Notes on
"Building Academic Library 2.0"
presented at the Academic Library 2.0 conference, November 2, 2007
by
Meredith Farkas
Distance Learning Librarian, Norwich University, Northfield VT

All quotes are approximate, but pretty close.
Corrections welcome, just add a comment.

WHAT IS LIBRARY 2.0 ?

To understand this, we need to look back.

Web 1.0 = democratized access to information.
Reference information available to anyone with an Internet connection.
People interacting with the web as consumers.

Web 2.0 = democratized participation.
"You" as Time Magazine person of the year.
"If you can type words into a box, you can contribute to the development of the Web."

Her problem defining Library 2.0: "I can't get a fix on what Library 1.0 was."
Library 1.0 was not all that bad (cf. Joe Janes' remark that "we weren't just sitting in the hallway trying to make fire before 2.0 came along.")

Full story »

Many of the interesting blog postings have discussed the importance of the Library's need to operate in a more experimental/innovative mode.  I think this staff interest offers an opportunity for us to take a look at what leads to successful innovation.  I would submit that significant investment in human resources is a major factor in creating change and innovative approaches in most organizations.  This investment is not just in hiring people, but in keeping them creative through constant skill development, renewal, and offering opportunities to do something different.

One idea is to "open" the New Directions Institute to provide the staff with new or updated skills needed to respond to the new directions the Library decides to pursue.  Many senior administrators, and some librarians and other staff, have attended such institutes designed to target the development of certain skills and to prepare them for new roles.  Why not offer this opportunity at Berkeley to the greater library staff?  I would suggest that we have a successful model already in place through our experience with the Mellon Institute.

The ND Institute would focus on training and skill development paths for future roles in the Library.  The curriculum would be designed to prepare staff for whatever "different" human resource demands come out of the ND Initiative process.  Institute modules might focus on:

• learning to work in an effective team environment.
• innovative thinking and problem-solving.
• computing, educational technology, and web skills needed to implement specific projects.
• how to dismantle organizational roadblocks.
• utilizing campus resources beyond the library walls.
• teaching skills of all kinds.
• how to deal with special challenges such as e-science or data management.
• effectively marketing the university library and its services.
• writing and oral communication skills that are successful in today's student environment.
• other specific skills to meet ND desired outcomes.

Once the new directions priorities have been identified, the ND Institute begins to focus on preparing leadership teams to begin implementing goals.   Staff come out of the ND Institute ready to achieve results and to spread their infectious enthusiasm among their colleagues.

New Directions
Jim Neal: Imperatives Defining the Future Relevance and Impact of the Academic Research Library
1 Nov 2007

It has taken me a few days to process what I heard from Jim Neal during his New Directions presentation on November 1st. I say what I heard, as it may not be the same as what you heard. I admit to being greatly distracted by his remarkable resemblance to my godmother, Bunny.

Mr. Neal presented 30 imperatives for academic libraries in 46 slides. His moving quickly through this content resulted in 1) my being unable to transcribe all of the content and 2) his touching only superficially on most of his points.

Mr. Neal asks, of all of the factors impacting Libraries, what should we be acting on most aggressively? Here are 30 imperatives that will increasingly define our aspirations:

#1: Build the Network
Libraries must be a part of the development of the essential infrastructure across our University and involved in decisions related to connectivity, reliability, capacity, performance security, and enabling new applications. We need to be at the table when network infrastructure decisions are made, but too often we are not.

#2: Enterprise System Development [I didn?t quite understand this one]

#3: Manage Identity and Security
Our network systems face daily attacks. Our institutions must recognize and emphasize the importance of maintaining our systems and protecting our data.

#4: Organize for Disaster Preparation and Continuity
We must prepare for disasters by developing redundancies, auditing our procedures, and assigning responsibility for who handles what during an emergency. We must ensure that in the case of a disaster we can still provide basic services and continue operations.

#5: Build the Digital Library
Quality = Content + functionality. Our content includes published/licensed content, primary content, open web content, institutional content, and multimedia. The successful digital library is an integration of services and of software tools.

For more on his vision of the Digital Library, see Neal, J. G. (1999). Chaos Breeds Life: Finding Opportunities for Library Advancement During a Period of Collection Schizophrenia. Journal of Library Administration, 28(1), 3-17.

#6: Mine the Full Potential of Original Information
[I'm afraid that I missed what he said here, but I assume that he made reference to the need for libraries to collect, organize and make accessible the rich collections of grey literature we have in our institutions and the important and significant resources contained in our archives and special collections.]

#7: Build Content Management Portals
Our goal must be the ability to find and organize information. Portals are integrators and real-time processors. [?]

#8: Preserve and Archive the Content
We hold it ? we allow access through our various systems (catalog records, digital copies) ? we secure it by having disaster preparedness capabilities.

#9: Search Engines [not the exact slide title]
Assess carefully the role of search engine libraries and analyze the relationship between search engine libraries and our libraries. How can we assist the resolution of copyright issues?

#10: Enable/Integrate 2.0 and 3.0

• Notion of permanent beta is difficult for libraries to deal with
• The authorship revolution - the expanding the creativity potential of the Web where one can post information to numerous potential readers on a global scale.
• OCLC released report ?Sharing, Privacy and Trust in our Network World?. In this report, general public respondents and U.S. Library Directors surveyed see no role for libraries in a social network environment.
• Users are moving away from expert-based systems and are gravitating towards sites built for them and by them
• When does the social web become *the* Web?
• Where do librarians fit in here? If convenience trumps quality, it is our job to make quality convenient.

Full story »

I'm sitting here at the Academic Library 2.0 conference, listening to Meredish Farkas _keynote _ wonderful presentation!_talk about all the great things she is doing, and her colleagues are doing, to reach out to users via their library blogs, wikis, etc.

Why have we not made all new library blogs more accessible to our users? No one is going to find these in our current web page structure. There really ought to be a link to these that is easy to find on our main page, or more effort made to integrate our blogs into our subject pages.

Just a quick thought. I apologize if I have overlooked something, but our blog listing at this point seems pretty hidden. 

 Submitted by Jim Church

In preparation for Meredith Farkas's keynote presentation at the Libraries 2.0 LAUC conference tomorrow I was browsing her del.icio.us tags , and came across Kathryn Greenhill's blog "Libraries Matter" .

Kathryn describes herself thus, "I work at Murdoch University Library [in Fremantle Western Australia] as a Reference Librarian and Philosophy Subject Librarian. I also facilitate the Emerging Technology Group and am paid to look at how we can use emerging technologies in our library."

I found Kathryn's posting "Playful Thinking.." about innovative ways to think and to design conferences exceptionally creative. And thought provoking. Imagine playing Powerpoint Karaoke, or having 3 minutes to do your presentation, as is done in a Webjam!

I was interested to see that Kathryn's job description requires her to keep up with emerging technologies. Is this a one person assignment? Or is it too big for any one single person? What do YOU think? Please comment!