1. The Network, Library Boundaries, and Systemwide Organization Lorcan Dempsey OCLC Keynote at Seek, Explore, Discover. The Midwest Chapter MLA Conference 2009 Columbus, OH, 5 October

2. overview

3. what I know about medical libraries

4. prelude

5. our libraries are a product of an earlier network era

6. Institution scale

8. speculations about the future

9. The network has reconfigured whole industries … Travel News Book retail We have yet to work through what systemwide reconfiguration means for libraries …

10. transaction costs: why are things changing? scalar emphasis and sourcing: who does what? boundaries: where will libraries focus?

11. transaction costs Ronald Coase Firms exist because of ….

12. Transaction costs help determine the boundaries of the firm: Delineation between activities that are conducted internally and those that are transacted for externally Higher the transaction costs, more likely an activity will be internalized within the firm Firm: Manufacturing R&D Human Resources Finance Call center Supply chain Plants/grounds

13. a Coasian view of the academic library Universities find it useful and economical to internalize a bundle of library-related activities As the pattern of transaction costs change, so too will the boundaries of the library.

14. Bangor University, Wales searching has been deskilled

15. Boundaries University: Library Teaching Research Administration Laboratories Sports facilities Google Bangor Instititutional support for research and learning Cataloging A&I/E-journals JSTOR/Portico Resource sharing

16. boundaries and focus

17. Unbundling the corporation Harvard Business Review (1999)

18. Core components of a firm Customer Relationship Management Product Innovation Infrastructure Back office capacities that support day-to-day operations Routinized workflows Economies of scale important Develop new products and services and bring them to market Speed/flexibility important Attracting and building relationships with customers Service-oriented, customization Economies of scope important

19. Libraries Customer Relationship Management Product Innovation Infrastructure Physical space, Physical inventory, Repository Systems infrastructure Online services, etc. Acquire/develop new information resources and services to support evolving research and learning workflows Provision of study & social spaces Interpret learning and research needs Personalized research assistance Marketing and assessment Customization/personalization

20. infrastructure Space: Infrastructure Customer relationship Print collections: Print shared infrastructure? Licensed Systems: Local cloud The library network?

21. space a flashpoint Valuable Opportunity costs Social lives and learning Micro-coordination and ad hoc rendezvous Colocation with cognate units Added value activity

22. customer relationship management … what are the appropriate intersection points between library staff and systems, and the research and learning behaviors of students, faculty, and clinicians and how do those need to change …

23. some environmental issues discovery happens elsewhere community is the new content … library must build around workflow: cant expect workflows to be built around library Information abundant; attention scarce people are entry points d chudnov

24. customer relationship management 1. Demonstrating Value 2. Perception and Aesthetics 3. Collaboration 4. Innovation Bangor. John Wright. http://www.library.nuigalway.ie/assets/inuls2007/johnwright-fri0945.ppt

25. a multiscalar library

26. repository social networking digitization mobilization copyright data curation unified discoveryescholarship SEO

27. We librarians are so willing to stretch ourselves thin trying to do more with less that eventually, the less really does become too little. Quote from unattrib comment on blog Anne Kenney http://www.oclc.org/programsandresearch/dss/ppt/dss_kenney.pdf

28. Anne Kenney http://www.oclc.org/programsandresearch/dss/ppt/dss_kenney.pdf

29. Anne Kenney http://www.oclc.org/programsandresearch/dss/ppt/dss_kenney.pdf

30. Individual Departmental Collaboratively sourced Hathi trust Orbis Cascade Alliance Public support … OhioLink JISC Commercial Web-scale Google Amazon Disciplinary..

31. multiscalar confusion? Institutional intellectual assets … Institutional repository? Supra-Institutional repository? Webscale repository? Disciplinary repository?

32. Distinctive scope of the institutional? Rescaling the uniform? Developing the unique?

33. So …

34. From institution to multiscalar Institutional no longer the appropriate scale for many things Supra- institutional institutions: legacy and immature But …

35. Understand what should be done locally Dont spread too thinly Be more strongly instrumental with affiliations Innovate around institutional configurations Pool uncertainty!

36. Thank you Lorcan Dempsey OCLC http://orweblog.oclc.org http://www.twitter.com/lorcanD