Futures Dreaming, Library Technicians Seminar, Falcon eLibrary 18 September 2010.

Thanks to the committee of the ALIA WA Library Technicians Group for inviting me to talk about ebooks and do a Futures Dreaming session at the Falcon eLibrary yesterday. It was great to mix with library technicians and to see the beautiful, beautiful community space that is the Falcon eLibrary and Community Centre. I loved the public “wet area” just opposite the circulation desk where library staff were getting seriously sticky by creating paper rocks for a display – lots of chance for mess and creativity in the library space – just what we need:

For those of you who were watching me tweet out the session about the history of Library Technicians in Australia , the speaker was Dr Judy Clayden from Edith Cowan University . Much of the talk was based on her PhD entitled “Contesting identity, power and status in feminized occupations: an historical case study of library paraprofessionals in Australia“.

Ebooks are becoming for me a bit like Second Life was a few years ago. I am interested in them  and think they are significant and we need to cope with the changes they bring, but I talk about them mainly because people have asked me to talk about them – so I do more research and find out more – and then people ask me to talk about them even  more. So far this year I have done four sessions on ebooks and declined another three…

I *love, love, love* doing the Futures Dreaming sessions. They are all so different each time, but the energy flow and the laughter is fantastic each time and all I need to do is channel the energy and point to make sure everyone gets to speak their piece. The trickiest job in the room is the scribe at the whiteboard who is capturing the meaning and the mood of what everyone is saying. Sarah did a great job yesterday, thank you. I have put the whiteboard images up at Flickr in a set, but have also added the whiteboards of the past two Futures Dreaming sessions I have facilitated.

Common threads are beginning to emerge. These are not necessarily practical ideas, but over and over the same things are being said. From all these sessions it is apparent that we urgently need more IT  and marketing skills in our libraries. If we could have just one library card for all Australian libraries and get rid of due back dates many, many library folk would be happier. There is a desire for closer collaboration with our users and an ability to provide resources like all online databases via superfast broadband. Buildings are seen as better if they are greener, more beautiful and purpose designed with little wasted space and lots of room for collaboration. Library systems that work better and are less complicated are also a common theme.

There are always a few absolute gems in these sessions. My favourite “out of the blue” ideas yesterday were the abolishment of all bottom shelves (yes!!) , the forrest in the centre of the circular library (why not ?) and providing expertise and a platform to organise and connect information sources held by other parts of the community like community groups (yes, yes, yes!)…. oh and the TARDIS that could be used as a store room

The questions that we worked with yesterday were:

• What impractical and expensive things would you do in your library if you had unlimited time, money and resources?
• What do we need to stop doing
• …and then smack bang in the middle of the session a new question poked its head out and would not be ignored…OK then -
• What do we need to start demanding?????

WHAT IMPRACTICAL AND EXPENSIVE THINGS WOULD YOU DO IN YOUR LIBRARY IF YOU HAD UNLIMITED TIME, MONEY AND RESOURCES ?

* Beautiful spaces
* Reference and communication by webcam, multimedia with users from their own homes
* Thumbprints instead of library cards
* Authors reading their own works in the library
* Technology “space” in the library
* Staff dedicated to showing people about technology and learning about it
* Networking with community
* Fast internet – super fast internet
* Online creation and collaboration with users
* Bigger buildings, custom made
* Automatic returns, sorting, reshelving machine
* Everybody feeling comfortable
* No more bottom shelves
* Climate controlled buildings with no more evaporative air conditioning
* More technology and multimedia
* Role with the community to help organise and provide a platform for organising their own collections (eg. small library collections owned by community groups )
* More computers
* Faster internet
* Own IT section
* Better communication with IT in parent organisation
* More staffing for IT department in parent organisation
* Working better with the rest of parent organisiation
* More time with our customers
* Detailed cataloguing on large print, better metadata to find materials better
* RFID that works
* Share resources with the community and create a distributed local collection between library and other information sources in the community
* A time machine for when people want to find out about the past
* Circular library with a park in the middle
* Beautiful gardens as part of the building
* No limit on amount of printouts
* Send reservations to the clients instead of them having to pick it up – and in whatever format they wanted
* No compactuses
* A tardis to use for storage space
* Marketing skills internally and externally
* Sensible space
* No wasted space in the library and excellent design

WHAT DO WE NEED TO STOP DOING ?

* Vertical Files
* Being policemen and enforcing so many rules
* Return Dates
* Unnecessary processing
* Overprocessing
* Traditional shelving
* Individual cards for each library
* Restrictions on social media for our users

WHAT DO WE NEED TO START DEMANDING ?

First time I have asked this question in one of these sessions, but it suddenly seemed to be the right thing to be discussing.

* Resources sold by publishers ready to go on library shelves with not more processing
* Full metadata records supplied by publishers with items
- costs
- spine labels as well
* RFID tags that work and do not need to be reconfigured and just work
* More training so we can do things better
* More training when technology systems supplied
* Technology that you can use that does not need training
* Technology packages sensibly configured
* Universal library funding
* State Library not offloading so many jobs to public libraries
* Union catalogue that also shows holdings
* One library card
- do away with the universal card and use a thumbprint or iris recognition
* Ebooks that can be lent and that just work for our users
* Funding for ebooks
* Space for front facing books
* Interactive OPACS
* Common database licensing via a consortium of all libraries
* Better copyright laws to allow better access to content for our users
* Better social media access in our libraries
* A stop to repetitive circulation tasks

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