The last exercise for the day today was a “Futures Dreaming” , where the group came up with some ideas about the library of 2020.

We used the same questions as we used at Library Camp Perth 2009 in September – and it is interesting to compare the ideas from both groups. It is very clear that librarians need to be able to market, self-promote and get better with IT. As in September, the conversation leading up to each point going on the board was more interesting than the points that ended up there…

The questions were:

1. What would you do in your library if you had all the time, money and skills you needed?
2. What will the library of 2020 look like?
3. What skills will librarians need for the library of 2020?
4. What will we need to drop as we move to 2020?

Here are the answers. Feel free to click through to the images to leave a note on Flickr about points you agree or disagree with.

What would you do in your library if you had all the time, money and skills you needed?

ANSWERS:

What will the library of 2020 look like?

ANSWERS:

* In public libraries – more social spaces
* Fewer libraries being built
* Academic libraries becoming a “licensing centre”
* Libraries with a bigger role for literacy for the nation
* Need to form partnerships with other agencies
* Need to argue harder for print budgets
* Library and knowledge managers to merge
* More IT skills needed for library staff

What skills will librarians need for the library of 2020?

ANSWERS:

* Web design and development

* Communicating skills (eg. writing for the web)

* IT troubleshooting for ourselves and our users

* Political savviness

* Marketing skills

* User Experience skills – online and in physical spaces

* Links to other professions

* Critical thinking

* People skills

* Searching methodology

* Understanding metadata – formation, standardization, repurposing

* Business acumen

* Project Management

* Like being with people

* Ability to self promote, regardless of who to

* More young men in the profession

* An image change

* An understanding of learning styles

What will we need to drop as we move to 2020?

* Duplicate cataloguing – if we keep as many cataloguers get them to work together across organisations

* Bulk circulation

* Static collections

* Books

* Forms and other paperwork

* Perfectionism

* Fear of failure

* Committees

* Reinventing the wheel

* Emphasis on text

Today is Ada Lovelace Day – an international day of blogging to  celebrate women in science and technology.

Last April I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days with Bess Sadler at the University of Virginia while I researched libraries that created their own Open Source Software. Bess was the Chief Architect for Blacklight, which the project home page describes as:

a free and open source ruby-on-rails based discovery interface (a.k.a. “next-generation catalog”) especially optimized for heterogeneous collections. You can use it as a library catalog, as a front end for a digital repository, or as a single-search interface to aggregate digital content that would otherwise be siloed.

This woman codes. And loves libraries. And tries to make a more balanced world where all people have access to information, not just people in rich nations.

Bess was a great host, inviting me to sit in on a library staff meeting about error reporting for Blacklight so that I could get a feel for how the product was being received and how the library staff regarded it. She also took me out to a Ruby on Rails night in a co-working space with pizza and wifi – not everyone’s idea of a fun night, but the normalness of just hanging out with everyone in front of a laptop was just what I needed at that point in my trip.

I was impressed by Bess’ very straightforward and clear view of what she does. Without being in any way dogmatic, she was so committed to Open Source as an effective and fair way for a community to pool assets. When I asked most of my research subjects about the positive aspects of open source for their projects, they often hesitated or qualified their answers with “but in this case it’s like this, but in this other case, it’s like this”. Almost without pause Bess was able to list all the advantages I had collected from literature, give concrete examples of how they applied with Blacklight,  and then more.

I was very struck by Bess’ belief that people in countries with means to develop software should be sharing this software with people in poorer nations. She described access to information – particularly information created and relative to a poorer country – as an essential resource and a right for people in that country. She pointed out that without tools to access and organise this information , or the abilty to afford subscriptions to databases with research produced by the country, then citizens were being denied a right that everyone deserves.

Bess told me the story of another remarkable woman in technology, Dorothy Eneya who worked as a systems librarian in Malawi. The University of Malawi had a proprietary library system , but no money to pay for further licenses. It was faced with shutting the system down and providing no circulation or discovery system for the University. Dorothy Eneya did not accept this. She was the driving force behind installing the Open Source library software, Koha.  This is the difference that Open Source can make to access to information in some countries.

Bess also told me about the work of EIFL.net, (Electronic Information for Libraries), an organisation in which she volunteered. It describes itself as an organisation that offers “range of programmes and services designed to enable access to knowledge for education, learning and research and access to knowledge for sustainable livelihoods“. Much of the work is library focused and working with libraries in developing and transitioning nations, with programmes like “Library in a Box” – a package of software that provides an Open Source solution for library automation. They help libraries pool their resources to acquire consortia pricing for online databases. They also promote professional knowledge exchange.

Bess also gave me a new way to communicate with librarians about Open Source software, and why not to expect it to be  “finished”. She likened development of a discovery layer to collection development. “You never get to a point when developing your collection where you can say “that’s it, we don’t need any more money, the collection is finished” – so why should you expect this of your discovery layer?”.

Personally, it was a delight to spend a couple of days with Bess Sadler. Professionally it was an inspiration to see a gifted coder who was able to work out how to use her skills effectively , communicate her passion and help me better realise why Open Source is important and worthwhile. Thank you, Bess.

I hope never to see this in a library where I work – and so do you…

Heavy storms hit Perth tonight, with over 47mm falling during the storm – after around 120 days with only 0.2mm during one day . Twitter user Muzafar Tufail posted this image of the damage to the University of Western Australia Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts Library , Library at ALVA UWA.

We drove home in a hailstorm and Mr7’s bedroom was flooded after our gutters overflowed – but at least we did not have golfball sized hailstones or apocalyptic  noise like in Drew Robinson’s office in Nedlands, just down the road from UWA.

Seeing the photo reminded me of Michelle McLean’s experience in Victoria in November with a library flooding experience and then one week on .  The flooding experience lasted just 10 minutes and involved librarians pushing the wheeled shelves away from the area of damage. (Note to self: I thought we were getting wheeled shelves in our new library for the flexibility they offered the space, but can see another compelling reason now.)

I know that Greg Schwartz and his staff at the Louisville Free Public Library worked to the point of exhaustion recovering from the flood in May last year that did over $5 million worth of damage to over 500 000 volumes and three bookmobiles.  I had not looked at a photo of the outside of the library during the flood before , but really,really never want to see this happen to any library:

Credit: http://www.atyourlibrary.org/whats-wednesdays-library-flooding

I’ve been jolted into including a bigger section about disaster recovery in the digital strategy I’m currently writing for our library.  If you are in a similar situation, I would recommend the Australian Library and Information Association’s  17 page Guide to disaster planning, response and recovery for libraries that was prepared in November 2009 after the Victorian Bushfires .

UPDATE 8:51pm – From this tweet from Amy Hightower, it looks like all the libraries on the main campus of UWA are water damaged:  “…water in *every* UWA library but Med. EDFAA is knee-deep in mud, and has the same level of water on top of that” .

….made up of scraps I had lying around that you might enjoy…eclecticism ahead…

1. Public libraries and the future

• Role of public libraries in supporting and promoting digital participation – from the British Museums, Libraries and Archives council , examining the role of the public library in the “Digital Britain” Strategy.
• The bookends scenarios: Alternative futures for the New South Wales Public Network in NSW in 2030 . Four possible scenarios are discussed – Silent Spring, Buildings Learn, Neuromancers and Fahrenheit 451 – based on matrix of the degree to which libraries and their content are valued and how orderly or chaotic society is.  The longer post I had about this is just not going to be finished, but Jo Ransom has written two great responses to it that are worth reading – Thinking about the bookends report , and Bookends scenario .

2. Digital preservation guides for small libraries

• Preservation guidelines – from the Digital New Zealand site, updated 8 March 2010. Has some great tips about backup formats and procedures.
• Creating and keeping your digital treasures – from the State Library of Western Australia, update 10 January 2010.  Written for a non-technical audience, it outlines the minimum file format and quality standards for material archived by the library .

3. ebooks

• Books in the age of the iPad .  by Craig Mod. March 2010. Beautitfully illustrated and laid out, this article distinguishes between “formless content” which can go digital without any loss and “definite content” that relies on its container for complete enjoyment of the work.  It discusses the future potential and advantage for both.
• Web standards for e-books by Joe Clark  at A List Apart . 9 March 2010 . Explains why ebooks have so many typos in their layout – partly due to publishers scanning in print versions rather than working from the original digital files, partly due to digital layouts that work fine when the item is printed but not so well when it is interpreted by ebook readers. It outlines a way that authoring using standardised HTML would make it all so.much.better. Check out the epub Zen Garden that shows how you should make your e-book reader do the work to change the layout, not the original text.

4.New Australian library Friendfeed room

• Ozlib – chitterchatter for Australian Library folk. A couple of my twitter friends were starting with Friendfeed, so I have created a Friendfeed room for Australian Libraries. Friendfeed allows a longer, threaded conversation that is different from Twitter – and also lets you feed your content from other sources into your account. If you are on Friendfeed, or thinking of joining then feel free,  pop into the Ozlib room and join in.

5. Bypass ahead – why DRM could be driving users away from our library materials

• You’ve probably seen this cartoon, based on screenshots made by Brad Colbow, when he tried to download an audiobook using the Cleveland Public Library’s Overdrive service, Why DRM doesn’t work or how to download an audiobook from the Cleveland Public Library .  I was pointed toward it by folks in my Twitter stream after I tweeted that I was in a session about e-books and public libraries where the speaker had suggested that bittorrenting wasn’t a viable alternative for many ebooks because the quality wasn’t any good…ummm..no.  I suggest that librarians who want to understand this issue learn how to use something like Vuze to download (legal!!!) content, then compare it to the products vendors are trying to sell us.

I have been flat out like a lizard drinking  since VALA2010, preparing presentations for a forthcoming seminar and finally looking at my thesis for the first time since October…

Normal blogging will return here after June, but until then, you’ll read posts like this – either a shameless plug or derivative text stolen shared from other bloggers. This one is both….

<begin text from Michelle’s post> < begin shameless plug>

It is with great delight that I will be presenting “Libraries 2.0: using Web 2.0 and new media to revolutionise your library or information centre“, with my Libraries Interact co-blogger, colleague and friend, Michelle McLean from Connecting Librarian .

So, if you:

• have a good-sized training budget (which many of you I know don’t)
• are wanting to learn more about using Web 2.0 in your library
• would like to see a couple of engaging library presenters at work
• can attend a two day seminar at the end of March
• and either live in Melbourne or could get the package deal to get here for two days,

then we would love to have you join us and other attendees, for what we are planning will be a learning, collaborating, questioning, informative and hopefully also a bit entertaining two days.

</end of shameless plug> </end of text copied almost word-for-word from Michelle’s post >

Here is the brochure about the event, which even includes an hour by hour outline of what we will cover. We have included 12 different exercises for participants during the two days, some involving moving and one with the chance to pretend to be your boss or maybe a teenager…

Using Web 2.0 and new media to revolutionise your library or information centre