Although I'm not one of the three sponsored Bloggers who "covered" Betsy Wilson's presentation this morning, I did attend, and have some thoughts to share in one particular area that she addressed. I was sitting next to Pat Maughan, another sponsored Blogger--and I bet she has some ideas to share as well, based on all those notes she got down...

Betsy referenced the need for 21st century libraries to take on new types of work. We've been saying this to ourselves for years, and rightly so; in the mid-1990s, former UL and i-School Professor Peter Lyman said to a similar gathering, "We need to completely reinvent what we are doing." At the time, his words carried different weight and meaning, because there was a fair amount of budgetary "pain" at work.

Betsy Wilson, in this morning's presentation, was true to her own word in painting a more optimistic take on that challenge. I agree with her. Moreover, Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 shine a light on all kinds of new work that surround knowledge building. In many ways, we're already living through "continuous change" and morphing ourselves on a regular basis.

New Directions is All About Combining "New" Work and "Legacy" Work

Working as I do in an Organized Research Unit with doctoral students and faculty, I've been lucky to have an opportunity to look at what a Library might try to do in order to be distinctive and valued. I've been able to take risks that are perhaps not so easy with in larger control units. Seems like the "2.0" part of "Library" has been going on, for a lot of us, long before that moniker popped up.

Well, here's a "2.0" story of a risk we took locally that has paid dividends for years, but may beg the question: "Is that Library work?" Read on, and decide for yourselves. Or better yet, hear more on November 2 at the LAUC conference and bring your debating cap.

From Library Services to Web Services to Desktop Services: "The Content Grab"

Many UCB Librarians have heard me talk about how the IRLE Library manages Web services for the entire IRLE, so I won't go into any more detail than to give you a few highlights:

• Our family of programs support our two programmers, so we're charging back with the greatest of ease;
• Our high quality Web site, Web page and graphic design service is regarded as one of the most crucial offered at IRLE, so much so that program staff have actually asked to pay more to have access;
• Our family of Web sites, taken together, serves more than six million downloads in an academic year, from a (faculty) content rich matrix of sites;
• Our success in Web oversight has enabled us to "double" as "Deskstop Publishers" --for what is "born digitally" as a PDF can be printed in a flash;
• Our success with desktop applications has led us into "curatorial roles" with noted photographers and artists;
• And in the past year, we have been increasingly tapped to create theme-oriented presentation graphics for high level symposia and colloquia
• As a result, all of the scholarly content that is developed at IRLE cycles through the Library

As anyone who knows me will tell ya: I could go on.

But let's get back to my self-imposed question: Is all this library work? Yes, and here's my self-imposed rationale for saying so.

All Information Work is Library Work--and Library 2.0 Proves It

First, a quick story: When I described all of these services to a friend who served with me on CAPA in 1997, his reply was, "But it's not library work." Hence my Blog entry heading.

But even in 1997, the line between publishing and repositories was blurring. The opportunities to recast libraries as proactive, archive-plus-publishing outfits are now even more tantalizing. My direct experience here at IRLE has been that we have proven to a skeptical community that the Library is "virtual," it is "digital" --but it also service-oriented, supports the faculty where they need it the most, and fills a service role that was lacking. This "2.0" viewpoint orginiated with a single awareness that we had: What was needed in our setting was the power to publish digitally. We've been doing that since 1994. On top of everything else we do...

Meme Freebie: We're Now Publishers, Wheher We Focus On It Or Not

I had an ongoing debate with former LSO Head Ralph Moon that went lilke this: Me: "Libraries are publishers in the Internet age." Ralph: "We don't need to do that, we already have publishers." Me: "But many of the best publishers don't "get" the digital paradigm." Ralph: "They'll get it with time." And on.

Before the CDL and before eScholarship, we tried, and it worked. What we did locally was to bring the concept of publishing together with library skills--adding a new responsibility to continue to have the privilege of doing reference, research and all that other great stuff. We have seen support for the Library grow, culminating in a new Commons which I'll talk about on November 2. We regarded Web and desktop services "value points" that increaed our ability to continue all library services, creating digital documents and Web resources that go beyond scholarship as needed.

We have more work to do, we need to constantly remind our community that we are heavily commited, we need to "market", and more.

Is this really Library work? Yes.

The silver lining: We're no longer spending much time justifying our existence--because everybody, all of the programs we support--are consumers of our services. We're the "Go-to" folks.

This local story dovetails with what Betsy was saying about new roles for libraries. It's a bite-sized story from a campus unit that has been described by some as "small." But the Library's footprint at IREL is large, and most academics here are not reached by other campus libraries as much as they might be. Which is understandable on a campus this immense.

New Memes for New Directions

My "Libraries are Publishers" story speaks to New Directions' stated goal of rethinking what we need to do--and to try new things. But my point is not necessarily, "Hey, let's all develop Web and desktop services to the campus!" That wouldn't work at the micro or the macro level. The bottom line to my story is that we can benefit by discovering what needs are not being met--now. And starting to fill those needs. Many are obvious; some are not.

Our core competencies in research support, taxonomy and preservation open doors in the faculty's consciousness of what's possible. Locally, being the "Webbies" extended our ability to stay relevant as reference providers. In another setting, preservation knowledge might play a similar role.

I think the potential of New Directions for "unveiling" locally tested "best new practices" is enormous. I can think of many others on campus who have tried things that are unorthodox--but suspiciously reeking of a creeping "2.0" meme-buster...

But hey: Is that library work?

Yes.

--Terry Huwe, IRLE Library