Programs and research Changing users and changing technology: the network rewrites the library Lorcan Dempsey CSU Libraries Futures Summit meeting 6-8 June 2007 Santa Rosa, California

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Network user environment institutional operating environment

Part 1: The network user environment

Getting things done Workflow

They found that Google is responsible for referring 56% of the users of HighWire journals, and our own study shows that over 70% of researchers use it routinely to find scholarly content. Moreover, web search engine referrals also appear to account for the vast majority of accesses to institutional repositories. Van Orsdel L C and Born K Researchers use of academic libraries and their services. Swan A and Brown S

Brand is the new real estate

The rich get richer

~18 months old No FaceBook, MySpace Library?

University of Minnesota

Libraries will need to plan for and build services that fit new researcher work habits, with an emphasis on the flexibility and remixing of their content and services. …. … In this study we paid some attention to the new world of informal peer-to-peer communication within the research community. The findings are that researchers are adopting social network technologies very fast and so far they have done so on their own: the library has effectively been bypassed. Researchers use of academic libraries and their services. Swan A and Brown S

Usage of electronic resources Note: the information above appeared in the Perceptions report in both chart and table formats.

Starting an information search Only 2% of college students start their search at a library Web site. Respondents were asked to indicate, from a list of 16 electronic resources, which they typically use to begin an information search. Among total respondents, 84% of information searches begin with a search engine and 1% begin at a library Web site. College Students

Trustworthiness of library sources vs. search engines Over half (53%) of college students indicate a similar trust of search engines as with library resources.

Then: the user built their workflow around the library Now: the library must build its service around the user workflow Get in the flow

Then: resources were scarce and attention was abundant Now: attention is scarce and resources are abundant Compete for attention

Then: people consumed information resources Now: people construct digital identities online: gather, create, share Website > workflow

Chris Beckett

Course management: a reductive comparison Virtual learning environments : using, choosing and developing your VLE by Martin WellerMartin Weller “The relationship between VLEs and library systems reflects the changes in practice and internal politics wrought by the advent of e- learning perhaps more than any of the other systems. There is a sense in which the very identity of libraries and their function in the educational process is at stake.” [p. 67] Redundant "At one extreme the need for a library becomes superfluous - at its simplest this might be categorized as 'I've got Google, what do I need a library for?'" [p. 67] Necessary materials are loaded into the VLE, and it points to other resources out on the open web. Central The library mediates access to content within the VLE, providing value in selection, purposing to particular tasks, metasearch and so on.

Susan Hollar - Inside the Course at Michigan Diane Dallis - Inside the Course at IndianaInside the Course at Michigan Inside the Course at Indiana Sakaibrary: Michigan Indiana

Scholarly information flow? peer-reviewed journals, conferences, … aggregators Research & e-science Repositories Deposit, self archiving data analysis, transformation, mining,modeling Publish, discovery Data creation, capture and gathering: lab experiments, fieldwork, surveys, grids, media, … Learning & teaching Deposit, self archiving learning object creation, re-use Discovery, linking, embedding Courses, modules, Learning management systems, learning portals, … Discovery, linking, embedding Harvesting Discovery, harvesting Validation A&I services Adapted with permission from Liz Lyons eBank UK: Building the links between research data, scholarly communication and learning. Ariadne 36,

peer-reviewed journals, conferences, … aggregators Research & e-science Repositories Deposit, self archiving data analysis, transformation, mining,modeling Publish, discovery Data creation, capture and gathering: lab experiments, fieldwork, surveys, grids, media, … Learning & teaching Deposit, self archiving learning object creation, re-use Discovery, linking, embedding Courses, modules, Learning management systems, learning portals, … Discovery, linking, embedding Harvesting Discovery, harvesting Validation A&I services Adapted with permission from Liz Lyons eBank UK: Building the links between research data, scholarly communication and learning. Ariadne 36,

peer-reviewed journals, conferences, … aggregators Research & e-science Repositories Deposit, self archiving data analysis, transformation, mining,modeling Publish, discovery Data creation, capture and gathering: lab experiments, fieldwork, surveys, grids, media, … Learning & teaching Deposit, self archiving learning object creation, re-use Discovery, linking, embedding Courses, modules, Learning management systems, learning portals, … Discovery, linking, embedding Harvesting Discovery, harvesting Validation A&I services Adapted with permission from Liz Lyons eBank UK: Building the links between research data, scholarly communication and learning. Ariadne 36,

Now: Federated access to multi-institutional holdings with support for personal collection-building and sharing

 Patterns of learning, research, information production and consumption changing  Disclosure into workflows  Personal collections and data reproduction  ‘Customer relation management’

Part 2: The library operational environment

Print Licensed Digital Research & learning outputs … Catalog Metasearch Resolver Repositories … ILS ERM Knowledgebase

… Management environment User environment Switch: delivery, routing, resolution

library Consumer environments Management environment Licensed Bought Faculty& students Digitized Aggregations Resource sharing … Institutional Workflow Portals, CMS, IR, … Personal Workflow RSS, toolbars,.. Network level workflow Google, … Integrated local user environment? Library web presence Resource sharing, …

Library “Inventory” 20% head80% long tail Libraries aggregate supply at the local level… “About the only places you could explore outside the mainstream were the library and the comic book shop.” Chris Anderson, “The Long Tail”

The long tail Impact? Systemwide efficiences Aggregation of supply Unified discovery Low transaction costs Aggregation of demand Mobilize users Brand

Libraries and the long tail dynamic  Aggregate supply?  1.7% of circulations are ILLs  (60% of aggregate G5 collection owned by one library only)  Aggregate demand?  20% of collection accounted for 90% of use  (2 research libraries over ~4 years) Each reader his/her book Each book its reader

The Library Long Tail (using holdings as measure of popularity) Note: All statistics are preliminary and subject to change. Final report forthcoming soon. Number of Holdings Items ranked by system-wide popularity “Head” “Long Tail” Head: Top 10% of WorldCat records (ranked by holdings) account for 80% of total WorldCat holdings Long Tail: Bottom 90% of WorldCat records (ranked by holdings) account for 20% of total WorldCat holdings Figure not drawn to scale; for illustration purposes only

ILL and the Long Tail ( FY 2005 OCLC ILL transactions) Note: All statistics are preliminary and subject to change. Final report forthcoming soon. Number of Holdings Items ranked by system-wide popularity ~75% of ILL requests were directed at the “Head” ~25% of ILL requests were directed at the “Long Tail” By comparison, Chris Anderson (The Long Tail, 2006) reports: Amazon: ~ 25% of sales from the “long tail” Netflix: ~ 20% of sales from the “long tail” * Question: are current ILL systems adequately supporting demand for the library long tail?

Holdings: Local, Group, Global Summit collections Univ Washington collections WorldCat

Multilevel approach to …  Collections  Shared offsite storage  Aggregate and analyse digital collections  Institutional repository  Digital storage and preservation  Social and consumer environments  Social networking services: tagging, reviews, recommendations  Share mobilizing approaches  Virtual reference  D2D  Consolidated discovery  Knowledge base  Resolution - Service routing – fulfilment  Business intelligence  Synthesize and mobilize shared usage data  Recommendation, management decisions  Digitization and offsite storage

Part 3: conclusion

 Libraries optimized for a pre-network environment  User environment: libraries do not have web- scale: impact suffers  Operational environment: fragmentation and redundancy  Resources organized around value creation?  Find the appropriate level to act ….

Reduce unnecessary fragmentation and redundancies Create systemwide efficiencies Increase the impact of libraries Make the network work for libraries Put libraries at the point of need Build the library brand on the network

Getting our strategic planning going: Points to Ponder  Libraries are optimized for a pre-network age, where the model was one of distribution and local collection of physical materials. They are seriously sub-optimized for a network age, where there are twin pressures: consolidation of information resources into large network level hubs, and diffusion of services into 'networkflows'. Libraries are off-message: people do not want to talk about managing information, they want to talk about improving their productivity and the quality of research and learning outcomes. How do libraries communicate their value in terms understood by faculty, students and administrators? Large print collections and library buildings are cement boots holding back library services. Can they step out of these boots? Can they divorce the sense of library as service from the sense of library as a place with books in it. There appears to be no place for libraries in the network identities and communities that students are constructing online.