Talent
Any organization that has a goal of being “future-proof”needs to focus on its staff above all else. Plans, goals, and strategies are great—but who's going to implement those great strategies? If staff are not capable, the best-laid plans will find themselves by the wayside. Here are some thoughts about hiring and training future-proof staff:
Hire creative people: You know the kind. They're the ones who always look at a problem with a unique perspective and bring new and better ideas to the table. They can usually solve a problem multiple ways, on any budget, and with flair. Instead of hiring for specific, immediate needs, hire creative people who can adapt and improve for many needs, now and in the future.
Hire passionate individuals: Don't hire people who want a job. That's all they'll ever do. Instead, hire people who eat, breathe, and sleep libraries, information, and community—and want to do those things at your library. These are the people who will relish finding new, innovative ways to connect their community to the library.
These creative, passionate librarians will need a new type of skill set to be future-proof. These skills have nothing to do with performing a successful reference interview or memorizing AACR2. Instead:
They need to be adept at change. Change will happen in a future-proof library, probably rapidly at times. Future-proof librarians must be not just comfortable with change but able to lead it.
They must be computer/social networking experts. Blogs have been around for over 11 years, social networks for even longer. Computers have been in our libraries for more than 20 years. Why are we still hiring people who can't use these tools? Why have we kept people on staff who can't use them? Our library world is quickly changing, and computers and online communities are a major component of future-proofing a library. If we were a Taxi company, we wouldn't hire someone who couldn't or wouldn't learn to drive a new transmission, would we?
They need to scan the horizon. They should be able to look out at their little part of the library world, see what's developing, and be able to figure out how to implement it.
Finally, and probably most important, the future-proof library and the future-proof librarian need one simple thing to succeed: they need their library administration to lead the way. That means that all the stuff I just said above...needs to be there already.—David Lee King, '08
Backbone
The key to keeping libraries relevant is having human beings who are helpful. This is nothing new. Libraries also need librarians who will purchase materials for all types of people and who know how to defend their collection to parents, principals (if they are media specialists), county or city commissioners, and the general public when a challenge arises. Intellectual Freedom is the most important issue for libraries in the future, and librarians should not sit back and look for someone else to help them defend materials. We must be willing to take stands on challenges. In the end it has a lot to do with personality and telling people what you think no matter who disagrees with you including bosses.—Bart Birdsall, '06
Marketing
It's more important than ever that we tell people why [libraries and librarians] are important. If people understand what it is we do, what we have in our libraries, and what we can connect them to over the Internet, then we'll be future-proof. If people believe we're places to get free videos, full of dusty old books, then we're doomed.
Our profession is very good at moving into the future. There is no shortage of great thinkers and people who see how we can use technology to our (and our patrons') advantage, but we seem to be short of people successful at getting that message out there. The American Library Association—and especially Council—seems unable or unwilling to take this seriously.—Blake Carver, '02
A lot more people would be interested in librarianship if they knew what librarians actually did for a living. Not only would we get more people into the profession, more people would come to the library. We should create a nationwide campaign/marketing strategy to attract people to librarianship and to the library in general. Libraries are changing, and people need to know that. Our image needs to represent what libraries are and what they can be.—Sol A. Gómez, '08
Flexibility
Flexibility is the key to future-proofing—in staffing, in budgeting, in planning. We can't continue to do what we've always done—we need latitude from administrations and funding sources to take risks and be proactive and responsive.—Jennifer Nelson, '08
Outfront
Our collective IT strategy is consistently characterized by a slow response to the marketplace. We understand little about collective intelligence, information identity, reputation systems, semantic inference, emergent systems, collaborative platforms, or any number of other progressive areas of intense interest to today's best and brightest college graduates.
These graduates are attracted by the intrigue of promising new start-ups and the allure of membership in the new corporate dot-com culture. We cannot compete with that yet. We've off-loaded many of the “interesting” problems to our vendors, who have approached their solutions via a series of business decisions. That has earned us a full measure of stability, but there is a very fine line between “stable” and “obsolete.” We're flirting with that threshold now.
So, we need the best young minds in the world. Of course, then we ought to give them something to do and the freedom and trust within which to do their thing. We need to dismantle systematically the barriers to change that discourage innovation and creativity; we can move from monolithic vendor-centric systems toward service-oriented architectures; we can revisit models for public service; we can dare to say that Dewey might not be as sacrosanct as we once thought; we can pay close attention to the wildly successful experiments happening in the private sector and find applications for them in our libraries.—John Blyberg, '06
Maintain relevance with your users—as technology changes, so must the library. We must stay ahead of the curve with any new retrieval or delivery system or style (again, a technology issue). It could be very hard to do, but “the status quo has got to go!”—Thomas Rink, '05
Service
While I'm attracted to technology (2.0 and other), I feel like we need to stick with our strength—service. We are much better at helping people than the tech people with whom we're competing for money and resources, and we need to keep that up.—Jenna Freedman, '03
Relevance
In order for libraries to be sustainable, we need to abandon the idea of sustainability. I believe relevancy is the key, not sustainability. And although these two ideas can (and do, in a way) support each other, it can be detrimental to libraries to become too focused on trying to achieve long-term sustainability that we miss out on remaining relevant to our communities' current, vital (and, yes, even sometimes short-term) needs. —Helene Blowers, '07
Expertise
I would make sure we had the best technological expertise we could offer to our respective communities (academic, public, etc.) so that people turned to the library first when wondering how to deal with changes in the information world. Not only would library staff be highly competent, they would also have a great service ethic and the most comfortable physical space so that the library would become the place to both access information and the place in which to create it.—Allyson Mower, '08
Social Capital
The best way to future-proof libraries is not by electronically reimagining our most valuable attributes in a collective attempt to cheat obsolescence. Our insurance is going to come from a much more basic place—we have to turn inward, understand why libraries have been such fabulously lasting cultural institutions, and reflect on how best to transfer this to the modern information climate.
Libraries represent thoughtfulness, peace, and possibility, and we should strive to keep them as transparent and accessible as possible. The profit imperative increasingly shapes the way that information is organized and accessed, but libraries can thrivesimply because we exist in opposition to this model. A truly national and effective libraries-are-viable-and-valuable advertising campaign that takes on grassroots and major media tactics would be incredibly worthwhile.
It's easy to recognize the tone this message might take when you consider the movements that are creating change on a broad scale. The social capital of libraries speaks to the same populist, sustainable spirit that drives the open source, open access, slow food, local, DIY, and green movements, the only difference being that we've been at it for millennia. Libraries are the quintessence of the sustainable information movement, and we create community spaces that simultaneously validate the universal human need for the social, the intellectual, and the thrifty. We also have an unbelievable wealth of dedicated staff for whom libraries are symbolic of the greatest good, drawn together in a vocational community of practitioners that could hardly be more enthusiastic or protective of the services we provide. It's critical that we teach our users that they can believe in libraries like they can believe in any other good cause, because library sustainability is essentially in their hands. It is our responsibility to make sure that they have enough reasons to understand, appreciate, and advocate for us.—Char Booth, '08
Openness
Future-proofed libraries will be flatter, more transparent institutions, free of hierarchal organization. They will constantly reevaluate space, service, and user engagement. I watch the Darien Library, CT, very closely as a way to see future ideas put into play now: circulation staff blogging and selecting materials, innovations with reference services, and a new building that will inspire the community as well as the library world. I watch the new spaces at libraries like Loyola, McMaster, Georgia Tech, and North Carolina State to see what the idea of the commons means to students and faculty. The librarians and staff creating these spaces realize the future is more about collaboration and space than rows of stacks.
The future-proof library will encourage my heart—to grow, explore, learn, and experience. It will know me and provide information I didn't even know I needed. I will experience information in new ways, inside the library or wherever the library happens to be: on my “digital lifestream” device, via my home information/entertainment devices, and via the cloud of data that will be available to me wherever I go.—Michael Stephens, '05
User-centered
Future-proof by…keeping our faculty and students at the center of our mission. Allow them to lead us to new forms of scholarship and scholarly practices, rather than steadfastly clinging to our comfort zones.—Susan Gibbons, '05
Local Value
Special collections will play a vital role as the library profession moves into the 21st century. Often when a library looks to digitization or taking those first few steps into the 21st century, it is usually a local history or special collection leading the way. They say that “libraries build communities,” but the history of a community gives it its soul and its character.
A 21st-century library may be more digital or more technological, but the items collected by a special collection will continue to bring the patron into the building.—Mark Greek, '08
Involve
I want to see libraries create an “authentic space” to engage in the work of our intersections as diverse people living together in communities and move these communities forward as better living spaces for everyone. I want to see us take on the challenge of meaningful diversity work as it relates to ignorance (some) people are experiencing today with the influx of immigrants in all types of communities. We do it in surface and safe ways now (IMHO) by creating book displays that represent literature of a culture or having a cooking class that represents the food of that culture or by translating our often “one-size-fits-all” services and brochures into other languages, and that's a good start. But how can the library serve as a vehicle to bring people, to facilitate interaction among groups outside of people being next to each other in line waiting for the self-checkout?
In Europe, some libraries are “lending” people of other cultures for interviews. And God love them, but I think we can kick it up a notch and make “library as place” mean something once again. We need to move diversity in libraries beyond an “identified patient” model of us vs. them and how can we make them more like us (insert whomever or whichever group you want in the us and them categories). I don't think any library has the silver bullet (if there is one). But I do know we need to look outside of our libraries and in the bodegas, laundries, grocery stores, and malls to help our communities truly understand that without each other, the future is bleak.—Veronda J. Pitchford, '05
Don't stay behind the desk...or even in the library. Go out as much as you can. Do outreach in all languages, form a multitude of community partnerships, meet people where they live and congregate. Involve them. “Nothing for us without us”!—Lynne Cutler, '04
Design Thinking
Adopting new skills and new techniques to our work will help, but I also advocate that library workers need to take a whole new approach to how they identify problems and develop the right solutions. Design thinking is all about being a “problem finder” and then thoughtfully developing, in playfully creative ways and in teams of border-crossing professionals, appropriate solutions. A significant challenge for library workers is keeping up with user expectations. If we fail to provide our users with an experience that meets their expectations, then we lose, and in a hypercompetitive and hyperconsumptive society, that can be the greatest challenge to our long-term viability.
We must use design thinking to create great library experiences for our users, because when people can get their information anywhere, all that can differentiate our libraries is the unique experience we can deliver—but it must be based on personal relationships, it must deliver meaning to the user, and it must be well designed. (Readers can learn more about design thinking and user experience at stevenbell.info/design.)—Steven J. Bell, '02
Hub
In one word—libraries have to embrace the idea of engagement and the identity of being a hub.—Padma Polepeddi, '08
The future of libraries lies in being community convergence points or gathering places—the place that you go to not only to get books and information but to access services (for example municipal services), the Internet, and literacy courses. When the City of Greater Sudbury, Ont., established the Citizen Service Centre model, in which municipal services are delivered in our public library branches, we had no idea how successful that model would become.… If you give citizens reasons to come into a library, they will leave as library users. —Caroline Hallsworth, '03
SNAP
Recently, preparing a presentation for a conference about rousing innovative thinking within your library, as I attempted to simmer and summarize all that is involved in moving your idea, your program, or your wild seed notion forward with success and a bit of confidence, I found that I could—conveniently enough—spell the word SNAP! Here’s how it goes:
Signal: Library staff are great at knowing their communities. Remember this: it’s not enough to simply read the signals your users are sending. Find out how to effectively channel those signals for those who make decisions for support and funding. Signals bring attention to need. Signal if forward.
Nudge: No one likes to have a project idea pushed at them. So nudge instead. Be able to make the links between your innovative idea and the vision of your library or other priorities that have been established. This can work both internally and with the community you serve. Successful nudges don’t nag, but they are ready to offer up clever and meaningful suggestions at the right moment.
Adapt (and Activate): Ever work on a project that seemed to require an attitude of “let’s do it all or do nothing at all?” This type of thinking can sink a perfectly good project. Wildly successful projects seldom resemble the original plan, reminding us that a rigid construct is ultimately a vulnerable one. Think of your projects or services in layers. Removing or morphing one or more layers won’t bring down the walls on your project.
Libraries are beginning to move new ideas and services forward more quickly. There’s more acceleration coming up. This is where “activate” comes in. Be ready to start rolling quickly with your project. You may move faster and more nimbly with a Team-of-Two (an idea that I find really works) or bringing other staff members as project consultants, not committee members. Action is memorable and recognizable. Talk less. Act more.
Propose: You’ve read the signals, you’ve created a flexible plan, you’ve thought it all through. Now what? Tell the story of why your project will be a success by proposing—not asking. Tell how it fills a need. Help those who make decisions or will help give legs to your project see into the future with real words—not words on paper. Yes, of course, write it up, but approach it as a proposal instead of possibility. Proposals are firm and often passionate—something that staff and supporters can feel good about standing behind.—Tony Tallent, ‘08
Public trust
A key factor in the success or failure of ideas (and institutions) is trust; more trust=more success. In general, people have a easier time trusting things they understand—not necessarily in detail but on a basic “I get it” level. Public libraries, as institutions, have historically enjoyed public trust. There are many reasons why people trust libraries, but a simple and powerful one is that people understand what libraries are. Even if they’ve never been in one, people get the idea of a building with books that can be used for free, and most people see utility, even worth, in that idea.
What people don’t understand, more and more, are librarians. If I can Google, why do I need you? I’m coming to see this as a perpetual question, one that we can’t stop answering. As long as people don’t understand us, we risk eroding public trust in libraries. Future-proofing libraries needs to be about getting people to trust librarians.—Cindy Chadwick, ‘04
Student-centered
There are two important things we can do to future-proof school libraries, which are being eliminated all over the country. First, we should make sure that we are playing an important role in the curriculum and instruction. This means focusing on our role as teachers and making an impact on student achievement. Second, as school librarians we need to promote and tell the world about all of the things that we do to make a difference for our students. If parents, community, and stakeholders don’t know what you do then you are going to be seen as unimportant and unnecessary. It is vital for our survival that we advocate for our profession and the difference we can make in the lives of our students.—Melissa P. Johnston, ‘07
Open-ness
Simply put, I believe in order for libraries to remain relevant, never mind vital, they need a New Organization of Knowledge. Our existing organizations of knowledge (Dewey, LOC), our existing architectures, and the library cultures that support them, are crippling libraries and threaten our future vibrancy and place within society.
My future vision: People, irrespective of their socio-economic or geographic borders, will be able to access, share, and create information, knowledge, and cultural objects within their local communities and share them with the world.
My suggestions for libraries: Join the world as an equal, as just one voice, be open, and above all participate...stop being myopic, closed, and simply warehouses for only resources fixed in time and place...stop controlling knowledge in the outdated Dewey system...take advantage of the possibilites technologies offer.
One example platform for inspiration in a borderless world: B3OK. A new open organization of knowledge globally weaving together the digital, physical, and mobile worlds, extending the knowledge delivery possibilities and the power of physical objects, physical locations, people, and social knowledge networks worldwide. Jump in: http://www.b3ok.org—Bonnie Peirce, ‘07
Elegant
I am currently working to ensure all my practice is Holonomus, while it is important to work as an individual it is critical in future-proofing to also work within in the community with elegant perspectives about others and connections to community and funding sources.—Lisa Weaver, ‘06
Collaboration
Libraries have an imperative to capitalize on opportunities to engage with and drive broader impacts projects dealing with E-science initiatives. Librarians have a significant role to play in promoting collaborative resource-sharing, broadening the understanding of large-scale networked science, and managing collections of datasets. Speculation as to whether or not corporate entities will view datasets as commodities has been driving some conversations amongst academic institutions, but few are making any major initiatives to do anything about it. It’s only logical that the corporate sector would create business models around datasets as a way to further supplement their stake in the scholarly communication market—it makes business sense. To make libraries future-proof, it’s time to help realize our potential as partners in the E-research enterprise.—Hilary Davis, ‘08
Third Space
Continue to be committed to provided the “third space” as well as be present in cyberspace. Keep in touch with our communities and practice “community informatics” By that, I mean let our communities needs and wants drive our planning and programming. This is probably our biggest challenge of the future.
And never, ever forget S.R. Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science. They are timeless.
Books are for use.
Every reader his or her book.
Every book its reader.
Save the time of the reader.
The library is a growing organism.—Linda Slusar, ‘07
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