Eduworld

How Open Source Software Can Improve Our Library

by Eric Hebert

Remember a time when doing research required us to have to go to the library? Your school had one, and that's probably where you spent most of your library time at. If it wasn't your school, then it was probably your local town or city library. Some of these libraries may have been tiny little holes in the wall with just a few thousand books while others were huge university libraries with tens of thousands of books, magazines, newspapers, cd & dvds, microfiche, etc.

The depth a library can have can range greatly; it all depends on how much money that library gets in funding. The big college libraries obviously get the most due to the fact that they are part of an actual business model that produces a significant amount of money. Public libraries on the other hand only get what the government gives them, which in smaller municipalities can be very little.

For many libraries, organizing their books and other media can be a daunting task, especially as the library grows with more material. Years ago we had crude card catalog systems (remember the Dewy Decimal System?) that kept things organized, but were difficult to maintain. With today's computing technology, organizing our libraries has never been easier or more efficient. Gone is the card catalog and in some libraries, it's much easier to locate a book through an internet connection and picking it up upon your arrival, rather then wasting the time scouring the aisles looking for your next read (only to find out the book was never there in the first place).

Now just because the world has been blessed with wonderful software solutions that make everything easier to do, doesn't mean that every library in the universe is using these solutions. As noted above, many libraries do not have huge amounts of money to burn, and any that they do get usually goes to purchasing additional resources for you to have at your disposal (think about how many books get printed in a year).

Because of this need for software (and the installation and training costs associated with any), and the lack of money available to spend on it, many libraries are left to fend for themselves when it comes to staying up to date with the latest technology. Unless, of course, they embrace the open source movement and use some of the countless software solutions available to help out. "Open Source" you say? If you are unaware what open source is, then let me briefly enlighten you.

Most software that we all use everyday is known as "proprietary", which in a nutshell means that it costs money and that the actual code of the software is restricted, in that the code of the software cannot be modified, copied, or changed from its original construction. The code is "unreadable" and pretty much is what it is.

Open source software, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. The open source mentality revolves around sharing and collaboration, and these two important elements describe open source software perfectly. First and foremost, open source software is free for anyone to have; more importantly, not only is the software free, but it is also free for anyone to copy, hack, modify, etc. This increases the possibilities of a software program's potential because of this free-thinking model. Many large groups of programmers have customized basic open source programs into whatever they deemed necessary, and have in turn given these modifications back to the open source community for free where others can continue to build on their work.

There are many different kinds of open source software solutions out there today that could be embraced by the library. There's basic operating systems and document processing programs. Then there's many web-based content management solutions and database driven organization software. So why aren't libraries using these free, open programs to make their lives easier and their libraries better? The answers you'll find lie in an area that one would think to be ironic given the situation - the lack of information. It will be our goal here to outline some of the prominent players in the open source software game and offer solutions to not only portray their role in the modern library, but offer the means to get these programs installed and up and running.

Basic Computer Programs
Ubuntu - the most popular player in the Linux based operating system game. (Linux is the open-source answer to Microsoft's Windows operating system; Ubuntu is a modification of Linux). Ubuntu is a perfect solution for libraries who need to upgrade their older computers using outdated Windows or for bulk computer purchases requiring a new operating system. Many libraries feature computers for users to gain access to the internet, and that being the only function those computers serve. Why pay for all the unwanted things on Windows when you just need to get online? You might be a little scared at first of a new operating system, but just like anything else, the hardest part is getting started. Plus, there's plenty of Ubuntu installation help out there to give you a hand.

Firefox - So, you've installed Ubuntu and are ready to continue a Microsoft-free lifestyle. What next? One of the first things you'll notice is that you have a new browser to surf the web with. No more clicking on that big blue Internet Explorer icon anymore. Instead, you'll be looking for the orange looking fox. Firefox is the Mozzila organizations answer to Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser, and has taken the web by storm over the past few years as the biggest competitor to IE in quite some time. Firefox offers a much more secure browsing experience compared to IE (mostly because the majority if the population uses IE and that's who the bad guys are targeting). The biggest draw, however, is the modifications that can be made to Firefox through its many plug-ins, which can make using the net more constructive. HINT: Many of the basic programs that come with Windows can be found as a plug-in for Firefox!

Open Office - Another component you'll find bundled with your Ubuntu operating system is a software package known as Open Office. Does "office" sound familiar? Of course is does; you've probably used Microsoft's Office products many times before, including the industry standard "Word", "Excel" and "PowerPoint" programs. Well guess what? Open Office can do the same thing, and you can use both programs to handle each others file formatting (i.e. if someone builds a presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint, then you can edit the same presentation in Open Office). In addition to these must-have programs (either to be used by the library internally or for the patron to use in various projects), Open Office also comes with a calculator, draw, and mathematics program as well. Looks like were beginning to forget about Windows already (and remember, we haven't even spent a dime!)

Thunderbird - Firefox's little brother program, Thunderbird, is the Mozilla foundations open-source alternative to Microsoft's Outlook Express, and is your fourth tool in weaning yourself off of the Windows juice that you have been so accustomed to drinking for so long now. The program works exactly like Outlook, providing you with a secure and safe desktop email solution. And just like Firefox, the open source programming community has created free add-ons to make the Thunderbird email client customized to your liking. If you absolutely need a desktop email client (as opposed to a web-based email client like the recommended Gmail), then Thunderbird is the open source program you need. Windows who?

Songbird - Your fifth and final nail in the Windows coffin is yet another open-source platform built off of the Mozilla platform (which gave us Firefox). Songbird is an open source media player which you can use to play your audio and video files. And just like Firefox and Thunderbird, it can be customized with various themes, plug-ins, and add-ons to make it work differently. Songbird can play any media file format (just in case you have a bunch of WMA files stored on cd's from your Windows days), features multilingual support, and has an integrated web browser without having to leave the player. Break out the black clothes and let's have a moment of silence, as we begin our life without Windows.

Advanced Programs
GIMPshop - So now our library has replaced its Windows operating system, and installed some basic programs to, for the most part, get what most people come to the library to get done. However, what is the library could offer MORE than what patrons are used to using the library computer for, and offer other programs to use? One important but rather expensive software program that is sometimes needed is the ever popular Adobe Photoshop. Because we're cheap and only choosing open-source alternatives, we're going with Gimpshop, a Photoshop alternative. While not as feature rich as Adobe's photo manipulation program, GIMPshop is just as easy to use and will take care of any users basic needs (many, unless seasoned Photoshop pros, will only need the program to so basic tasks anyway).

PDF Creator - The PDF file (short for "portable document format") is an industry standard format that everybody uses everyday. The purpose of creating a PDF file is usually to provide an important document for display that cannot be modified by the reader (unless permission is given). Many programs exist that will enable you to create your own PDF files, but they require you to spend money, which is not in our budget. Instead, we're going to use the open-source PDF creator to take our Open Office files and convert them into professional PDF documents.

Audacity - For those looking to get a little more creative in the library, you'll want to make sure that you can record and edit audio; hopefully, they'll be taking advantage of Audacity, a cross platform open-source program that does just that. In the digital recording industry, there are hundreds of programs with a wide range of features and capabilities, and can cost anywhere from a few bucks to a couple of thousand dollars. Now, no one expects a library to have thousand dollar recording software installed on their computers, but having a basic program sure does help. Audacity will give you the ability to cut, copy, edit, and splice sounds together in a variety of formats. Plus, as it is open-source, it's capabilities are continuing to evolve.

Avidemux - Well we have the means to manipulate our audio recordings, then what about video? Don't worry you budding filmmakers (or librarians looking to produce their own promotional videos, how-to-tutorials, or video book reviews), because the open source community has you covered. Next up on the free software train is Avidemux, a video editing software program for users to edit together online video. Avidemux can take care of simple cutting, filtering, and encoding tasks, and work in a variety of file formats. It's not going to produce any elaborate visual effects for you, but it'll take care of the simple ones and would be a great addition to a library's catalog of resources.

So, we've covered some of the basic and advanced programs that traditionally, would set a library back in terms of finances. By running the above free open sources programs, a library could offer plenty of software resources to it's patrons that if could afford to do in the past. While these programs are free, some of them (especially the photo, audio, and video programs) may be difficult for the first time or novice user to grasp. It will be up to the librarians and staff to educate themselves in order to provide their patrons with the know-how to get the most out of these programs (thus providing the greatest resource a library can offer - assistance in retrieving and properly using available tools and information).

In addition to these tools being helpful to a library's patrons, they are obviously very important to the operations of a library as well, and it will benefit each employee to use the same open source programs for library operations as to educate the employee of the ins and outs of each software program, so that knowledge can then be shared with a patron should a question or problem ever arise. But what of the other computing needs of the library? Obviously we still have some other very important organizing and cataloging needs as we addressed earlier. In addition, a library needs to have a strong online presence and offer their knowledge and support through the internet in order to really provide a resource. Thankfully, there are open source solutions for the library to take advantage in these departments as well.

ILS (Integrated Library Systems)
Koha is a promising full featured open source ILS (integrated library system) currently being used by libraries all over the world. For those of you out there unfamiliar of what an ILS is, well, it is a system of keeping track of the operations of a library - payroll, expenses, purchases, and most importantly, keeping track of the various media being checked out by the librarians patrons. Many smaller libraries cannot afford to purchase, install, and maintain an ILS, and Koha is a perfect alternative. Koha is built using library ILS standards and uses the OPAC (open public access catalog) interface. In addition, Koha has no vendor-lock in, so libraries can receive tech support from any party they choose.

Evergreen ILS is another option when researching open source ILS options. Developed by Equinox Software, Evergreen is a robust, enterprise level ILS solution developed to be capable of supporting the workload of large libraries in a fault-tolerant system. It too is standards compliant and uses the OPAC interface, and offers many features including flexible administration, work-flow customization, adaptable programming interfaces, and because its open source, cannot be locked away and can benefit from any community contributions.

VuFind is a new open source OPAC that you can put over your ILS (in this case, replacing the basic OPAC of Koha). VuFind suggests that is is "the library OPAC meets web 2.0"; it enables users to search through all of your library's resources (as opposed to limited resources through the traditional OPAC) through an easy to use web interface. VuFind is modular, meaning that you are free to only use the components of the program that you deem necessary. VuFind is powered by another open source program known as Solr Energy (Apache Solr, an open source search engine technology). The program is still in beta but is being used by several universities like Drexel and Villanova Universities in Pennsylvania.

LibLime is an open source library automation system and is the library communities most trusted open-source software solution. LibLime provides commercial support services including hosting, migration assistance, staff training, and software maintenance, development, and support. LibLime will help take care of installation of the aforementioned Koha and Evergreen Ils programs if your library does not have the in-house technical support to install it yourself, and because of their expertise in the library environment, are the most educated partners to have when deciding on which solutions to use in your specific library.

Web Publishing
Wordpress started out as a quick, free, open-source solution blogging solution just a few years ago; today it is a perfect alternative to building a web site from scratch. In addition to being free to use (and easy to install), the Wordpress community has exploded, with thousands of users and programmers creating custom themes and plug-ins to completely change the way the software looks and operates. The most important aspect of the software is it's easy-to-use interface and content management system. With it's visual rich editor, anyone can publish text and photos to the web site. Other options include multiple authors (with separate log-ins), built in RSS (Real Simple Syndication) technology to keep subscribers updated, and a comment system that allows readers to interact with the sites content. A fantastic way to communicate with patrons, staff, etc.

Drupal is another open source web publishing option that some libraries may want to consider using. One of the most important aspects of any library is its community, and that's where the technology behind Drupal might come in to play a little better. Many have used the software to build rich community based web sites where many different users can control a large amount of content. Some examples include web portals, discussion sites, corporate web sites, and intranet (internal) web applications. Just like Wordpress, Drupal as an ever growing community of users developing add-ons to make the software work better in addition to providing technical support online to answer any of your installation or maintenance difficulties.

MediaWiki is the original software that powered the famous Wikipedia, which basically allows users to create and edit information from a very simple to use text interface. Another open source wiki platform is TWiki, a flexible and powerful enterprise wiki that is perfect for project management. These wiki solutions can be used as alternatives to the web publishing methods used above, but can better be used as the library's place to keep maintenance and training information available that can constantly be updated as library operations change and develop. Imagine keeping the employee and support community of your library up-to-date with the inner workings through a community wiki, where they can go to troubleshoot any problems that may have been already solved once before in the past.

Conclusion
So, it seem that there are some very powerful solutions available today that could be used to create a much more resourceful library, whether it's a large college or state financed operation, or a local community library that before probably didn't do much for that community in the technology department. By using open source software in the library, money that otherwise would be spent on software solutions can be used for other important resources, such as purchasing additional media resources (books, magazines, dvds), or can be used to hire educated, technical support that provides patrons with the know how to better use already existing resources. In addition, this free software is constantly being updated, changed, and customized to meet the library's needs.

While all of this is fine and dandy, and sounds like the win-win solution for your library, there are still pitfalls and hurdles we'll need to overcome. Hopefully this article provides some introductory information as to how to wean your library off of traditional computing products and dive into the pool of open source resources available today. Many libraries are fully integrated into Microsoft products like Outlook Exchange and have invested a lot of time and money to make these systems work efficiently. Other problems involve the installation, maintenance, and training costs associated with adapting to open source software, as it can be at times difficult to understand at first (mostly because of our dependence on Windows based products); usability is an issue that is being addressed by the open source community daily who is working hard to make these free products easier for all to use and maintain.

As with any form of technology, many usually fear what they are not used to and do not understand. Hopefully, as the word gets out and more of our peers and fellow educators use and promote the open source movement, we will all will embrace and become more comfortable using these open source solutions, and in the future be responsible for contributing and and becoming part of the open source movement.

Jenny Levine - Future of Librarians Interview

Jenny Levine is the Internet Development Specialist & Strategy Guide at the American Library Association, and blogs at The Shifted Librarian, but for readers who may not know you, could you tell us a little bit more about your background and what you do?

Sure, when I graduated from library school in 1992, I didn't know much about computers. I had a school email account, but I rarely used it. I used WordPerfect to create some bibliographies, but I really hadn't done much since playing with my parents' Apple IIe in the early 80s. In fact, I had to have someone else do my resume in WordPerfect because I didn't know how to format it properly.

So no one has been more surprised at the route my career has taken than me. At my first public library job out of school (reference librarian), I ended up becoming the "techie" by default because no one else wanted to un-jam the printers and floppy disks. One day a patron asked for a recipe for Irish Soda Bread, and I couldn't find it in our collection. So I decided to try the CompuServe account I had just found out we had (that no one ever used) to fill the patron's need. Sure enough, there was a recipe I was able to print out for her. She was happy, and I was hooked. I started playing with telnet, gopher, archie, email (for real), lynx, and eventually Mosaic.

I got my CNA Novell in 1996 and became the Technology Coordinator at a library where we became the first public library to offer [dial-up] internet access for the public in Chicago's south suburbs. That job lasted less than a year, though, when the opportunity arose to move to the regional system level where I could help hundreds of libraries with this new-fangled internet stuff. I spent nine years helping my libraries learn the web, HTML, blogging, instant messaging, and other emerging technologies. Now I get to do this for ALA and help our professional organization do these things, a role that has been very rewarding so far. And we're just getting started!

Now let's pretend for a minute that you weren't involved in libraries. How do you personally use the library? How do you search for and access information in general?

This is embarrassing to admit, but I don't use my library all that much. Part of it is the fines. I love browsing the books there, but inevitably I end up taking a few books home, I don't get them back on top, and I end up paying a lot in fines. So now I only go to the library when I need something specific. I do, however, use their online services more often. Occasionally I look up and request a book via the catalog, but mostly it's searching their databases and instant messaging questions to them. I don't think I'm very different from most people who don't read a lot due to time constraints and/or who don't have children.

Because I'm a librarian, I know when I should start a search in a library database versus on the open web. Clearly that's an advantage that most people don't have, so in that respect I'm more unique. Unless it's a search, though, I'm pretty much out on the web, rather than on my library's website.

They don't have any RSS feeds, which makes it more difficult since I can't add them to my main information flow (my aggregator).

You've worked with a lot of technology, from telnet and compuserve to today's blogs and wikis. You've no doubt seen a lot of tools fall into oblivion, while things like email have stuck. In the Web 2.0 environment, what's the single most exciting software technology your working with, and do you feel it will still be around in 5, 10 years?

I'll answer this questions in two ways, first in the terms of "technology", and secondly as "trends". In terms of a technology, I guess I would call it "the box," although if I had to narrow it down it would be easy to label it "blogging." By that I mean the ability to focus on the content and contribute to the collective by knowing nothing more than how to type in a box. That can actually mean blogging, comments, wikis, instant messaging (Meebo Rooms), Twitter, and a growing number of applications. I think it's as powerful a revolution as the printing press.

In terms of a trend, though, I would have to say it's mashups and APIs. In other words, the ability to take completely disaggregated content and mash it up together in different ways (often with unintended consequences) in different places (or all in one place). We're seeing a huge shift in this direction thanks to RSS and mapping services, but I think we've just scratched the surface. I think this piece will completely change how people create, view, handle, exchange, use, interpret, and flow information. I think it will be just as revolutionary as the first days of the web, which is why I'm such a huge believer in Web 2.0(+).

What's the coolest gadget today? And will it be around in 5, 10 years?

The coolest gadget is the smartphone that can handle all of your basic contact flow (addresses, dates, tasks, etc.) but also be a portable entertainment device (audio plus video, both creation and consumption) plus connect you to the network and offer GPS-based services. It will definitely be around in 5-10 years, although obviously in a more robust and even more powerful version. It will be your connection to the world, completely customized for you, and all of your information will flow through it.

Hopefully it will be easier to read, maybe even fold-up so you can read newspapers and books on it, too.

Your blog is called the Shifted Librarian, reflected the shifted nature of information in place and time. Yet you also talk about your love for books. What is all this Web 2.0 technology and digitization doing to physical library space and the physical book?

Technology's impact on the physical library and the physical book are two very different things. On the one hand, physical books will be around forever, and there's no need for that to change for fiction genres. We'll see a shift in reference and nonfiction books as they move to the digital world and become disaggregated. We'll be able to assemble our own books from different pieces, all online, in much the same way we can assemble our own music albums from different pieces right now (iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, etc.). There will be less demand for books as the online world and gaming, along with the next iteration of television (online), continue to take up more and more of peoples' attention.

This will not be the case for physical libraries, though. More than ever, we will need a physical place to come together, to build local community, and to retreat from the constant onslaught of the commercial world. The library provides such a safe place, especially for younger folks and seniors. We're seeing a huge increase in the use of libraries for computer (mostly internet) usage, as well as multimedia materials (DVDs), and as locations for gaming. People use libraries for these types of services because they either don't have access to them anywhere else (part of the digital divide issue) or the service is much more enjoyable and satisfying when it's a communal experience people can share together (such as gaming, knitting groups, etc.). The physical public library is the heart of any community and will remain so for decades.

How is the role of librarians changing?

Obviously we're no longer gatekeepers of information, but our role is shifting to that of the guide, the trusted expert. Which we've always been, but you had to come to us to physically get the information, which is what has changed most dramatically. Expertise is another issue, as we move into an era of networked collective intelligence, but there is simply no substitute for the knowledge and guidance a librarian can provide. Those services will become ever more important as information overload grows and hits even more of our population.

In addition, there are numerous other options available to us if we want to take them, most of which revolve around training. For example, to help folks deal with information overload, we could teach them to use RSS aggregators and even help start them off with localized or customized OPML files of feeds. Some libraries have already begun offering a next generation of computer classes that help explain and navigate the new tools and information landscape. The Princeton Public Library has a "tech garage" where class participants can play with new devices in a hands-on way with guidance from expert librarians.

We can be a lot more proactive about information literacy, as well, elevating our efforts to fill the gap that is widening in regards to media literacies. We can help parents better understand things like gaming, help teach our youth how to be safe online, teach everyone how to manage their online identities, and in general help elevate the level of political discourse and democracy in our country. Pretty noble and lofty goals, but we could do it, and I actually believe libraries are the only institutions that can do this.

What are libraries' greatest attributes?

Libraries are the only trusted, impartial institution left in our society that is free and open to anyone and everyone. Add in a people factor that consists of experts who put up with low salaries out of a desire to just help people, and you have a pretty unique environment that doesn't exist anywhere else these days. No other agency in our lives levels the playing field and offers the same opportunities to everyone that libraries do.

What are the biggest challenges to libraries today?

Far and away it's funding. We can't continue to provide the level of service we have in the past for the number of services we provide *and* take on these new roles without more financial support. Heck, even just stabilizing budgets that are static yet losing to inflation and cost-of-living increases would be a good start. If we continue to tax cap our libraries and don't recognize that they need increases in income the same way we as individuals do, then we marginalize one of our greatest resources, and we shouldn't be surprised when they're not open when we need them, when they can't help us they way they should be able to, or when we can't get the expert help we've come to expect. As other pieces of our lives offload services (such as local government moving services to an online-only option), libraries become even more important. We have to better support them financially to let them fulfill those roles.

How can librarians best market what they do, promoting the importance of libraries today?

That's a really interesting question, one that I've been struggling with myself. I'm not sure I have a good answer, because we do a lot but no one seems to notice. That said, we need better marketing in new places to new audiences. The single best thing a library could do would be to hire a marketing/PR person, but that means one less reference, youth services, circulation, online content, programmer, etc. position. Or maybe fewer resources available to patrons.

We also need to decide what message it is we want to market. Libraries tend to just tell everyone everything we do and hope something sticks. We need to hammer home some of the essentials and tout the new things we do that no one knows about. We need to fix our websites, catalogs, and databases to be easier to use and incorporate our content into other sites so that we stop forcing people to remember to come to us when they need us, because clearly that isn't happening online, even though we have the most authoritative databases. A big part of it is just not hiding what we have anymore and making it easier to find and use.

Many libraries don't have a budget for this sort of thing. What are some inexpensive or free ways for librarians to market libraries?

This is really where Library 2.0 comes into play, because we finally have some inexpensive tools and avenues available to us that we haven't had before. In the past, we've often talked about "going where the users are," but we've only been able to do it in the physical world. Now blogs, RSS, instant messaging, open APIs, etc., all help us implement this strategy online. For example, now our digital image collections can integrate with the outside world via sites like Flickr. RSS lets us display the latest additions to our catalogs on classroom website. Instant messaging literally makes us buddies with our users so that we are waiting in the background, now a visible help click in their activity flow.

And we can get pretty creative with some of this stuff. I've always wondered about supplementing newspaper articles with links to library resources, something we could more easily do now. And in terms of actual marketing, I know that at one point, the Bloomington (IL) Public Library had an ad on the local newspaper's website. It was fed by an RSS feed generated at the Library, so they could dynamically rotate ads for programs, library news, etc. I think blogs offer excellent ways to collaborate with local partners (for any type of library), which will raise the visibility of library resources and efforts. Experimenting with texting information to patrons (especially overdue notices or program reminders) lets us push that content to them in a way that is more convenient for them (as opposed to having to visit and log into our OPACs). Visual tools such as mapping sites and tag cloud creators let us visually present information that is easier for patrons to digest and interact with in places other than on our websites.

That's the kind of thinking I believe we need to stretch, and it's great to see so many discussions about this online. In fact, one of the best uses of 2.0 tools for the profession is the community sites that allow us to have those conversations, bounce ideas off each other, inspire each other, and learn from each other, which in turns leads us to improved services for our users.

Thank you Jenny for taking the time to share your thoughts. You can keep up with Jenny at her blog, The Shifted Librarian.
 

Future of Librarians

by Will Sherman

The Internet’s unforgiving speed is forcing split second changes on a profession that dates back millennia. But while many describe upheaval and chaos, is the revolution really that untidy? Some librarians, after all, make it look easy to adapt.

In all, twenty-seven librarians and thinkers weigh in on the current evolution of librarianship. (We would appreciate your contribution too!) They also ponder how to remind the world that they exist. Nearly everybody extols the advancements of Web 2.0. Yet as social networks light up, what about those left out in the dark? Let’s begin, however, by taking a closer look at the very words used to describe the changes facing librarianship today:

Terminology 2.0

“Library 2.0”, which is an extension of Web 2.0, is used so commonly that “L2” has long since become a recognized abbreviation. It has caught on, but it’s still not agreed upon.

“I think Library 2.0 is a terrible term and should absolutely be banished,” says T. Scott Plutchak, Director of the Lister Hill Library at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Why? It’s too ambiguous, and is used to express whatever foggy definition the term’s user might think applies. “Since no two people really use the term in the same way,” Plutchak says, “there’s no way that it can really be useful in professional discourse. I think it’s lousy.”

Worth noting that at practically no other point in our conversation does Plutchak use such strong language – that fact is far from shocking. In addition to abhorrence of the term’s lack of utility, I would argue that there’s something else underlying some peoples’ aversion to “Library 2.0.” Names of professions, like the names of people, become intrinsically wound up with identity. A presumptuous nickname, whether applied directly to a person or one’s profession, can thwart communication by its offensiveness as much as by its ambiguity.

Improved communication is what motivates Jeff Barry, a librarian and book designer based in Buenos Aires, to also avoid the term. To him, Library 2.0 sounds like a buzzword developed by vendors. That quality, he fears, will inhibit peoples’ receptiveness to the concepts behind the term, which feels are good: the intelligent evolution of library services and technology.

Yet “Library 2.0” is already spilling out onto blogs outside libraryland, getting “believed in” by this online strategist. One can hardly blame such satellite commentary; I have used “Library 2.0” and “L2” on numerous occasions, albeit oftentimes with an unclear definition in mind. In my experience, acceptance of the term is much more common than not. And obviously, there is a strong 2.0 timbre sounding from librarians themselves.

Michael Stephens, author of Web 2.0 & Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software, applies the “2.0” appendage liberally. Not just libraries; Stephens talks about “2.0 attitudes,” a “2.0 philosophy” - even a “2.0 world.” He’s hardly alone. Helene Blowers' successful Learning 2.0 program is designed to get librarians up to speed with Web 2.0 technologies so that they can better provide services and work together. As the term’s apparent originator, Michael Casey, comments on Barry’s blog, it’s “logical” to name Library 2.0 after the Web 2.0 tools that help to power it.

Barry seems to be reacting to the acoustic dissonance of the term more than anything - it’s the word, not the concepts behind it, that is the problem. Plutchak, however, finds fault with the meaning, albeit foggy, that he sees many people attaching to “Library 2.0,” implying a “paradigm of libraries that are more supportive of change.” According to Plutchak, libraries “have always been very innovative,” and recent technology is just the “latest evolution in something that goes back thousands of years.”

I agree. The “2.0” appendage seems to highlight the hubris of technology - it grants us the confidence to draw a line in the sand between a couple of years ago and the rest of history. I would hope that nothing about librarianship, or the world for that matter, could be labeled as if it were a software product, brand new and obsolete tomorrow.

Yet at the same time I understand the historic, intrinsically human impulse to reach out to today’s technology when seeking ways to describe and understand the world. There is nothing unnatural about the way in which “2.0” has cropped up alongside staple words like business, education, and life.

Nevertheless it’s potentially counterproductive to effecting change in libraries, if not downright offensive. Barry hopes that eventually the new services often described as “Library 2.0” be called “the library.” But Plutchak sees the “library” as something becoming less and less important, while the “librarian” (no name change or 2.0 appendage required) steps up to an increasingly needed role of consultancy in today’s society, no matter where the information comes from.

Plutchak again underscores the importance of terminology: “we often talk as if ‘libraries’ and ‘librarians’ are synonymous - they’re not.” Which would imply, I think, that without libraries, collections and storehouses of information, librarians could push off into uncharted waters as consultants navigating a wider world of data. Says Daniel Lee, research librarian at Navigator Ltd, “libraries are buildings and they don’t do anything – it’s the librarians and staff that make things happen in any library. They are what’s most useful.”

Library, Library 2.0, or Librarian. Or something else entirely. What is the best term you would use to describe the profession’s relationship to the current changes in the information landscape?

Or is terminology not that important after all?

“I’m not that sure it matters what you call it,” says Steven Bell, author of Academic Librarianship By Design, “but it is something we need to acknowledge because of the way people interact with the web and websites, and their expectations as information users.”

Old Vs. New

Plutchak raises the possibility that librarians who express frustration with the slow pace of change could be using local problems to paint a global picture. But among those I interview, complaints of an old guard holding back progress are common, almost routine and often accompanied by allusions to an enormous, fitful struggle between old and new.

David Lee King, a Digital Branch & Services Manager at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, tells me that the “library/information world is in the midst of a revolution” and that librarians need to be “highly adaptable” although some “have a hard time with that.” Librarians and library staff who refuse to change are, he says, a “huge problem right now.”

Laura Solomon, a Web Applications Supervisor at the Cleveland Public Library, says that she hears various complaints from colleagues in different libraries about their inability to effect change because of resistance from the old guard. She sees an “internal battle between the ‘Get Its’ and the ‘Don’t Get Its/Don’t Cares.’”

Paul Pival, the Distance Education Librarian at the University of Calgary, also cites “Librarians who aren't willing to learn about new technologies and methods of communication” as something holding libraries back. When asked if Library 2.0 would create a chaotic revolution, Solomon tells me, “frankly, I think we’d be lucky to get as far as that.”

These commentaries would reveal that the sum of certain peoples’ routines and attitudes are slowing the pace of change. Furthermore, as the world outside libraries accelerates forward, resistance to change is causing the gap to stretch further between libraries and their social relevancy.

Stephens says that libraries’ greatest challenges “come from within” citing “institutional inertia” and a “lack of focus on trends and the future.” He urges libraries to keep a close eye on how businesses adapt to change, as well as the power of blogging, and says, “libraries that embrace these ideas and attitudes will overcome the challenges of budget, limitations of space and mindset.”

A tall order for librarians playing tug-o-war with the “Don’t Get Its,” not to mention the “Don’t Get Its” themselves. Yet while resistance appears to be common, are retrograde tendencies a true reflection of the profession as a whole? American Library Association President Loriene Roy, after all, tells me, “Libraries are versatile, surprising, and adaptable institutions.”

But why would such a versatile institution employ so many “Don’t Get Its/Don’t Cares”? Is this old guard really an unbending force that simply won’t listen to reason? Is it them that’s holding back the more progressive librarians? Or is perhaps it the way in which these people are being approached – or not approached – that is preventing the ball from rolling as it should?

Blowers’ first approach was a relative failure. When trying to effect change by teaching Web 2.0 skills, she was only reaching about 60 staff. She changed her approach, and now over a hundred libraries on three different continents have participated in her Learning 2.0 program (this despite the “2.0” appendage).

In fact, Blowers tells me that it hasn’t faced any resistance by library staff; instead librarians have “readily welcomed” her approach to learning. It probably wouldn’t surprise Plutchak or Roy; that libraries and librarians are adapting, as they always have, is nothing revolutionary.

Interestingly, however, Blowers is careful to point out to me that it’s the non-tech “things” in her program that she considers most important to teach people - these involve exploring cultural change and developing a continued readiness to adapt. But there’s something strange about that message of adaptability being delivered in such a 2.0 bottle. Why does social software have to embody the concept of adaptability? Why this particular toolset, and not the one that came before it?

Plutchak says that while “right now people are enamored of blogs and wikis and Facebook,” five years from now will usher in a whole new set of tools. Jenna Freedman, a Reference Services librarian at Barnard Library, points out that social software doesn’t mark the first time that Web 2.0 technology is simply adding to her job description. “I bet,” she says, “the reference librarians of yesteryear griped when they had to add telephone reference to their list of responsibilities.”

Similarly Eric Lease Morgan, Head of the Digital Access and Information Architecture Department at Notre Dame Libraries, asserts that it’s a mistake to associate a profession, like librarianship, with its tools. Instead, it’s about the goals that it wants to accomplish. Just as carpenters are not “hammer specialists,” neither are librarians’ jobs bound to leather bound books, he tells me.

So what’s so historically special about Web 2.0 in libraries?
The answer might be as simple as: it’s happening right now, and it’s happening fast. Karin Wittenborg, University Librarian for the University of Virginia, which recently partnered with Google Book Search, describes libraries’ greatest challenge as openness to “rapid change” in order to “serve the fast-changing needs and demands of…students and faculty.”

But how, exactly, do libraries plan to do this?



The Business Model

In meeting the challenges of rapid change, many librarians point to the business world’s swift application of the internet and Web 2.0 to better serve their clientele. Businesses are typically keen on survival in a world of fierce competition which is new to libraries, and it would serve them well to take cues from the pros. A necessary model, I am told, if libraries are to stay relevant in this “2.0 world.”

Stephens talks about meeting “retail expectations” which include “experience, choice, service and branding.” He notes the excitement he feels before going to the Apple Store in Chicago, the intentional experience created by Starbucks, and in turn decries the prohibitive signage he finds at many libraries. “I'm sorry,” he says, “but a sign stating the rules of the building on the front door is not encouraging.”

Yes, it’s easy to point out where libraries are bleak and businesses sleek. But in the rush to measure up and even make up for lost time, I think libraries should remember that they simply are not Starbucks, nor are they sales outlets for iPods. This extends beyond the literalism of debating whether or not libraries should serve coffee. Rather, it has to do with a fundamental distinction between what libraries do, and what businesses do.

One of the primary distinctions is as follows: while businesses make it their business to collect personal data, libraries have traditionally been defenders of patron privacy. Jessamyn West, co-editor of Revolting Librarians Redux, compares the confidentiality and neutrality provided by librarians to that of doctors and lawyers; it’s invaluable because it’s so rare in our society. Apart from disputed USA Patriot Act incursions, “what you do in the library, stays in the library,” she tells me.

The problem seems to be that up till recently, information retrieval wasn’t such big business. At least not to the degree of Google, whose enormity also gives it an upper hand in defining the rules of the game and forcing libraries to think much more competitively than they have in the past. Now, many look to Google, not the library, when seeking information, Netflix when seeking movies, Amazon when looking for books. These and other online businesses have an insatiable appetite for personal data; privacy is often forfeited by the consumer, in exchange for the convenience of the service.

What businesses do with personal data depends, but what libraries do is almost certain: they won’t divulge it, at least not without a fight. In yet one more reason for librarians to become more technologically competent, West warns, “the more libraries outsource services - and even products, like eBooks and whatnot - the more that data is potentially outside our ability to keep private.”

Now let’s revisit Plutchak’s distinction between “libraries” and “librarians.” According to him, the two words are not synonymous and in fact “libraries” are phasing out of importance. Conceivably, therefore, libraries could eventually cease to exist while librarians thrived. But I wonder: without a library, where will patrons’ information-gathering activities not be monitored? The adeptness of a librarian in connecting people with information is a valuable service, but sheltering patrons’ privacy is priceless.

Still, the business model resonates strongly with librarians. Both Google and Netflix are successful because they bring their products and information “directly to the user.” says Solomon. “Any aspect of a library that forces the user to come to them, rather than the other way ‘round, is problematic.”

Chad Boeninger, Reference & Instruction Technology Coordinator at Ohio University, tells me that “business as usual is not going to bring more users into the library,” pointing out that inhibiting policies – no cell phones, no food or drink, etc. – are going to have to be altered so that libraries can “cultivate a new group of patrons.” It’s a whole new generation that likes to bring technology to learning places, talk in a normal voice, drink coffee and surf the web using free wi-fi, he tells me. “Not adapting to change is a very bad business model.”

But as librarians re-organize the way they serve their patrons, it is critical that they narrate, and create, a strong distinction between themselves and the business world. While libraries seek better ways to reach the patrons, the patrons must retain the ability to access the sanctuary provided by the library. The neutrality of the librarian and the privacy provided by the library are unique, attractive features. Getting rid of those would also be a bad business model.

“We’re not here to be slick,” says Freedman, or to “make money.” Raymond Barber, the Senior High Core Collections editor at H.W. Wilson, points to the efficiency of library self-checkout systems, but worries about “the loss of personal contact between librarian and patron.” Martín Harfagar, founder of the TransAñihué Community Library located on a remote island in southern Chile, is seeking to turn away from the cold, impersonal design of Santiago’s city libraries, and create a library that will restore the “fullness to the path between the person and the book.” To Freedman, it’s about “living up to librarianship’s reputation for good service.”

Of course, I would think that good businesses also do achieve a “reputation for good service.” In this sense it’s wise for librarians to, when applicable, follow suit. Especially when making acquisitions. Stephens cautions against “technolust,” and extols Web 2.0 for creating affordable solutions that diminish the need for overpriced solutions from vendors. West laments a “ ‘keeping up with the cool kids’ vibe that is hard to ignore,” and says it’s oftentimes best that librarians do just that - ignore it. To her, it’s important that librarians “honor where they’ve come from, as well as where they are going, in order to choose appropriate technologies but not be force fed.”

And choose they do. Librarians are citing blogs, RSS, video conferencing, and a variety of other Web 2.0 technologies as empowering tools of the trade. Phil Bradley, author of How to Use Web 2.0 in your Library, sees plenty of potential in Library 2.0, which he describes as “simply an incarnation of what Web 2.0 can do.” According to him, it offers the hope that instead of being a hindrance, “technology can start to help…give librarians a voice, and one that travels further.”


Marketing Librarians

No matter how improved a library is, it is important to narrate, evangelize and educate potential patrons in order for the institution, and the profession, to remain robust. Many librarians note the ease and affordability of social software as a budget-friendly marketing solution for libraries. But there is also room for improvement in the application of technology to these ends.

“I think that the biggest part of Library 2.0 that is being overlooked right now is online marketing and outreach,” says Sarah Houghton-Jan, Web Services Librarian for the San Mateo County Library in California. She advocates paying closer attention to local bloggers, review sites, and opportunities for libraries to reach out via social networks. “If we don't, we continue down this insular path that has gotten us to the situation we're in now, trying to catch up with the rest of the world,” she says.

But Stephens points to a study showing that while 84% of internet users begin searching with a search engine, only 1% start with a library website. This might signal the need for an even more momentous, dramatic approach to reminding the world about libraries. Solomon, for instance, would like to see a collective PR campaign like “Got Milk?” to convince the public that libraries are necessary in the first place. “Libraries keep selling themselves individually,” she tells me. This is fine, but it needs to be coupled with a broader approach in order to have a greater effect.

Better marketing of libraries is a “huge issue” to Meredith Farkas, author of Social Software in Libraries, who emphasizes the importance not just of libraries, but how to use libraries. Student and faculty library users are either unaware of, or unable to use, the databases in her library. More than simply announcing the existence of these tools, Farkas tells me, librarians need to offer educational workshops.

It seems this educational approach brings the added benefit of delivering a sense of ownership to the library user. Empowered with the ability to manipulate the tools that only librarians have traditionally had access to, patrons would begin to positively valuate their experience and participate more, just as many internet users are doing with social software and networking websites.

Similarly, Farkas encourages libraries to implement viral marketing strategies such as teen advisory boards, which are more time intensive than expensive, and ultimately effective: “People would rather hear that something’s cool from their peers - whether it’s teens or faculty members,” she says, and points to a couple examples of successful teen advisory boards in libraries.

So there are success stories, although apparently extensive room for improvement. One flaw might lie in what is actually getting marketed. Despite my concern expressed above for the disappearance of the library, Pival observes that efforts to market libraries to teens are very successful. His concern, however, is that the librarian is being left out of the story.

To address the decline in visitors to the reference desk, his library is thinking to scatter laptop-equipped staff out around campus - meeting students where they are. Pival also talks about how his staff has “embedded” librarians in faculties, thereby creating stronger bridges between the academic library and the rest of the school. “Getting ourselves in front of our patrons, virtually or physically, seems to be the key…marketing does not seem to be a strong point for libraries, and it needs to be.”

Marketing tends to benefit from creative approaches, as well. While Gene Ambaum says that the library-themed Unshelved comic strip he co-creates wasn’t intended “to promote libraries or library use, it has the effect of doing both.” Not to mention book promotion, which has had measurable success. Ambaum also notes an intensely online consumption of the comic strip, yet another indicator that the internet is certainly a viable place to market libraries.

Wittenborg says that in addition to student and faculty advisory boards, Web 2.0 technology is used at the University of Virginia to evangelize services and receive feedback. Roy lists several budget-friendly marketing tips for librarians, including “having a message” and “personalizing contact” through social technology including the phone, IM and blogs.

And if anyone were to question the urgency for libraries to be better marketed, Nicole Engard, a Metadata Librarian at Princeton Theological Seminary, highlights it: “There are community leaders out there writing to their local papers to say that libraries are not necessary - that average people using internet cafés can do everything we (librarians) can,” she says, citing a need to “get out there and show the world that libraries are not just about information and books; we are about finding the right information - trustworthy information.”

Consensus would have to be reached on exactly where to get out to and what world to show. Both local outreach and the “Got Milk?” approach have their respective merits, and might work well together if coordinated properly. But even a national campaign would be limited to one nation, and its message accordingly homogenized. Libraries aren’t milk, and the most successful libraries will be the ones that reflect their respective communities, whether located in a big city, small town or an impoverished third world country.

The Digital Divide
On Añihué Island in the south of Chile, there is no electricity or running water. There is, however, a library. Among the 85 families that inhabit the island, about 50 people have become inscribed patrons. Five children, plus a couple adults, regularly check out books.

It’s strange. The development of a library – as with any cultural institution or museum – would seem to be the domain of a more highly developed community than that of Añihué Island. First take care of running water, one might conclude; then talk to me about a library.

Harfagar, an architect based in Santiago who founded the library, himself says that if a survey of the archipelago were conducted, the people might respond that they need “decent roads, or a post office, or good quality employment, or a school nearby for their children. Or,” he adds, “possibly a library.”

But Harfagar makes it clear that the library is not the result of a survey, nor is it intended to meet a quota or increase literacy by a given percentile. In fact, when I ask him why Añihué Island needs a library he says, “It doesn’t need one.”

Instead, he seems to measure the library’s successes with anecdotal examples of how it has become “like one more neighbor,” while not imposing itself upon the islanders. Looking to expand the collection from its current 900-or-so items, Harfagar foresees highly specialized book purchases that reflect the needs of the community, harmonizing with Barber’s words, “I know that while there are some resources that almost every library should have, that every library is also unique.”

Harfagar thinks that digitization is inevitable, someday, but says that the need for developing “identity and local spirit,” beforehand. This also involves improvements in infrastructure, as digitization could only come after ensuring “potable water, sewage, a clean environment, electricity, health and education. These would come before technology,” says Harfagar.

The austerity of the islanders’ living conditions is remarkable. All but neglected by their regional government, the islanders live, as Harfagar puts it, very close to the earth. Their material plight serves as an extreme metaphor for the developing world. Commenting on the state of libraries in Argentina, Barry says, “It's difficult to foster the development of a library culture in less developed countries,” and notes that both the concept and the institution of libraries are overshadowed by more immediate concerns.

In exceptional situations such as Añihué Island, where a library is achieved, an intimate understanding of the community – and the physical poverty itself – is critical to becoming a relevant neighbor. Harfagar tells me, “The tiny population and characteristics of Añihué Island, with a rainy climate and slower pace of life, make for a small-scale library with less membership than others, but this makes sense within the logic of the way things work there.”

When discussing technology in Vermont’s rural libraries, Westnotes that “progress is slow” and that even if librarians were to implement Web 2.0 technology to serve their patrons better, it “wouldn’t make a difference,” to rural community members who currently don’t use the internet that often. Also noting low turnover among librarians, West tells me, “most people don’t mind or, frankly, they don’t live here.”

Again, a slower pace of life. In communities where the evolution of technology is less accelerated, the people have different needs, and will respond better to those who address those needs. Harfagar reminds us that the percentage of the world’s population that owns a computer is, or at least only recently was, in the single digits.

Further exacerbating the digital divide are politics. While the government of Chile boasts high rates of computer penetration in low-income households, Harfagar points out that the hardware and software is usually obsolete or defunct, even if anybody were to know how to use it. The number of households with computers ends up being a meaningless statistic, he tells me; one that is used as a device for political gain.

Is Chile the only country where this happens?
Getting people up to speed technologically is a lot more complex than sending them computers, even if the computers work. West tells me that the Gates Foundation putting computers in libraries is hardly analogous to the Carnegie Library constructions of the past, “it’s a different thing,” she says, “a really different thing.” West devotes much of her time to helping people in rural Vermont catch up to basic technological skills. She and many others are working tirelessly to fill a gap created by the introduction of computers, but no assistance and training for community members.

West tells me that many of her students simply don’t know other people who can help them with computer problems, making her job more or less critical. She seems to have a similar importance to the libraries she routinely attends to, having helped bring wi-fi and even to “strongarm the cable company into coming and doing the install.”

“No,” she tells me, rural libraries will never fully catch up to big city libraries, and then asks me, “should they?”

Good question. If a library isn’t seeking to be the most cutting edge, then what is it doing? What is the purpose of a library in the first place?

Harfagar places a strong emphasis on the formative role of the library that he envisions. He talks about the library being a place where the local fishermen, farmers and especially their children can let their imaginations set sail. He goes on to say that in such primitive communities, the physical world is all there is; if the library can open up the mind to a new world, it will allow for added appreciation of the immediate, physical world.

He says that “information,” such as reading the weather report to find out about what to wear tomorrow, is different from “formation,” which is knowledge that you internalize and carry with you to have a more meaningful impact on the community, such as one who studies up on the roots of global warming and effects a more lasting change.

While Harfagar isn’t unraveling a fiber optic connection between mainland Chile and the island of Añihué, it appears that the library is much less passive than one might assume from the “neighborliness” he alludes to. Rather, it seems the library is assuming the role of an educator, responsive to the community and its pace of life, but guiding it as well. The purpose of the library is to challenge and improve the community, in the case of Añihué Island, as a friend, not an imposed literacy project.

As a friend to the community, however, the library should deliver some basic skills to equip people with necessary skills for their own wellbeing. The need for emergency preparedness is something that the library can meet, even in some rural, less technologically literate communities.

West encourages “baseline technology know-how,” noting that with increasing e-government in the United States, computer literacy is becoming an absolute necessity. She points to taxes, interaction with elected representatives, and the infamous example of Hurricane Katrina, where people were forced onto the internet to fill out FEMA forms. “If you didn’t know how to use a computer,” says West, “it was a terrible time to have to learn.”

Libraries, which are so often esteemed the loser – or losing party – in a world whose information has gone online, are nevertheless proving themselves to be essential resources for technology, technology training and vital resources found online.

Chris Zammarelli, a University of Maryland graduate student and Brookings Institute library assistant, talks about how United States libraries are becoming “de facto e-government resource centers,” and cites both the electronification of libraries and the increasing sophistication of library patrons as the cause for library staff having to “learn more about IRS and Medicare forms and things of that sort than we've ever wanted.”

Yet another argument for the necessity of libraries, and one that in many cases will apply to the poorer segments of the United States. Although conceivably the librarian could survive as a freelance consultant removed from the library, there are many who vitally depend upon the library.

“Space and resources are valuable,” says Barber, who sees many of the Saturday patrons at his local public library as having “one thing in common; they don’t have access to a computer or resources at home.”

Nor do some have a home. The free public library is often the only place with public restrooms, and the public library is often the only place where the poor and marginalized are welcome. It’s also a place where people who take care of children seek refuge, it’s safe, and it’s getting rarer. As Roy reminds us, “libraries are still social institutions and can be centrally positioned to assist their communities, especially those who are often ignored, overlooked, or under-included.”

Digitizing Physical Space
Even in more affluent circumstances such as academic medical libraries, physical library space is being promoted – even created – as a result of technology. Plutchak points out that due to an increase in available information online, a patient center library was created at his University’s clinic to give people the physical space in which to receive, process and gather around a new surplus in information. He tells me that in the print world, the patient center library was not a priority.

New library space may even bear the image of that which inspires it, molded around the habits of patrons who demand that their search for information, space and social connections resemble how they find things and interact online. Pival tells me that the University of Calgary’s new library building is being designed with collaborative spaces that “seem to mirror the plethora of social spaces found online these days.” Underscoring a paradox, the physical building even has the words “Digital Library” in its title.

One would hope, however, that physical library space won’t be a 1:1 mirror of the Internet. The frenetic nature of online activity would hardly be conducive to a environment in which patrons seek refuge from distraction, and embrace lengthy periods of time in which to delve deep into their thoughts and research. Balancing the digitization of content with today’s students’ “different ways” of studying, where they group together and reconfigure spaces, Wittenborg notes a continued need for “‘analog’ places to read quietly and learn together.”

Naturally, many libraries are facing a reorganization and reutilization of space that already exists. Oftentimes it involves massive removal of books. St. Claire talks about the transformation of that “warehouse in the middle of campus” to an important center for a successful lifelong learning program, a video collection, café, an increasing number of study group rooms and more electrical outlets for laptops. She also notes that they threw 400,000 books into storage.

Similarly, Bell’s library is also carting books off into storage, and replacing stacks with computers as “wireless is becoming ubiquitous” in his library and all the academic libraries he knows about. “Technology is forcing libraries to eliminate book warehouse space,” he says, “and to replace it with people spaces that are inviting.”
But could this happen without technology? In distinguishing the TranAñihué library from the cold, inhuman public libraries of Santiago, Harfagar demonstrates a similar “progressiveness” on Añihué Island, despite the rustic backdrop. It seems that regardless of how one integrates with the community - whether walking in the mud and drinking mate with the islanders, or employing social software to interact with a more high-tech neighborhood, the success of a library seems to rely largely upon empathy.


Inside-out library

In addition to interpretations of what a library is, so too have some fascinating manifestations been realized. Apart from Web 2.0 interactivity being adopted by librarians, there are various projects underway which have potentially dramatic effects on librarianship today and in the future.

One of the least novel is book digitization, which arguably began with Michael Hart, the inventor of the eBook and founder of Project Gutenberg. It’s a noble, open source effort to make all the world’s public domain books free for readers to own on their own person computers or data storage devices. Hart draws many distinctions between Project Gutenberg and Google Book Search (GBS), another massive digitization effort that provides the user a dramatically different experience.

“With Google's eBooks, it's more like reading over someone's shoulders - you pretty much have to leave most of the control to them,” says Hart. He goes on to cite GBS’s eventually expressly stated purpose, that it is “a means for helping users discover books, not to read them online and/or download them.” But he finds fault with the “seeds of great disappointment sewn” by GBS’s 2004 media blitz that gave the impression of “what appeared to be a new public eLibrary.”

Project Gutenberg, on the other hand, is about as open as it gets, designed to give the end-user complete control. Books can be downloaded, fonts adjusted, corrections (should they be necessary) made - or any other modifications. Not just complete ownership, Hart advocates extensive ownership. He repeatedly points out the increasing capacity and affordability of electronic storage, that petabyte drives will be available the not-too-distant future, and “every word ever published could be stored on one petabyte. Now that is a library!”

This power of storage further reveals the meaninglessness of using libraries as collections warehouses. Pulling out this carpet from under the supposed (for some at least) identity of librarians, a redefinition of the librarian’s role, and what the library is, must entail a discussion of how libraries are to continue providing a safe place where librarians help connect the dots, but stay neutral and don’t snitch.

A library housing free, open source eBooks – or a librarian helping someone manage all the freely obtained information contained on her personal petabyte – sounds great. However Hart says very little about the role librarians will play in a world of digitized content. Perhaps just reflecting that GBS, through Google’s financial prowess, is the one who has managed to answer libraries’ dreams of digitization, Manager of Library Partnerships Ben Bunnell does talk a lot more practically about the effects of digitization on libraries. Unenthusiastic about calling GBS itself a library, Bunnell tells me that it’s best described as “just a tool for libraries and librarians” while “libraries have become centers of our community and librarians have become stewards of information.” He cites two major benefits of library partners – eliminating the delay of interlibrary loan, and dramatically improved ease in searching the full text of books.

Until Google came along to foot the bill, the cost of digitization has been just too high for many libraries. Project Gutenberg has an army of dedicated helpers who scan and enter books regularly, but their pace of production is no match for Google. Wittenborg explains that the University of Virginia “needed Google more than they needed us,” describing how GBS gave their long-term (since 1993) digitization efforts a “turbo-charge,” and says, “we can focus our efforts on areas where we can add value to digital information, such as how to use digital texts in scholarship and teaching.”

Breaking down the library walls to open up long-distance collaboration is one of the chief benefits of digitization. In the past, researchers collaborating over large distances would necessarily depend on a slower pace of communication and shipment of rare books. Assuming books simply didn’t get shared as much, it’s clear that more than just speeding up the process of collaboration between more people on a worldwide scale, digitization is creating interaction where none was happening before.

While Hart’s complaints about the restrictive nature of GBS are valid, it is GBS’s denial of public End Users’ access to the entirety of a book (in many cases) that necessarily draws attention to a different purpose to digitization – the digital book as a reference point, a piece of metadata, beyond the words and chapters of a book.

LibraryThing, a social networking site for bibliophiles developed by Tim Spalding, takes it a step further. While in terms of sheer volume, the site has more books than the Harvard Library, there’s not a single “book” in his library…thing. It’s purely metadata, an advanced form of namedropping around which people relate to one another and find common interests while, as more and more data is amassed, the predictive capabilities of automated book recommendation are further finessed.

Marshall McLuhan’s playful prediction that “the future of the book is the blurb” really seems to have come true. No longer is having the biggest, bestest library important – Spalding’s tabs on LibraryThing’s growth seems to mock the majesty of large library collections as he rapidly exceeds them. To Spalding, the quantity of content no longer seems important, but rather the quantity of social data. He expresses a loathing for the term “user-generated content,” because it's dehumanizing and implies an absurd productivity-based outlook when referring to peoples' devotion to their communities. To me, it seems that the data LibraryThing thrives upon is the conceptual antithesis of “content.” It's something immaterial that seems not only to depart from paper, ink and binding, but also from books' full-text digital counterparts. Explaining the effects of social data, such as tagging, Spalding tells me, “It’s taking things that are hard to make social, and it’s making them social in a huge way.”

Digital content is exploding, but what does it matter that in a few years someone could store all the world’s books on a petabyte, or all the world’s content on an iPod? Who would have the hundreds of lifetimes necessary to consume it all? Isn’t the real work about piercing through the data and finding meaningful patterns?

Hart draws a couple of apt analogies to the past, but I wonder whether or not they are relevant to the present, and future of content management. First, he points out that the evolution of books from paper to digital is probably inevitable – as what used to be written in stone is now on paper, what’s now on paper will soon be on screen. Similarly, he notes the exponential growth of and access to book content. “Before The Gutenberg Press the average person could own zero books. Before Project Gutenberg the average person could own zero libraries.”

Yet this enthusiasm for storage seems to overlook the greater effects that technology; not only is it increasing the quantity of content but, more importantly, it’s revolutionizing the way people orbit around that content. Moreover, the traces people leave behind and the patterns that they weave are almost becoming more interesting than the books themselves. In a recent talk to the Library of Congress, Spalding noted that certain aspects of cataloging simply couldn’t be replicated by a collection of full text copies of books, hinting that in some ways the content of the book is less important than the way people use it.

Will this trend continue to the point where content no longer but matters, but rather the idea of it? Or is that foolish hubris, like thinking that need only imagine food, not actually eat it?

One must remember that the cultural changes brought about by the Gutenberg press were extraordinary, and fueled not only by a sudden surplus of content, but also by a new way of interacting with that content. What seems unique about our age, however, is that social interaction is a form of content itself, and it’s up to librarians to take an active role in the creation and collaboration within this ethereal “user generated content.” It's more than just guiding patrons, but making this guidance contribute to the new substance of interaction.

The librarian contingent on LibraryThing does not call the shots. Similarly, the TransAñihué Community Library is just another neighbor. Nevertheless, librarians are indispensable, and nobody knows this better than librarians themselves. As times are changing faster than ever, now is the time to make yourselves known.

Gene Ambaum - Future of Libraries Interview

Gene Ambaum, along with Bill Barnes, is the co-creator of the librarian comic strip Unshelved, but Gene isn't his real name. Could you tell us how Gene came into being, and how Unshelved was created?

Gene is my middle name. Ambaum is the closest street to where I grew up (in Burien, outside Seattle) that has a name. Hence, Gene Ambaum. (Gene was also my father's name, so it's taken some adjustment to be able to answer to it when someone calls me Gene).

Bill and I are a couple of comics geeks. He had always wanted to do a comic strip and had been working on one when we started hanging out (his wife Sara, my friend from college, set us up on man dates). I kept telling him stories about working in the library. We started talking about collaborating. We went to the San Diego Comic Con and the Pro Con (which was still running back then) together in 2001 and thought, "We can do this." We started creating Unshelved on the plane on the way home.

What is Unshelved doing to promote the use of libraries?

It's not our intention to promote libraries or library use, but by creating characters and a narrative in the setting, I think it has the effect of doing both.

You also promote books through the comic strip and it actually works.

Bill and I both love to read, and we thought that we could use the strip as a vehicle to promote books that we like. We made a few painful false starts, but now we feel like the Sunday Book Club strips are a good starting point for what we would like to do. When I was a teen librarian, I would spend a lot of time preparing for booktalks that I might give to a few hundred students, if I was lucky. This is a way for me to let more people know about the books I care about, but at their pace. I love the fact that readers can file these away for later or just come and visit our website when looking for the next book to read -- going in to talk to teens, I felt like I either hit them at the right moment or the opportunity was lost.

Do you see your comic as a marketing tool for libraries?

Some libraries use individual strips that way, but that's not our overall intention in creating Unshelved.

It seems Unshelved has developed a cult following, and Gene a rock-star status. Or at the very least, you and Bill have created something that could be described as 'community' around Unshelved. Why is this important to libraries and librarians today and in the future?

I think the closest I come to being a rock star is playing Guitar Hero II. And that's only when I wear a wig.

For me, Unshelved is a way to step back from what I'm doing at the library, particularly when it's difficult, and laugh at the situation and myself. It seems to fill that function for other people, too. Sometimes this leads me to new ways of doing things or handling situations in the library, but mostly it's stress relief. And I think we can all use less stress. (Man, that's a terrible sentence.)

You've said that the weirder a story in one of your comics is, the more likely it is to be a true story. What's one of the weirdest stories that's been turned into a comic strip?

Buddy the Book Beaver is real.

A lot of Web 2.0 technology is making its way into libraries. Besides just being online, how does Unshelved work with Web 2.0 technologies?

Well, you can subscribe via RSS, we allow syndication on noncommercial sites, and we have a blog (and soon some form of community indexing, though Bill is reworking the website before we can launch that).

Judging by the way people consume your comic, can you extrapolate any lessons or trends about the direction of how librarians and library-users will organize and consume other kinds of data and information now and in the near future?

Online, online online. And, increasingly, outside the library.

Any additional thoughts?

If you've got the time, go read a book by Mike Carey. His output is incredibly varied - I just raced through his first prose novel, The Devil You Know, followed his "Lucifer" graphic novel series to its spectacular end, and enjoyed the two books of his in DC's MINX line. Incredible stuff.

Thanks Gene for sharing your thoughts and experience with us. Be sure to check out Unshelved News or their daily comic strip.

Daniel Lee - Future of Librarians Interview

Daniel Lee is a Research Librarian at Navigator Ltd, a research-based strategy firm, and is President-Elect for the Toronto Chapter of the Special Libraries Association. For those who don't know you, could you talk a little bit about your background?

Sure. Prior to joining Navigator, I was the Internet Content Coordinator at the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS). Before CIPS, I was the Research Coordinator for the Marketing and Communications department at Knowledge House, a Halifax-based e-learning software company. I have a Master of Library and Information Studies degree from Dalhousie University and I also have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish and Portuguese from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Let's pretend for a minute that you weren't involved in libraries. How do you personally use the library, search for and access information?

My main interaction with libraries outside work is using the public system. My local branch of the Toronto Public Library (1 of 99 branches) is amazing. I am there all the time browsing the shelves, taking out books, movies, magazines, etc. And TPL has a great online system for holding items and having them delivered to your local branch for pickup. I also access their Virtual Reference Library online for personal resource recommendations and research.

I primarily search for and access information using the Web. If the Web fails me, I go to either my own personal print collection or the one I manage at work. Failing that, I turn to one of my colleagues for assistance. Instant messaging is great for that. I have a crew of experts in various fields on my contact list who are only one instant message away.

What are the most useful features of libraries today?

The librarians and inter-library loan. I am finding that there is a refreshing attitude of fun and experimentation out there in libraryland. Many of my colleagues recognize the chaotic world we live in and the difficulties to be surmounted in delivering quality products and services to their users. Their approach is to experiment with new ways of working and I love that. Libraries are buildings and they don't do anything - it's the librarians and staff that make things happen in any library. They are what's most useful.

Why inter-library loan? Because it's an underused service that can open up an entire world of print and electronic information, if you just ask for it. If my branch doesn't have what I'm looking for, they'll get it for me - and it's usually free!

What are the most useless features of libraries today, and what can libraries do to eliminate them?

The librarian who cannot utter the words, "I don't know." I travel around North American fairly regularly and I make it a point to stop into the local branch of the public library wherever I am. I also make it a point to ask a reference question at the reference desk to see how my colleagues respond. Call it my own secret shopper program. I am always amazed by the number of professionals out there who flub their way through a response just to appear intelligent instead of simply saying, "I'm not really sure. Let's go take a look." In my opinion, it's doing a serious disservice to users to point them in a direction that will end up being a goose chase because of one's own pride.

Most OPACs suck. There are a number of librarians out there who have had enough with vendors and have decided to take matters into their own hands. While not everyone can build their own OPAC from the ground up, this work is inspirational and we, as a profession, should aspire to learn the skills required to take back the OPAC! Of course, the ultimate is to work towards integrating the various systems in a library of which, the OPAC is only a part, but considering most people out there are increasingly more comfortable doing their own research and go to the library's website and then the catalog, the OPAC should, without fail, lead people to what they're looking for.

What are the biggest challenges to libraries, and librarians' jobs. How can these challenges be overcome?

Fiscal ignorance (i.e. money is not manna from heaven - it's a line item in a budget usually approved by a bureaucrat, politician or CFO), invisibility, lack of metrics to put a value on information, lack of research from the practitioner community and a lack of access to published research in the library science field. Politically saavy librarians are successful librarians. I have often found there is a huge disconnect in librarians' understanding of where their funding comes from. And it's shocking to me when my colleagues say, "But I don't understand they they are closing my library." Or, "Why has my budget been cut?" I don't have the answer for the research aspect, but I would suggest that bring the practitioner community more into the research that is happening at the universities would certainly help. And I am thrilled to see open journals appearing like Evidence Based Library and Information Practice. This opens up avenues for practitioners who wish to contribute to the intellectual capital of the profession without having to return to the unversity or joining a faculty as an adjunct.

What does Library 2.0 mean to you?

To me Library 2.0 means users interacting with library-related websites they visit, generating their own content that blends seamlessly.

Why are librarians still important?

The infoverse is becoming increasingly complex and we put structure where there is chaos. This is what we have always done and what we will always continue to do. It's sense making. This combined with our service orientation makes us the perfect fit for tackling the infoglut that's out there right now - both online and offline.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights on librarianship with us.

Tim Spalding - Future of Librarians Interview

Tim Spalding is the creator of LibraryThing, but for readers who may not know you, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself for and your background?

Sure, well, there isn’t that much to say about me, personally. LibraryThing is my first endeavor that’s gotten any notice at all. I worked for Houghton Mifflin for a while, and I was a graduate student in Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan.

Books are very central to my life. I ended up marrying a novelist, which is a big mistake if you want to keep your library down. I've been doing book cataloging since I was a kid; I had a FileMaker database with my books on it, I played with various different solutions and I thought it would be fun. It wasn’t as if I wouldn’t make any money from LibraryThing at all, but I figured it would be a very small hobby project, not turn into a company.

I started LibaryThing in August, 2005, while I was doing freelance web design and web development type work, and it took off within the first week or so, growing quickly ever since. When it started, it was pretty much only cataloging. The inflection point happened when I realized people were starting to use it socially. They were sending each other the URL's to their libraries and commenting on each others’ libraries - so I just started adding social features and I think that’s really what’s provided a lot of the thrust.

Who were these people?

Extreme book nerds like me, and a lot of academics. Now it’s slid down to the point where there are lots of people on LibraryThing who are there to put in some books that they are reading right now, and then have conversations about them or get recommendations. So it’s not necessarily the guy with 3,000 books stashed away in his apartment.

LibraryThing is doing something different from a standard social network, where you’re connected to people based upon friends. That's a very sort of binary way of seeing the world: you’re my friend, you’re not my friend, maybe you’re my friend but I’m not your friend. The idea behind LibraryThing is that you’re connected to people in much more complex ways. We recently added "friends" and a category we call "interesting libraries," so you can track book reviews, ratings and so forth from people you know or whose libraries you want to follow. But the books are the core of it.

The way that you’re connected to people primarily is through books so if you and I share two books, it's not very interesting, but if you and I share 40 books, and they happen to be 40 of our more obscure books, then chances are we share some sort of deep connection of interest. So the content, the books that people put in, and the social dynamic, are intricately related.

Marshall McLuhan once said “the future of the book is the blurb” and it sort of seems like your site is proving his prediction right. What is LibraryThing doing to books?

You can see LibraryThing as doing something both very new and very old. I think that 50 years ago when you got together at a party with a bunch fairly smart people, chances were that one of them would reference a novel. These days it’s invariably a movie. You need to know somebody before you can start talking about shared novels. And you can’t really assume anyone’s read the same book except for Harry Potter. I think LibraryThing takes that idea and makes it possible to socialize around books which you wouldn’t otherwise know you have in common. It’s awfully like graduate school actually, where you could pretty much talk about certain books with anyone. That's just not true in the real world, and so it's a cool thing to be able to do online.

As something new, LibraryThing is doing a number of interesting things with book data, such as tags - you're even going to see a feature for tracking marginalia. It's taking things which are hard to make social and it’s making them social in a huge way.

Can you talk about the recommendation engines?

Sure. If you look on a page that shows you a particular book, you’ll see a list of suggestions and one of the links is to a list of larger suggestions. Right now I think I’ve got five recommendation algorithms, and there’s some very interesting math involved in making these things. Amazon is a good example of one. LibraryThing rests upon very good data. One of the sources is the tags, which is often very good but there are ways that tags can go wrong. The classic case is the tag “leather”, which can either be about the binding of a book, leather making, or a type of erotica – there’s no way to tell the difference without very complicated algorithms. A lot of it has to do with just holding patterns. If you and I share books, then other books that we don’t share ought to be interesting to each other. If you do some fairly standard statistics on that you get good data out. Amazon does the same thing, but when you buy a book on Amazon you might buy it for a co-worker, or your wife, and the books you buy on Amazon are not a good sampling of everything you’ve ever bought. LibraryThing by being in some way a representation of your whole library - or even just what you’re reading now - is a much truer representation of who you are.

It’s also much better for the so-called long tail. I have books in my library now which are not heavily sold but they're still good. A classic example on Amazon is when you type in "Harry Potter" and the five recommendations are the other five Harry Potters. Which makes sense. LibraryThing throttles that so it only gives you two Harry Potters and then it gives you things like A Wrinkle in Time. Well, A Wrinkle in Time is a great book, but it’s not selling really well this week. But it’s in peoples’ libraries. So LibraryThing sees it and says, well, people who like Harry Potter are going to like A Wrinkle in Time and Susan Cooper books and whatever else.

LibraryThing uses Z39.50 protocol. Is that a gimmick like listening to music on vinyl records, or is is it really the best thing out there?

Z39.50 is a protocol that libraries have been using for quite some time to exchange data with each other, but the way that they do it returns records which are fairly difficult to parse, you have to know how to parse them. So with LibraryThing, I figured out how to make that work. It’s not rocket science, but it takes a little bit of effort and a lot of tolerance of bad old technologies. Many of LibraryThing's competitors rest on the fact that there’s this Amazon API that queries Amazon and comes back with beautifully formatted XML. If you’re not really deep into books that’s good enough, but if you own books that are out of print it's not going to be good enough for you. If you care about library data, if you want subjects, dewy decimals and so on - if you want really high quality book data you have to go to Libraries to get it. So LibraryThing sort of goes the extra mile.

At home I’ve got my bookshelf arranged by color, how can I do that on LibraryThing?

You’d have to tag it. People have suggested that we color-analyze the colors and allow people to display their shelves like that. I think that’d be a fun feature.

By using library technology and giving really personalized recommendations, could this take the place of librarians?

In terms of the recommendation thing, librarians don’t present themselves as knowing the entire universe of books. Librarians have long relied on readers’ advisory websites, journals, other librarians, patrons they respect and so forth. LibraryThing is just one more source in the mix there. I don’t think it obviates the need for a librarian any more than amazon or anything else does. If there’s a crisis in librarianship I think it’s not there.

But there are a few ways in which LibraryThing does librarian-like tasks. There is a feature which disambiguates editions: you can put all the different editions of a particular work together, and the users decide whether a book is or is not also an edition of the Hobbit. Librarians have some ways of doing that but LibraryThing is a very good solution because it’s drawing upon the collective intelligence of thousands of people. LibraryThing is doing some interesting things with statistics and user-generated content, a phrase that I absolutely hate but there’s no better.

After I came up with related tags, I decided to look at which subjects relate to the tags the most, and displayed Library of Congress subject headings in a statistical relevancy order. It doesn’t appear that anyone’s ever done that before.

Can you talk more about that?

Sure. With tag classification, you build up this enormous database of what people think about books. So you can take a particular tag like “chick lit”, for example, and it will spit back at you a list of books that are tagged “chick lit” in descending order of relevance. It's a very good list. Also "cyberpunk" and various others can be better than Library of Congress subject headings, depending on what they’re for, and how they’re made. LibraryThing was born digital, so it has a concept of relevance that a lot of library classifications don’t have. In the Library of Congress, for example, there’s a category called "Man-Woman Relationships". The book either is, or is not, about man-woman relationships. But of course 80% of all books in western literature are in some sense about man-woman relationships. LibraryThing goes beyond a lot of sites in that we have tagging, and we mix the tagging up with controlled subject headings like the Library of Congress, so you can see for a given tag what the most relevant subjects are, and vice versa. There are advantages and drawbacks to both. On one end you have the LibraryThing tag "leather", which is highly ambiguous, but on the other side you’ve got the Library of Congress' subject heading ‘Cookery’, which is actually a good subject heading, it’s just that no one knows to type "Cookery" into a catalog. There are problems and benefits to both approaches; I don’t think tags are going to get rid of classification anymore than TV got rid of radio.

We recently introduced the concept of the "tagmash," static pages for the union of two or more tags. So, for example, you can find out what books are tagged "wwii" and "france". This gets past one problem with tags, that people don't tag that verbosely; they don't usually tag things with "france during World War Two." It closes some of the gap between tags and formal, hierarchical subject headings.

We also recently made LibraryThing recommendations and tag-based browsing available to libraries inside their current OPACs. The program is called "LibraryThing for Libraries". Through some magical JavaScript, it works within any OPAC, and it's pretty cheap to do. Four libraries are already live with the product. We've had trouble keeping up with demand, but will shortly hire a dedicated library programmer to get serious about expanding it.

Do you see LibraryThing as a vanguard, shaping the future of how libraries work?

I think it’s pushed forward the idea of having users in the mix. Other people have done it, too, but LibraryThing is certainly the most prominent example of people tagging and classifying books online. Amazon had ratings and recommendations for a million years but that was always in the service of commerce. LibraryThing takes more of a booklover's approach to it. Library science is so binary and anti-statistical, so just seeing things like the relevancy feature on a website has inspired people to think about it a little bit differently.

The thing that really attracts librarians is that LibraryThing takes the library data seriously. There's a lot of really great data in library catalogs which hasn’t gotten out there. If you look back 10-15 years ago, and you notice this thing called the Internet, you would probably assume that if you typed "The Hobbit" into a search engine, the Library of Congress would show up near the top. But no! No library is near the top! They are hundreds down, and it’s because librarians didn’t get their data out there, they didn’t show people that their data was good. Organizations like OCLC have a vested interest in preventing library data from getting out there, while organizations like Amazon have gotten really hip to the idea of putting their data out there as a way to sell more. LibraryThing is taking this data seriously, doing statistical analysis on it, taking all of the records for the hobbit from 50 different libraries and figuring out what that data means, and what you can smoosh it together to mean. That’s something that should have happened 15 years ago, and we're just starting to play with it now. Whether inspired directly or just part of a general upsurge, people are starting to do stuff with library data now which is really inspiring.
 

Sources :degreetutor.com