Library 2.0
the future of libraries in the digital age
Collections 2.0
Many of the concepts of Library 2.0 seem to relate to services, but I'd like to explore more concrete relationships to library collections. There are 3 principles I'd like to proposed as foundational for collections 2.0. These will seem "service-" rather than "collection-" oriented initally, but bear with me:
Electronic Collections: This is an easy one. Collections will become more and more electronic (see Janus Conference). This will enable many kinds of uses we never envisioned before (see below). I don't think, in the short term, however, that electronic collections will completely replace print collections. Many things our users want, will not become electronic for many years (if ever).
Ubiquitous computing (UC): will exploit electronic collections to allow access from virtually any place in the world. But UC also means that people will be using all kinds of devices to access information: PDAs, phones, laptops, UMPC. Not every collection will be appropriate for all these devices, but we need to think about making information available to users on a multitude of platforms. (Upon reflection, UC also means that the library is everywhere and the librarians are too.)
Customer choice--user customization: will allow patrons to do things with the collections that are important to them. They should be able to save information and manipulate it in many ways: annotation, tagging, mashups, sharing, citation management. We should offer collections that enable these kinds of choices. Of course, collection development will be based on user demand in ways that we haven't yet thought of. One of the big barriers to this kind of user freedom will be vendors and their ideas about property and copyright.
There are a lot of problems to solve here, but I think these are concepts we should be working to apply to all library collections in the future. Please offer your views or comments.
- electronic collections
- ubiquitous computing
- user customization--customer choice
Electronic Collections: This is an easy one. Collections will become more and more electronic (see Janus Conference). This will enable many kinds of uses we never envisioned before (see below). I don't think, in the short term, however, that electronic collections will completely replace print collections. Many things our users want, will not become electronic for many years (if ever).
Ubiquitous computing (UC): will exploit electronic collections to allow access from virtually any place in the world. But UC also means that people will be using all kinds of devices to access information: PDAs, phones, laptops, UMPC. Not every collection will be appropriate for all these devices, but we need to think about making information available to users on a multitude of platforms. (Upon reflection, UC also means that the library is everywhere and the librarians are too.)
Customer choice--user customization: will allow patrons to do things with the collections that are important to them. They should be able to save information and manipulate it in many ways: annotation, tagging, mashups, sharing, citation management. We should offer collections that enable these kinds of choices. Of course, collection development will be based on user demand in ways that we haven't yet thought of. One of the big barriers to this kind of user freedom will be vendors and their ideas about property and copyright.
There are a lot of problems to solve here, but I think these are concepts we should be working to apply to all library collections in the future. Please offer your views or comments.
Tags: collections, computing, ubiquitous
Views: 3
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bob Kosovsky on
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Hi Steve,
The only part of your formulation that seems "2.0" to me is the user customerization. The whole idea of Web 2.0 takes off not from the existing material, but how to harness and manipulate it into something else -- "web-based communities and social networking" as the article in Wikipedia says. So for example, merely accessing the library OPAC in new ways (cell, PDA, laptop) is not 2.0 - but creating a social structure based on the OPAC (sort of like a LibraryThing chat group) is more akin to what Library 2.0 is about. It's not about the materials - it's about how people are connecting to the materials (i.e. social networking) and creating new structures with which one can interface.
So if one is going to have "Collections 2.0" it would not be based on the collections themselves, but on some way a community would grows out of it.
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Permalink Reply by Steven Harris on -
I'd like to expand on the three points a little more in some future posts, but I've got to disagree with you, Bob on a couple of points.
1. I don't see how the user customization can begin to exist without the first two items.
2. When I talked about ubiquitous computing I didn't mention the OPAC at all. I don't mean to say that people would use various devices to only interact with the catalog. But people ought to be able to, say, get renewal notices on their cell and then go ahead and renew with the same device. They should be able to set up search notifications that are delivered anywhere they want them. They should have a storage space for their information (articles, citations, ebooks, quotations, raw data) that they can access and manipulate from wherever they are. You say yourself that web 2.0 arises from the ability to "harness and manipulate [material] into something else." I'm just suggesting an infrastructure to make that possible.
3. We can probably argue endlessly about the importance of social networking to the web 2.0 concept, but I read the same Wikipedia article and think that web-based data structures that are user-manipulable are just as important.
4. Online communities do not form around nothing (that's a Seinfeld episode). LibraryThing chat without each users' own collection of books is just a catalogers' listserv. The Flickr community doesn't exist without the photos. One of the things that makes Flickr web 2.0 is the variety of tools they give users to aid in the management of their collection of photos. Upload a photo from your cellphone... very cool! Create your own organizational structure... excellent! And very web 2.0 as well.
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Permalink Reply by Rebecca Hedreen on -
I think under either ubiquitous computing or user customization (or both) would also be the tools that allow users to use the information. Web based applications, like word processors, wikis, image editors, presentation creators, etc.
Another aspect to consider would be collections of things that users can really *use*, like data sets. Not just the charts and graphics that appear in the published works, but the actual data, downloadable in formats that people can use and run their own analyses on.
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Permalink Reply by appliedontology on
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The technologist in me defines 2.0 (in any technology) more broadly. 2.0 is a state where the technological capability has run ahead of the well-defined user needs. In a good situation, this leads to an intellectually stimulating exploration of how the technology can be applied. Otherwise, it is just bloat.
Electronic Collections: While I agree that collections will become more electronic, access (as in licensing) is going to be a key issue. I see the financial model for publishers as still being up in the air, but as it firms up over the next 10-20 years, traditional collection development will come more and more into play. I think that an open question is how new technology will change the funding model for libraries with respect to access to collections.
Physical collections will obviously continue to exist, but could well become more focused. One might wonder whether a Netflix type ILL might be found more cost effective than large local collections.
UC: Hyperconnectivity means that users will want access from anywhere. This is going to require a better security model than most libraries currently support. "You are trying to access this resource from outside the library" messages are unacceptable. This also has funding implications: why should a school library pay for a resource that is already available through the town library? But then, if the town cuts the library budget and the school has to purchase it.... One can see all kinds of local politics playing out.
This also raises the issue of whether we are seeing the rise of a different type of library. Are Ancestry.com and Godfrey Memorial Library type services the real competitors to local libraries?
Choice/Customization: Libraries are late to the game for general social networking. Not only that, the social networking industry is poised for massive consolidation. That isn't to say that the eventual Google/Yahoo/eBay of social networking has already been started or that it won't be started by a librarian (quite possible), but it won't come out of a library or library consortium.
One thing that the W2.0 crowd understands, but I am not sure has sunk in for the L2.0 people, is that the Web is no longer about small insular websites that want to be your homepage. The last library-based, top-25 website that I know of stopped being that in 1996. The LoC website is ranked in the 3,200 range (Alexa). If you want to play in W2.0, it is about integration with the rest of the world and with the daily routine of our audience.
What do we have to offer that they want and how do we get that value proposition in front of them? Just thinking out loud: What about a browser plugin that alerts you if a book you are looking at on Amazon or B&N is also available in your local library? What if Amazon offered a "Donate this book to your local library" program that checked your library collection development wishlist (via an SOA) and allowed the patron to get a tax deduction and be the first borrower, you to get the book (partially preprocessed?), and Amazon to get the money?
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Thanks for that reply, AppliedD. Now I finally see the connection to L2 with collections. And when you mentioned Ancestry.com - I immediately realized the connection, since I spend hours on that website each week.
From one point of view, when I think of a library/archive, I think of primary souce materials - a vast number of which can't be made available over the net due to copyright issues. But then I think of Ancestry.com. Your post has made me see them as a "web 2.0" site. They've not just interested in making the sources available, but doing so in a way that is geared to user needs/wants--they've gone that extra step from 1.0 to 2.0. So I don't go to that site to find the 1915 Iowa census, but I can do searches like e.g. finding all the married couples named George and Jill from Germany, or something like that. And of course, they make available social networking on their site, so I can group up with other "George and Jill" seekers, or just those from Germany, or just post my own tree and invite anyone who's interested to come and share.
Why are libraries slow to this? My gut feeling is money. Most non-special libraries don't have the resources that for-profits do. (And the exceptions have created such resources, e.g. MEDLine.) Your mention of Amazon is apt: On Worldcat, one can find links to Amazon, but the converse is not there.
It's nice to think that we can put collections up there, but until copyright changes, we're going to be severely limited as to what resources we can put out there. And gads - the pressure is on to provide LESS metadata, to save time. We'd have to depend on the public to supply it.
In any case, thanks for reframing the issues so that I can see the Library 2.0 connection.
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Obviously funding is a huge part. A library that is struggling to keep the doors open isn't going to be engaging in expensive new initiatives. Cost recovery isn't an option in many library situations (even if patrons would be willing to pay). I think that Ancestry.com identified a niche with substantial overlap with traditional public library services and figured out how to monitize it.
However, I also wonder if there may be a developing gap in library education. When I went through library school (admittedly a fair while ago), the biggest competitors that most libraries had to worry about were the police and fire departments. There was little competition to do what we do; therefore, marketing (and particularly product marketing) wasn't any significant part of the curriculum. How much has this changed?
The traditional public library model has been that we give away quite valuable services for free dependent on the good graces of some funding authority and any political pressure that can be developed. That's a scary business plan in today's business and technical environment. If "reference services" in 2012 isn't going to be a help desk in Banglore (and they *will* help with your computer), librarians today need a sophisticated understanding of their own value proposition in today's environment (much different than even 5 years ago), how to package and "sell" library services to our customers in a 2.0+ environment, and how to leverage that into a funding model that will "work" for local authorities.
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Oh, believe me, at least at my institution, the services that are free are shrinking, as the energy is being focused on cost-recovery activities. But it's unfortunate because it raises the prices for services like copying (in whatever format).
What we should really do is have some kind of partnership with a for-profit institution (like Ancestry.com or even Corbis or even UMI or other on-demand publishers) where they can digest our stuff but not gain full or exclusive rights to it. That's what Google is doing with their book program, but few companies have that kind of capital or expansive sense of risk.
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Yes. One can easily see any number of mutually beneficial arrangements with a service like Ancestry that could/should be interesting to them. Whose job to sell it to them?
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Permalink Reply by Steven Harris on
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appliedontology: you've hit it right on the head! A couple of things that stand out: it seems that licensing and authentication will be vital. There is still a lot of commercial content that people in the academic world want. It's not all open access by a long shot. I see local libraries continuing to license content. The trick will be to seamlessly pass that through to authorized users to the platform that they "live" on: Facebook? iGoogle? Netvibes? Whatever.
I think that is the way we should be going with all kinds of library data. There needs to be APIs for all kinds of stuff so that it can be used, widgetlike, in many other contexts. I agree that libraries are probably too far behind the curve to be the driving force behind this kind of delivery. The notion of a library portal doesn't even begin to have all the functionality I would have in mind. So much of what we offer now is so locked down by a multitude of individual license agreements.
It would be great if a user could go to their social space of choice. They might have to have some mechanism to authenticate as a legit X-university (or public library) user. Then, they don't even have to search. Content is streamed to them. They can configure what it is they want to get. They can talk online to other people interested in the same topics. They can save links. They can manage citations to stuff they use. Print materials can still figure in this...they get an rss of new books; they get announcements about ILL materials being available. But it's not the "library website" that does all this. Everything is a widget. Plug in whatever you want, wherever you want it.
The big problem here is to get the vendors and the publishers to make their stuff consumable in chunks like this...to decentalize content from their monolithic site. Many of them I am aware of think they are being all web 2.0 by offer RSS! Why should the user even have to go to 12 different publisher sites to set up a profile? OpenURL can be a tool in this, but it too doesn't really deliver the goods. Federated Search? HA! Pitiful!
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Certainly Amazon will not provide a "check your local library" link and even getting a "Donate this book to your local library" would probably a lot of selling. (The business culture of Web 2.0 is nothing, though, if not about wheeling and dealing--big sites selling eyeballs). The beauty of extensions is that you don't have to "make the deal" with the big site to interact with the content that they are serving.
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Permalink Reply by Rebecca Hedreen on
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I just ran across a great definition of 2.0 anything--when using the system increases the value of the system to the users, i.e. when someone uploads a picture to Flickr, it increases the value of Flickr to everyone. (Blaise Aguera y Arcas, in this presentation, during the part about Photosynth, about 5:45-6:00 or so: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129 )
So what systems do we need to have in place for people to use library collections that would increase the value of those collections? Circulation analysis comes to mind ("People who checked out this book, also checked out...") Search analysis, too: which items were clicked on when someone did a search using this keyword could influence some sort of clustering or relevancy algorithm. Comprehensive citation linking.
User contributed content would be the next step, I think. Tagging (PennTags). Linking library systems to institutional repositories and maybe student eportfolios, too (with permission, of course). Just think of doing a search in a database and finding an article, then being able to follow a link to a paper in an institutional repository that used that article as a reference.
Tagging with something like DOI or COINs would be necessary, I'd guess.
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Permalink Reply by Steven Harris on
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Right, the whole "network effect" -- more users increases the value of the service or product. I'm not sure what we could do to achieve that. Circulation data might be one thing. We really need to provide a way for patrons to tag, talk about, and recommend materials. Of course that begins to enter the privacy realm, but it would all be voluntary. They can share their views if they want.
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