Random Questions on Future Libraries from Scott McLeod

I enjoy reading Scott McLeod's blog, Dangerously Irrelevant, because it challenges the status quo. He asks the questions that make us uncomfortable about the future of education (which is inextricably tied up in libraries, of course). He's posted some questions as a result of some recently completed speaking gigs. I answer them here.

1. What constitutes a “book” these days? When books become electronic and thus become searchable, hyperlinkable, more accessible to readers with disabilities, and able to embed audio, video, and interactive maps and graphics, at what point do they stop becoming “books” and start becoming something else?

Most of us refer to the material in our collections as "items" rather than "books." Because so many of them are not books anymore! We've been circulating records, tapes, CDs, DVDs, and other media for a long time now, so this is actually not a new concept. Libraries are story repositories, and whether those stories are accessible through hypertext, games, songs, movies, or any other form of media is sort of... um... irrelevant.

2. The Amazon Kindle e-reader currently allows you to annotate an electronic book passage with highlights and your own personal notes. Those annotations are even available to you on the Web, not just on the Kindle device itself. As Seth Godin notes, there hopefully will be a day when you will be able to share those notes with others. You’ll also be able to push a button on your e-reader and see everyone else’s notes and highlights on the same passage. What kind of new learning capabilities will that enable for us?

Just as today, your chosen learning community's notes and annotations will have the most relevance for you. In the face of all the junk that will emerge (ever bought a used textbook in college with crazy unrelated notes in the margins?!), the people whose opinions matter most to us will guide our reading experience.

3. If students and teachers now can be active content creators and producers, not just passive information recipients, doesn’t that redefine our entire notion of what it means to be information literate and media fluent? Are our librarians and classroom teachers doing enough to help students master these new literacies (for example, by focusing on student content creation, not just information consumption and/or interpretation)?

Yes. No. The NETS standards and AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner, among others, should be used by teachers in every discipline to measure student learning. But they are typically only being used by librarians, which is unacceptable. Administrators must reemphasize the library as the hub of student learning, not just an adjunct classroom space. Librarians should be the Lead Learners in every school building, and every teacher should be required to consult with them on a regular basis in order to build lesson plans that incorporate appropriately awesome information sources (see, not just books!) with the aim of total information literacy.

4. The Cushing Academy boarding school in Massachusetts may be the first school in the country to have its library go completely electronic. In addition to using library computers, students now check out Kindles loaded with books. How tough would it be for other schools to move to this model (and what would they gain or lose as a result)?

Pretty tough with the Amazon business model available today. Developmentally appropriate and appealing texts are not always available in Kindle formatted e-books for young people. I have the inkling that they may have done this for publicity - where is their librarian in all this? It's fairly suspect that their librarian is not the one in the spotlight here, it's the school's headmaster fronting the change. Take that as you will.

5. When books, magazines, newspapers, reference materials, music, movies, and other traditional library content all go electronic and online - deliverable on demand - what does that mean for the future of the physical spaces known as “libraries?” Mike Eisenberg said to me that we already should be taking yellow caution tape and blocking off the entire non-fiction and reference sections of our libraries. As content becomes digital and no longer needs to be stored on a shelf, with what do we replace that now-unused floor space: couches, tables, and cozy chairs? computer stations? meeting space? And if we head in these directions, what will distinguish libraries from other institutions such as coffee shops, community centers, and Internet cafes?

Public libraries are already converting reclaimed floor space into community areas, meeting rooms, and other usable spaces. And the difference between us and a coffee shop is that we're a neutral space, a space in which all are welcome. Haven't you seen coffee shops run off teens hanging out without buying coffee?!

What has, does, and will distinguish us from these spaces are LIBRARIANS. Your barista doesn't know how to help you find a price guide for 19th century china dolls, or figure out what the primary motivations were of the Romantic poets, or locate the best resource for building an addition to your house (as well as getting the right permits for local construction!). We do all that and more on a daily basis without breaking a sweat - we're trained information professionals.

6. Our information landscape is more complex than ever before. We still need people who know how to effectively navigate these intricate electronic environments and who can teach others to do so. But does that mean we still need “librarians” who work in “libraries?” Or will their jobs morph into something else?

Oh, they may call us something else. I personally like the Australian libraries calling themselves "knowledge centres." But our essence will remain the same - people who are intimately familiar with locating and manipulating information. The information changes - we only change in response to its evolution.

7. How much of a librarian’s current job could be done by someone in a different location (for example, someone in India who answers questions via telephone or synchronous chat) or by computer software and/or an electronic kiosk? I don’t know the answer to this question - and I suspect that it will vary by librarian - but I do know that many individuals in other industries have been quite dismayed to find that large portions of their supposedly-indispensable jobs can be outsourced or replaced by software (which, of course, means that fewer people are needed locally to do whatever work requires the face-to-face presence of a live human being).

Although there are many folks in other countries who could answer basic factual questions through outsourcing, I would never imagine that I could replace, say, an Indian librarian in the same manner if only for the simple fact that I don't have an entire lifetime sunk into reading Hindi-language books (not to mention absorbing the culture). The best librarians have been voracious readers and consumers of text/stories/movies/music since their wee years. It has an enormous effect on our ability to match the right person with the right materials. There is a lot of nuance needed, as well, in a good reference interview. Can an outsourced, distanced librarian help determine what the patron really needs instead of what s/he thinks s/he needs? You'd be surprised at the average library user's inability to articulate clearly what information they need because of gaps in their existing knowledge - which is of course not their fault, but it's why we have librarians in the first place.

8. Can a librarian recommend books better than online user communities and/or database-driven book recommendation engines? For example, can a librarian’s ability to recommend reading of interest surpass that of a database like Amazon’s that aggregates purchasing behavior or a dedicated user community that is passionate about (and maybe rates/reviews) science fiction books, and then do so for romance, political history, manga, self-help, and every other possible niche of literature too?

Maybe. Some librarians are better at this than others. (Keep in mind that purchasing behavior doesn't indicate enjoyability.) Most of us librarians are already out there in those book communities, in LibraryThing and Goodreads and blogging and sharing and Amazon rating and everything you have mentioned. I think the real question is: without librarians, would these online resources be as awesome? ;)

9. If school librarians aren’t actively and explicitly modeling powerful uses of digital technologies and social media themselves and also supporting students to do the same, should they get to keep their jobs?

If they're not at least actively learning about these things and trying to use them, then no. I don't expect every single librarian to become a social media expert, but if a digital tool exists to help you do your job better then you better be using it. It's not about using shiny new things for their own sake, it's about finding the right tool to manipulate information.

And if they are doing so individually (which is what we want), what’s their responsibility to police the profession (and lean on those librarians who aren’t)?

You can lead a horse to water... ultimately, we have the responsibility to move our profession in the direction our patrons are leading us. We can choose, in our own institutions, to educate our fellow librarians or even get sneaky and coerce them into trying new technologies so that they can recommend them to patrons. Because the right information that our patrons may need in the future is not always going to be textual; it may be a tool.

10. There is no conceivable future in which the primacy of printed text is not superceded by electronic text and media. If that future is not too far away (and may already be here), are administrators doing enough to transition their schools, libraries, and librarians / media specialists into a new paradigm?

Nope, they're not doing enough. Not collectively, anyway. But can you blame them? What with No Child Left Behind and testing and pep rallies and the weight of collective school culture and tradition, how on earth can they transition into a new paradigm? We need radical change for education - revolutionary improvements rather than incremental attempts at change - in order to move into the new information world of the 21st century.

Vint Cerf & friends on Net Neutrality

At Internet Librarian 2009, we got to hear Vint Cerf with Google as our Monday keynote. I found this great video by way of Alec Couros' blog, which features Cerf talking about the importance of net neutrality.

Net neutrality is a super important concept for today's Internet users to learn about. Here's why you should support it:

-- Right now, it doesn't matter what you type into the address bar at the top of your browser. Whether you ask for this blog, Google.com, the New York Times, a friend's Facebook page, or your mom's recipe bookmarks on Delicious.com, your Internet service provider (ISP) will serve up whatever you ask for at the same speed. Every site is equal in the eyes of your ISP, and they are *neutral* when it comes to giving you access to these wildly different sites.

-- Without net neutrality, the doors are open to wealthy corporations and other people with influence to pressure the ISPs into delivering some sites more quickly than others. Or not at all. Can you imagine paying for Internet access and not being able to go to the sites you want to visit? Or having to sit and wait while the "right" sites are being delivered quickly, and your ISP deprioritizes your choices because the site owners couldn't afford to pay off TimeWarner, AOL, or (your ISP here)?

Net neutrality is something you should know about. It's a wonderful thing, and it keeps the voices on the Internet flowing in a democratic and fair way. Your choice is what matters - not the choices of the wealthy or well-connected.

For more info and explanation, try the Wikipedia article on net neutrality. SaveTheInternet.com, or the DemocracyNow! video on net neutrality.

Happy 2nd Anniversary from IL2009

I'm excited to celebrate 2 years of blogging here! I wanted a new place to collect library thoughts so began this blog at IL2007 in order to do just that. This has been a great space for me to explore the random library, education, and literature-related ideas that flow through my head. Sometimes I feel like I should have named this blog schooling.ME because that's a more accurate way to describe it :) Having a dedicated blog space has really helped me to think deeply about all the bits and scraps I read about in my RSS feeds, tweet about on Twitter, and text about with friends.

That said, there are even more issues (relatively speaking) this year at IL as compared to two years ago. I have been following the Twitter backchannel chat and trying to pull out the themes that seem to be dominating the conversation this year:

THANKS. First, thanks to all who attended our presentation yesterday, with @lorireed & @librarianbyday & myself (@erindowney). For the lady in the audience who wanted to learn more about RSS, I recommend my wiki at http://cyber64edu.wetpaint.com/page/aggregators%2Freaders and to follow up with http://tinyurl.com/2rf25c . Good luck and drop me an email if you're not feeling it gel for you!

PART ONE from Bobbi Newman
PART TWO from me:

Sneaking the Social Web Into Your Library

View more documents from erindowney.

NOSTALGIA. Despite our love of all things shiny & techno, there was a lot of talk in the keynotes about the solitary experience of reading, the scent of paper, and the sensory cues that tune us into this alternate world of deep contemplation. Although we acknowledge that libraries provide a new and wonderful node of community convergence, walking the line between preserving that singular & personal experience with information and the collective experience with the same is proving difficult for us emotionally. (Imagine how this affects how our patrons see us!)

CONTROL. Directors and other decision-makers are no clearer, according to attendees, about the fact that controlling dialogue online is at best illusory and at worst dictatorial. Transparency and extension of professional trust is the sentiment of the day. The boat has sailed: Internet communication means that we've created a sort of uber-democracy where voices cannot be stifled, no matter how much we may not want to hear them. The new proactive approach to service is to constantly scan the conversation and to become a part of it in productive, positive, and meaningful ways. Not participating is no longer a viable option.

LEARNING. Folks have expressed in various forums that libraries are still doing something very well – being one of those places where true learning can take place and personal passion can be pursued. Traditional schooling and the idea of teaching is transforming mightily, and the attendees here seem to be of the opinion that creating life-long learners is a process happening outside traditional institutions of learning. But this means letting go of our egos and seeing ourselves as coaches or facilitators rather than “teachers,” and is a point of friction.

RADICAL CHANGE/BUREAUCRACY. This dichotomy is not working for people. Librarians need to be set free to experiment, to fail, to try and dabble and poke about in order to bring about the change that's needed to keep up with our users. The world is moving very quickly, and we stand the chance to exponentially lose street cred & relevance. Red tape, delays, paperwork, and other things keep us lumbering along like the dinosaurs (and many see us this way). Flexible, nimble, and ephemeral teams are more relevant as an organizational structure for today's library.

From my perspective, these were all topics we were talking about 2 years ago at IL2007 but today's conversations are much more intense. Transformative change only occurs when we can get our home institutions on board and gain critical mass with our own coworkers. If IL2007 was “try something new,” IL2009 is “DO something NOW!”

Even more e-readers, and mobile thoughts

At our annual Staff Day extravaganza on Columbus Day, Columbus Metropolitan Library's director Patrick Losinski gave a nice keynote about today's library challenges and opportunities. His library concentrates on three key constituencies: young minds, power users, and virtual users. I think these are three sets of people you'd do well to make your primary service groups...

And speaking of power users and virtual users, I've kept rounding up the e-reader news & thinking about the issues. Check it out:

B&N E-Reader goss as well as SCOOP!

Spring Design reader will reportedly feature the Android OS

NYT weighs in:
Libraries & (digital) readers
and also
Brains and electronic reading

Mother Jones on ecological aspects of e-reading

The coming explosion!

Since my last rather ranty post about e-readers & such electronic devices, the field has gotten crowded with competitors and announcements. 2010 is totally going to be the year of the e-reader!

Time previews some of the new devices

Barnes & Noble will have their own reader for customers

Amazon answers with a price cut & international Kindle access!

Speculations over tablet PCs from Asus and Apple include e-reader capabilities & design

LG's solar powered reader has promising niche appeal, could be huge in remote/rural places & emerging markets like Africa, etc.

And bloggers do the roundup of developments at the AtlanticWire

What this all boils down to, of course, is that computing is becoming even more mobile and interactive. Being able to manipulate interfaces directly a la the iPhone makes tablets ultra-droolworthy, and the emergence of a mainstream e-reader market has come from the desire of the contemporary reader to engage with text flexibly & digitally. Our silicon ways (wouldn't that make a great band name?) have brought us to an interesting juncture - truly ubiquitous computing may be right at our fingertips.

I'm gonna tweet ur old-skool stuff!

One of the newest trends I've been following? Republishing older, public-domain works in installments online. This definitely proves that everything old can be new again! Ranging from the revered and famous to the unknown and pedestrian, people are rediscovering the pleasures of slowly getting a story in bite-sized chunks. Check them out below:

John Quincy Adams' diary entries brought to you by the Massachusetts Historical Society:
http://twitter.com/Jqadams_mhs

Samuel Pepys can help you relive 1666 all over again:
http://twitter.com/samuelpepys

Dracula is republished in real-time on this blog:
http://dracula-feed.blogspot.com/

Tail-end of the Great Depression through the eyes of a girl in rural Illinois:
http://twitter.com/Genny_Spencer/

The Orwell Prize is republishing the writer's diaries in blog form:
http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/

If you know of others, let me know and I will add them to this post.

I downloaded a book (and I liked it... sort of)

I felt as though, after my last post, I should play more with electronic books so that I can speak from a position of experience. So, I fired up my Kindle app on my iPhone - downloaded only because it was free - and flipped through my purchases, such as they were. I had only downloaded a short story and a few sample chapters, so I had no real experience at extended reading on my phone.

Because I've been enjoying the TV show True Blood based on Charlaine Harris' novels, I decided to try the first in her Sookie Stackhouse series. I had flipped through them years before, and thought I might give them another try. After all, reading tastes change and I needed an "average" book to try out: something I would have bought in paperback, not too long or too short, just an average sort of book in order to get an average experience reading using Kindle.

Well, that was a mistake.

Dead Until Dark was a fun little book. So fun, in fact, I was eager to see what happened next in the series. And with an electronic book, all you have to do is hit the download button. It's like a direct delivery system for book addicts; Kindle crack, if you will. The rush of instant gratification was a little magical and a little thrilling. There I was, in the backseat of a car, and within moments I was reading the continued tales of a vampire-dating waitress from Louisiana. I was about as happy as a real book lover could possibly be.

But that feeling didn't last very long after I was done. For me, books are just about as social as anything else in the world. So of course I started thinking of people I would recommend this series to. And I realized that I could recommend all I liked, but that I wouldn't be able to lend them my copies of the books! I'd have to hand over my phone in order to lend out my "books." And in my mind, that's a big loss. One of my big readers' advisory mantras is that recommendations are only as good as your ability to connect the reader and book as fast as possible. Nobody likes to wait, and there's a reason why Big Chain Bookstores engage in the "here, let me hand you the merchandise" practice: it cements the deal.

So while the e-book version was convenient for me as a solitary reader, it led me into a dead end. Even if I was able to "gift" my digital copy to another reader, it would still only be able to be read on an iPhone or a Kindle itself. I think the experience left me a little poorer than it found me - although now I've read the books, I'm not able to share that with other people unless they are willing to pay about $6.00 and go out to find the books themselves.

I'm inclined to think that this hurts the publishing industry more than it supposedly helps them. I rarely lend out an entire series of books, but I frequently lend the first copy in a series to friends and colleagues who are willing to give them a try. How many subsequent sales does that drive? Also, the price point seemed pretty arbitrary to me. I could pay between $2.00-$6.00 for a used paperback copy for the same book locally, and have the residual value of the physical book left over for sharing, etc. In theory, e-books are so cost-efficient to deliver to the consumer that it totally disrupts the distribution model. You only need one copy of the book on a central server to make a copy of for each reader, so I hope more of the profits would go to the writer (but I strongly suspect this isn't really the case). And finally, publishers are losing their cheapest form of free advertising. Nobody I encountered that day knew I was sitting there reading Dead Until Dark. They had no clue. When carrying around a physical book in public, I usually get at least basic questions from people I encounter like "is that any good?" or "do you like it?" Now those chance encounters are all closed off.

So in the pros column, we have convenience and portability as well as instant gratification. But in the cons column, I experienced a lot of frustration in trying to share my reading experience. E-books also seem expensive given their limitations and restrictions.

While I won't be repeating this experience with downloadable audiobooks (I am notoriously unable to listen to books, so it wouldn't be a fair experiment), I do feel like I've gotten more insight on the electronic reading experience. If anyone has thoughts to share, I'd like to hear what you have to say in the comments section.