but similar media. This was a huge move away from the microfiche as a storage medium. But even the additional capacity of the CD quickly became a problem and we saw the emergence of CD jukeboxes to cope with the number of CDs which were becoming necessary to store the content and the need to get to the relevant CD as quickly as possible. Of course, the CD’s data capacity quickly increased through the creation of dual-layered DVDs, making the CD jukeboxes themselves redundant. The advent of digital delivery of content has had a profound disruptive impact on the library. The extent of this impact is, in many ways, not yet fully realised. With the growth of the capability of the Internet to deliver digital content to libraries it became possible for library users to use the library without even accessing the physical library building. This changing demographic of the library population is not a passing phenomenon but a growing one, leading to reduced turnstile counts. Fewer people are coming through the library doors, but paradoxically the use of the library is increasing and is increasing manifold. The physical library building is often turning to purposes other than the original model. There are coffee shops and community centres, and we have performance areas and retail outlets within the old library fabric. None of this is necessarily wrong but it is important that the library and information centre has a clear idea of where the organisation is heading as well as its purpose. Unfortunately, however, we have many libraries ‘losing their way’ as they struggle to find their raison d’être. Digital delivery is fundamentally changing and disrupting the position of the library in its community. It is sometimes the case that the library is perceived by those communities to be irrelevant. It is openly wondered ‘why do we need a library when we have the Internet?’ While digital content is delivered to the user’s desktop via the Internet, the user can easily be forgiven when they do not even realise that the service is coming from...