Developing a new blend of library
BRIEFING
Developing a new blend of library This year’s OCLC’s EMEA conference discussed how to develop a new blend of library – mixing print and digital to create an engaging experience both in the library building and beyond. Sarah Bartlett reports.
EVERY year OCLC organises a two-day themed conference for library professionals in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region. This February, the conference took place in Birmingham, and under the theme ‘Developing a new blend of library’, speakers and delegates explored initiatives and ideas along the intersection of the digital sphere and physical library space. BBC TV news coverage of the event on the first day added to the considerable buzz that the conference generated. Sarah Bartlett ([email protected]) is a specialist copywriter.
The replacement of print with digital resources can free up physical space previously used for storage.
18 CILIPUPDATE
The library as a place
Birmingham is building what will be Europe’s largest public lending library when it opens in 2013. This ambitious £193m project will blend a thoroughly 21st century library space with a multi-pronged digital offer. Brian Gambles, Chief Executive of the Library of Birmingham Development Trust and keynote speaker at the conference, retains a passionate belief in ‘the library as a place which embraces and builds community’, and says that the city ‘has grasped the pivotal role of culture and community in place-making and city-building’. One of the modernised library spaces praised during the conference was the Almere library in the Netherlands, singled out for its retail-based design, involving long undulating shelves, outward-facing books, and subject-based areas such as DIY. ‘The whole experience was a pleasurable one’, said OCLC’s Lorcan Dempsey, ‘and you felt that the library was all about service – reaching into your interests; showing you materials; engaging you in helpful ways.’ Historically, as Dempsey explained, libraries were vertically integrated around collections, and efficiency was achieved by putting materials closer to people. But now, he said, ‘space is moving from infrastructure to engagement. In public and academic libraries, space is the support for a range of social activities in terms of meeting, learning groups, exhibitions and specialist equipment. Libraries are expanding services to create more ways for people to use and manage information. By shifting from infrastructure and collections to engagement around users, different services emerge.’ The replacement of print with digital resources can free up physical space previously used for storage. Many libraries in Europe have performing spaces, and
American libraries are increasingly opening up the use of space with mobile shelving. Creating more space for computers helps to address the digital divide, and attracts other socio-economic groups to an inviting space.
The blended library The library may be ideally positioned to exploit the full spectrum of possibilities that open up when the digital sphere blends with the physical library space. Kathleen Imhoff, a US-based public library consultant and member of the OCLC Board of Trustees, spoke of digital studios, where people can create their own media on expensive equipment beyond the reach of many households. In the US, many newer regional or branch libraries include radio reading services for the blind. Erik Boekesteijn, a library commentator from the Netherlands who broadcasts ‘This Week in Libraries’ (at www.thisweekinlibraries.com), highlighted large multi-touch tables styled on smartphone touch screens, which attract people to the library building to share digital content. One exciting element of the digital services offered by the new Birmingham library will be gaming. The library has embraced a delivery strategy based on partnerships, and is working closely with a company called Preloaded, who have a strong track record in the cultural sector, to create innovative games that will engage young people with the library and its collections. Birmingham is not alone in providing for specific demographic groups, and conference delegates heard of similar initiatives, many of which focused on teenagers. Erik Boekesteijn praised an Australian library which targets the hard-to-reach 18-35 year old male group, for its Sportswalk Gaming area combining screens displaying sport information with gaming consoles. Kathleen Imhoff reported on Teen Creation Centers, which have become a significant movement among American public libraries.
The ambiguities of online provision
A blended library acknowledges the ongoing relevance of the physical library as well as ambiguities around online provision. Kathleen Imhoff pointed out that the digital divide remains a reality – many people have no access to a computer or smartphone. The unemployed May 2012
BRIEFING are coming to the public library building in droves to update their CV, search for jobs, or develop interview skills. David White, from Oxford University, delivered a session on the OCLC-partnered Visitors and Residents project, which challenges the digital native idea that ‘the kids understand technology, but old people don’t’, a misguided notion that has led to a conflation of technical aptitude with research skills, when in reality, ‘having 600 Facebook friends and a smartphone doesn’t make you good at critical evaluation’, as White argues. ‘Visitors and Residents’ has emerged as a respected typology of web users. ‘Different people approach the web in different ways and in different contexts’, White explains. ‘Visitors decide on a goal, see the web as a toolbox in which they rummage around for the right tool, use it, and leave no trace of themselves online. Residents, on the other hand, see the web as a place where they live out a portion of their lives. They have an identity online, which remains in place even when they’ve logged off.’
Online visibility
For physical items that still have their place in the library, the catalogue can enhance online visibility, and hence awareness. OCLC’s Elisabeth Robinson gave an in-depth demonstration of ‘FAB Libraries’, the first freely-available national public library catalogue, funded by OCLC. The simple search box can be embedded anywhere on the web, depending on where library users gravitate. This resembles webscale platforms like Etsy and Amazon, which over the past two years have shifted from being web destinations to become ‘multiply-surfaced on the web’. As Lorcan Dempsey said, ‘they want to reach into your life. They recognise that whether you are a resident or a visitor, you have workflows and patterns that may involve a range of services. They’re available in a variety of social networks and on mobile devices.’ Returning to the blended library, Dempsey added, ‘the library has a physical surface, a building, and also a number of networked services, and all these are places that offer diverse library experiences. This phenomenon ties together the physical and digital, and reminds the library that one of its surfaces is, in fact, physical.’ Networked services can point internet users back to physical services and resources. Elisabeth Robinson was clear that the real value of FAB Libraries would lie in exposing ‘the exciting, the unique, the local, the rare’ in British public libraries. Alison Cullingford from University of Bradford, RLUK Unique & Distinctive Collections Project Manager, delivered an inspiring session on special collections, which raised intriguing questions about the blended library. Early findings of an RLUK-OCLC survey of special collections in British academic and national libraries reveal that they hold a total of 11 million printed items, and continue to grow. When survey participants were asked what troubled them most, the top answer was space. The other major concern (which surprised many in the event’s Twitter stream), was born-digital materials. Paper can survive decades of neglect, but with born-digital, active intervention is essential for preservation. Cullingford made the fascinating point that ‘special collections are all the more special because everything else is the same – it’s all on your tablet – and there’s a huge wow factor in using things that are different – large or small, or made hundreds of years ago.’ She perceives special collections as living entities. ‘We like people and want to work with them’, she declares. ‘We welcome more use of personal digital cameras – they can present problems in terms of copyright, but in terms of services, they’re fantastic. May 2012
OCLC President Jay Jordan at OCLC’s EMEA 2012 conference in Birmingham.
As libraries integrate with the lives of their users, they need more systems and services to support them.
We’re all digitising, and we’re working towards making everything available online.’ As libraries integrate with the lives of their users, they need more systems and services to support them. This is difficult for libraries, especially in today’s straitened budgetary climate, so there is a strong drive towards collaboration, sharing resources globally, freeing up librarians to focus on the vital task of local engagement with specific constituencies. ‘Libraries’, concluded Dempsey, ‘need to connect human-scale local needs to the opportunities that await at webscale.’ The webscale opportunity that OCLC presented at the conference is the WorldShare platform, which offers the potential to transform the global presence of library resources and services on the web. As Robin Murray explained, ‘WorldShare is designed specifically to operate at webscale, and will be open to the global library community to support collaboration, innovation and sharing’. Building on the OCLC WorldCat catalogue, WorldShare is a multi-layered platform, and one area – the application layer – attracted particular interest on the event’s Twitter stream for opening up the platform to anyone in the world wanting to build library-related applications. Even at this early stage, there are around 80 community-developed applications sitting alongside those built within OCLC itself. Murray took the audience through a small number of examples, such as one that integrates the New York Times Bestseller List with the library acquisition workflow, and another that generates a map from the user’s current location to the position of an item on the shelf.
Transforming libraries; transforming lives It was an uplifting conference for all involved, one that did not fight shy of the realities that libraries face today. It triggered animated discussions between sessions, and was conducive to active participation throughout. Delegates described it as interesting and varied and ‘perfectly organised, full of helpful information’, and more than one delegate commented that it had provided an opportunity to meet librarians from a wide variety of backgrounds and countries. OCLC brought together a community of strident library professionals who no longer perceive the world to be moving from print to digital, and who instead see their responsibility as blending the two to create compelling experiences in the library building and elsewhere, transforming the lives of those who engage with them. n U CILIPUPDATE
19
Developing a new blend of library This year’s OCLC’s EMEA conference discussed how to develop a new blend of library – mixing print and digital to create an engaging experience both in the library building and beyond. Sarah Bartlett reports.
EVERY year OCLC organises a two-day themed conference for library professionals in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region. This February, the conference took place in Birmingham, and under the theme ‘Developing a new blend of library’, speakers and delegates explored initiatives and ideas along the intersection of the digital sphere and physical library space. BBC TV news coverage of the event on the first day added to the considerable buzz that the conference generated. Sarah Bartlett ([email protected]) is a specialist copywriter.
The replacement of print with digital resources can free up physical space previously used for storage.
18 CILIPUPDATE
The library as a place
Birmingham is building what will be Europe’s largest public lending library when it opens in 2013. This ambitious £193m project will blend a thoroughly 21st century library space with a multi-pronged digital offer. Brian Gambles, Chief Executive of the Library of Birmingham Development Trust and keynote speaker at the conference, retains a passionate belief in ‘the library as a place which embraces and builds community’, and says that the city ‘has grasped the pivotal role of culture and community in place-making and city-building’. One of the modernised library spaces praised during the conference was the Almere library in the Netherlands, singled out for its retail-based design, involving long undulating shelves, outward-facing books, and subject-based areas such as DIY. ‘The whole experience was a pleasurable one’, said OCLC’s Lorcan Dempsey, ‘and you felt that the library was all about service – reaching into your interests; showing you materials; engaging you in helpful ways.’ Historically, as Dempsey explained, libraries were vertically integrated around collections, and efficiency was achieved by putting materials closer to people. But now, he said, ‘space is moving from infrastructure to engagement. In public and academic libraries, space is the support for a range of social activities in terms of meeting, learning groups, exhibitions and specialist equipment. Libraries are expanding services to create more ways for people to use and manage information. By shifting from infrastructure and collections to engagement around users, different services emerge.’ The replacement of print with digital resources can free up physical space previously used for storage. Many libraries in Europe have performing spaces, and
American libraries are increasingly opening up the use of space with mobile shelving. Creating more space for computers helps to address the digital divide, and attracts other socio-economic groups to an inviting space.
The blended library The library may be ideally positioned to exploit the full spectrum of possibilities that open up when the digital sphere blends with the physical library space. Kathleen Imhoff, a US-based public library consultant and member of the OCLC Board of Trustees, spoke of digital studios, where people can create their own media on expensive equipment beyond the reach of many households. In the US, many newer regional or branch libraries include radio reading services for the blind. Erik Boekesteijn, a library commentator from the Netherlands who broadcasts ‘This Week in Libraries’ (at www.thisweekinlibraries.com), highlighted large multi-touch tables styled on smartphone touch screens, which attract people to the library building to share digital content. One exciting element of the digital services offered by the new Birmingham library will be gaming. The library has embraced a delivery strategy based on partnerships, and is working closely with a company called Preloaded, who have a strong track record in the cultural sector, to create innovative games that will engage young people with the library and its collections. Birmingham is not alone in providing for specific demographic groups, and conference delegates heard of similar initiatives, many of which focused on teenagers. Erik Boekesteijn praised an Australian library which targets the hard-to-reach 18-35 year old male group, for its Sportswalk Gaming area combining screens displaying sport information with gaming consoles. Kathleen Imhoff reported on Teen Creation Centers, which have become a significant movement among American public libraries.
The ambiguities of online provision
A blended library acknowledges the ongoing relevance of the physical library as well as ambiguities around online provision. Kathleen Imhoff pointed out that the digital divide remains a reality – many people have no access to a computer or smartphone. The unemployed May 2012
BRIEFING are coming to the public library building in droves to update their CV, search for jobs, or develop interview skills. David White, from Oxford University, delivered a session on the OCLC-partnered Visitors and Residents project, which challenges the digital native idea that ‘the kids understand technology, but old people don’t’, a misguided notion that has led to a conflation of technical aptitude with research skills, when in reality, ‘having 600 Facebook friends and a smartphone doesn’t make you good at critical evaluation’, as White argues. ‘Visitors and Residents’ has emerged as a respected typology of web users. ‘Different people approach the web in different ways and in different contexts’, White explains. ‘Visitors decide on a goal, see the web as a toolbox in which they rummage around for the right tool, use it, and leave no trace of themselves online. Residents, on the other hand, see the web as a place where they live out a portion of their lives. They have an identity online, which remains in place even when they’ve logged off.’
Online visibility
For physical items that still have their place in the library, the catalogue can enhance online visibility, and hence awareness. OCLC’s Elisabeth Robinson gave an in-depth demonstration of ‘FAB Libraries’, the first freely-available national public library catalogue, funded by OCLC. The simple search box can be embedded anywhere on the web, depending on where library users gravitate. This resembles webscale platforms like Etsy and Amazon, which over the past two years have shifted from being web destinations to become ‘multiply-surfaced on the web’. As Lorcan Dempsey said, ‘they want to reach into your life. They recognise that whether you are a resident or a visitor, you have workflows and patterns that may involve a range of services. They’re available in a variety of social networks and on mobile devices.’ Returning to the blended library, Dempsey added, ‘the library has a physical surface, a building, and also a number of networked services, and all these are places that offer diverse library experiences. This phenomenon ties together the physical and digital, and reminds the library that one of its surfaces is, in fact, physical.’ Networked services can point internet users back to physical services and resources. Elisabeth Robinson was clear that the real value of FAB Libraries would lie in exposing ‘the exciting, the unique, the local, the rare’ in British public libraries. Alison Cullingford from University of Bradford, RLUK Unique & Distinctive Collections Project Manager, delivered an inspiring session on special collections, which raised intriguing questions about the blended library. Early findings of an RLUK-OCLC survey of special collections in British academic and national libraries reveal that they hold a total of 11 million printed items, and continue to grow. When survey participants were asked what troubled them most, the top answer was space. The other major concern (which surprised many in the event’s Twitter stream), was born-digital materials. Paper can survive decades of neglect, but with born-digital, active intervention is essential for preservation. Cullingford made the fascinating point that ‘special collections are all the more special because everything else is the same – it’s all on your tablet – and there’s a huge wow factor in using things that are different – large or small, or made hundreds of years ago.’ She perceives special collections as living entities. ‘We like people and want to work with them’, she declares. ‘We welcome more use of personal digital cameras – they can present problems in terms of copyright, but in terms of services, they’re fantastic. May 2012
OCLC President Jay Jordan at OCLC’s EMEA 2012 conference in Birmingham.
As libraries integrate with the lives of their users, they need more systems and services to support them.
We’re all digitising, and we’re working towards making everything available online.’ As libraries integrate with the lives of their users, they need more systems and services to support them. This is difficult for libraries, especially in today’s straitened budgetary climate, so there is a strong drive towards collaboration, sharing resources globally, freeing up librarians to focus on the vital task of local engagement with specific constituencies. ‘Libraries’, concluded Dempsey, ‘need to connect human-scale local needs to the opportunities that await at webscale.’ The webscale opportunity that OCLC presented at the conference is the WorldShare platform, which offers the potential to transform the global presence of library resources and services on the web. As Robin Murray explained, ‘WorldShare is designed specifically to operate at webscale, and will be open to the global library community to support collaboration, innovation and sharing’. Building on the OCLC WorldCat catalogue, WorldShare is a multi-layered platform, and one area – the application layer – attracted particular interest on the event’s Twitter stream for opening up the platform to anyone in the world wanting to build library-related applications. Even at this early stage, there are around 80 community-developed applications sitting alongside those built within OCLC itself. Murray took the audience through a small number of examples, such as one that integrates the New York Times Bestseller List with the library acquisition workflow, and another that generates a map from the user’s current location to the position of an item on the shelf.
Transforming libraries; transforming lives It was an uplifting conference for all involved, one that did not fight shy of the realities that libraries face today. It triggered animated discussions between sessions, and was conducive to active participation throughout. Delegates described it as interesting and varied and ‘perfectly organised, full of helpful information’, and more than one delegate commented that it had provided an opportunity to meet librarians from a wide variety of backgrounds and countries. OCLC brought together a community of strident library professionals who no longer perceive the world to be moving from print to digital, and who instead see their responsibility as blending the two to create compelling experiences in the library building and elsewhere, transforming the lives of those who engage with them. n U CILIPUPDATE
19
