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The CILIP 2009 Presidential Address (given on 15 October 2009 at SOAS, London)
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Shifting the library paradigmThe 2009 CILIP Presidential Address
Peter Griffiths
CILIP 2009 President
Snapshots of a typical month in the information jungle
“Super Thursday” – 2,500 new titles were published in a single day on 1 October 2009
The Lost Symbol – Dan Brown’s new œuvre 300,000 UK copies sold in 36 hours, over ½ million in first week – 2
million total in UK, US and Canada 5% reported to be e-book sales
The Amazon Kindle went on sale
Simon & Schuster launched the Vook (followed by the Barnes & Noble Nook)
The German Chancellor declared that on grounds of copyright she and her government oppose Google’s plans for a global digital library
Co-incidentally, Sergey Brin defended Google Books in a New York Times article A Library to Last Forever
Ordnance Survey announced innovation licences free access to OS data for development purposes
Royal Mail issued cease-and-desist notices to the postcode lookup site Ernest Marples Postcodes
US commentator Steven Clift is astonished that UK postcode data is not public property
The US Government made the Federal Register available free of charge online
The London Evening Standard became a free-sheet
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
In a packed programme…
A look at the library paradigm
Shifting the paradigm – a bit of history
The future of paper and books
The future of libraries and LIS professionals
What’s wrong with libraries?
Are we drinking in the Last Chance Saloon?
How Google are we?
Fee or free?
What would others do?
What should CILIP do?
What will YOU do?
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
define:paradigm
The generally accepted view of a given discipline at a particular time (Princeton U)
The accepted model or pattern
A system of assumption, concepts, systems and practices (Wikipedia)
It’s widely considered that paradigms cannot easily be defined in social sciences
A fictional mutant character in Marvel Comics
So maybe we do need to shift that paradigm!
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
The library paradigm
“Paradigm shaking”
credit for this term is not mine, but it fits well here
A library is a collection of sources, resources and services, and the structure in which it is housed; it is maintained by a public body, institution or individual
A collection of useful materials for common use (used in this sense in fields such as computer science)
But is that all?
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
Paradigm shift*?
What is the library paradigm?
What is CILIP’s paradigm?
Are they “fit for purpose” in the second decade of the 21st century?
What can we do?
*”a radical change in thinking from an accepted point of view to a new one,
necessitated when new discoveries produce anomalies in the current paradigm”
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
Disruptive innovations
The printing press
Electronic media
Libraries
Search engines
Wired, (US edition), October 2009 calls these innovations “Dangerous Ideas”. Its list contains several information-related suggestions.
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
The future of paper – two current views
Books are “where words go to die” (according to Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do – more in a moment)
They cannot be updated once printed
They lack interactivity e.g. there are no direct hyperlinks from the references to the books and articles listed, so you have to hunt them down in order to read the items referenced
Hamlet’s Blackberry*
Paper’s lack of interactivity improves readers’ focus (and the outcomes of their reading experience)
The “gold standard” that e-paper designers strive for is to emulate … er, real paper
Paper will not die at least until e-media are equally as good, and then some
*by William Powers. Cambridge, MA, Joan Shorenstein Center, John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2006
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
Tape cartridges (various)A history of publishing
Paper
1450 20001500 1600 1700 1800 1900
Electronic media
5¼ inch disk
Punchedcards
Quasi-electronic media
8 inch disk
DomesdayDisc (oops)
Magnetic tape
HDD
Punched tape
USB drive
Copies of 1086 version still going strong
CD
DVD3½ inch diskette
Camera cards (SD, CF, XD…)
See how many electronic formats we’ve had in 30 years – and how many of them are
already obsolete and unreadable
Ephemeral (e-mail, old web pages)Growing, multi-format – much is lost forever but still potentially important
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
A range of media…
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
But reports of the death of paper…
like Mark Twain’s death – and indeed his actual quotation – have been exaggerated
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
The future of libraries
What’s wrong with libraries? :
Why are libraries still indelibly linked to books, and books alone, in the public’s mind, when we offer so much more?
Why don’t people recognise our roles as facilitators of content creation and as gatherers and keepers of the wisdom of our communities?
Why do people assume that they can’t go to libraries for what they need and want? (What concept do they have of the role of libraries?)
Who makes the policies for managing (y)our LIS?
Political representatives?
Chief librarians (and heads of knowledge)?
Librarians at the service desks?
Users?
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
Last orders please We appear to be no longer relevant to many (non) users
Surveys show :
The Google Generation consult their peers, social media, Google … and libraries are way down the list
Members of Generation Y do use the library … so that they can get computer access [Pew survey Dec 2007]
Users of “traditional” services are in decline – simple demographics
At this rate libraries as we know them will be extinct by 2020
along with Woolworths, Setanta, Kodachrome
their business models did not work any more
moral : you cannot live on pick ‘n’ mix forever, nor on media or services that people aren’t buying
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
Libraries as place
We have award winning libraries in great locations
Brighton, Norwich, and more to come (such as Birmingham)
Yet Gen Y users aren’t bothered – and that’s a challenge to us
They’re mobile, they’re online, they tweet as they go
They challenges our ways of working (but don’t forget some of their fellow library users like service the old fashioned way)
New uses (and users) for library space
How do you challenge people like the US college principal who abolished the library
“When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,’’
Our current paradigms are not good enough for future use
At least, not if we want any kind of job security or satisfactionCopyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
What would others do? Let’s look at what might happen if we let some well
known organisations take over libraries and information services
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
If the supermarket chains ran public libraries… There would be edge-of-town super-libraries
Do libraries still have to be close to user population? –
rural disadvantage is not sustainable in Digital Britain, but services are focused on fixed branch libraries, the bigger the library the more services
people are used to travelling to shopping centres far from home
if library standards no longer matter in some parts of the UK, why do we still bother to count how many people live more than a mile from their nearest library?
The mobile library would deliver at a time of your choosing, bringing a crate of books you’d ordered online, and would suggest some DVDs (and possibly offer to tax your car)
What is success in our business?
many copies of best-sellers in stock, everything else to order?
a wide and eclectic range but you may have to wait for popular items?
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
If public libraries were run like budget airlines …
The libraries would cost each council tax payer 2p a year, BUT there would be a charge of £5 for checking out each book and oversize books would cost an extra £3
Books would be filed on the shelves anywhere there was still a gap
You’d be charged for every shopping bag you brought into the library
You would have to enter and leave the library via external steps to the first floor
Major towns would be served by branches in small villages 50 miles away
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
If Google ran libraries
The library would have a trillion items always in stock
though the librarian might not be able to find the one you want
and you might only be able to read 20% of it in random chunks unless you bought it
You’d almost always get an answer to your query
and though there would be no book selection you’d be told which items everyone else thought were best
the top three books would be sponsored by the local bookshop
There’d be lots of outreach services
and a lot more fuss about how innovative they were
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
Hang on a minute …
Google’s states that its ambition is to manage the world’s knowledge
That’s what we do!
Google says it wants to find and present the most authoritative sources of information
That’s what we do!
Google is putting together a collection of all the world’s books
That’s what we do!
Google wants to support communities of information
That’s what we do!
We must be a lot more like Google than we thought!
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
In fact, hasn’t Google copied us?
“Google acts like libraries. It is the mission of both to organize the world’s information, to make it openly accessible, to find and present the most authoritative (by many definitions) sources, to instil an ethic of information use in the public, to act as a platform for communities of information, to encourage creation”.
“Isn’t Google already running the public library of our digital knowledge?”
Jeff Jarvis, Library Journal, January 22, 2009
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
What Would Google Do?
Are libraries and Google inevitable enemies?
“Kill the book to save the book”
Hyperlinking the content of books
Print is portable but wi-fi and broadband are becoming ubiquitous so can offer connectivity to e-book readers and other mobile reading devices
Digital Britain [May 2009]
FCC rural broadband report [May 2009]
Are librarians mere guardians or interpreters of form and content?
How can libraries be “Googlier”?
curating the web – collecting and preserving relevant online content
creating expert online communities
See : Jeff Jarvis, What Would Google Do? Harper Business, 2009. Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
How Google-ish are libraries?
√ Organisers of knowledge
√ Collectors and digitisers of information resources
X Open to anyone worldwide, not restricted by location or
membership of a particular customer group
Problems using finance from one place to serve another
SCL initiative to provide Universal Access for UK public
? Constantly valuing and brokering information
Google micro-auctions information millions of times per hour
We evaluate and broker information but not on that scale
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
What CILIP did This year’s events
The Web 2.0 open meeting
End result of a blog about control and ownership (a debate we need to conclude)
Information matters
Progress is slow but that’s the pace of government
Highlighted the value of FoQA in supporting the profession
Emphasised the value of continuing collaboration with SOA, BCS and others
Responses to consultations (but there are so many of them!!!) Digital Britain
Not just £6 tax on your phone bill – opportunity!
Digital inclusion, 21st century schools, 2020 workforce strategy, website quality, public library leadership, 21st century archives, data sharing, children’s health
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
What CILIP did
School libraries policy adopted
Awards – CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway, Libraries Change Lives
Published good library guidelines
Launched Encompass
Supported the LIS Research Coalition
A vital step towards providing the evidence base that we must have
At last we can start to demonstrate value
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
See the Coalition web site at http://LISResearch.org
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
Follow the Coalition on Twitter: @LISResearch
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
What you said this year You welcomed Encompass
You expect greater advocacy on profession-wide, generic issues such as the Google debate
You asked if there’s too much emphasis on specific (public library) issues
You wanted a definition of an effective library service
Last week’s public library document is also good as a generic definition
You want CILIP to emphasise the difference between working in a library and working as an library and information professional
Chief librarians can influence – some good practice e.g. central govt
You said, not all libraries are public libraries, but to look at CILIP you’d think they were
You said, CILIP must get better at leading, not following, into the new professional areas of work
You said, CILIP’s support to B&Gs is weakening because Ridgmount Street staff are too busy to help
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
What else you said You said, CILIP must anticipate developments through horizon scanning, and then take
effective action using that knowledge
You said, CILIP campaigns but it doesn’t engage – CILIP needs to narrowcast and target influential decision makers
You asked, why don’t the media ask for CILIP’s view on issues that concern us Should CILIP comment more on information society issues, not just libraries?
You said, why do we assume that rural areas are not entitled to the same high levels of service as cities and major towns?
You said, the Policy Forum has disenfranchised branches and groups
You said, CILIP’s key people need to get out more to the members (because most members can’t get to London)
You said, CILIP needs to work with other bodies and extend its membership in the wider information profession We are collaborating with BCS, SOA and RMS on Information Matters
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
Some ideas that you had
CILIP should certify websites that carry high quality information, and make an annual award for the best
Maybe linked to Socitm or other information sector awards
There should be a Carnegie for non-fiction titles
We should find creative and innovative ways to help people in mid-career to be professional activists
Career breaks, secondments, work experience (for unemployed / new entrants)
You said, it’s mainly retired members who now can get time for CILIP activism
CILIP’s structures must represent the wider world of information professionalism
Who speaks for information managers in research and corporate environments?
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
So, what should CILIP do?
Not all perceptions of CILIP are accurate, but if members believe them to be true then they become true as received wisdom
Change has happened but we need more
Not what librarians or business managers or elected members want but what users want
It’s not about how our profession and CILIP were in the past – it’s about how we go forward
So, what do we know about what our users want, and what gives them benefit?
Not much - the Research Coalition will help
So, what should or could CILIP do?
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
What could CILIP do?
“CILIP Scholar” – we could rate the articles in our excellent free access package of professional journals
“CILIP Books” – a professional e-library
Book of the Month from the Facet catalogue, viewable on screen only, save, download and copy disabled – would benefit members and promote Facet titles
Grow the profession, grow the membership
People are already working in new areas! No need to invent new societies or roles! What’s in it for these people to join CILIP?
How do we acquire members – who benefits from CILIP membership, the employer or the employee?
How can we make CILIP more relevant to Gen Y CILIP members (and especially non-members of CILIP)
How can we make CILIP’s value for money more visible?
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
Information Matters – new areas for CILIP
“Every action of government must be open, searchable, and linkable by default”
Jeff Jarvis, What Would Google Do?
Information Matters is the UK Government’s strategy to achieve this… … but we have to make sure it happens – progress will be slow before the
general election…
… and we must ensure that our professional role is recognised not just by our own profession but by government and by the public
CILIP members are among the leaders of this cross-government initiative, using LIS professional skills alongside IT professionals
They highlight a future role for all information professionals – not simply to curate and store printed information
but to help every citizen locate and understand the publicly held information that affects their life and to help them make informed decisions
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
Some issues
Continuity
Presidential themes are annual, but it takes longer (sometimes, much longer) to achieve a result where external players are involved
After eight years have we now a critical mass of past presidents to form a Presidential College?
Engagement with employers
Explaining the value of membership
Persuading employers to give CILIP members time to contribute
What’s in it for employers when they give employees time?
Why doesn’t professionalism matter to employers?
“Those libraries are run by professionals – they act professionally though they’re not actually professional librarians”
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
Some tentative conclusions We are not getting our message across even to our own
members We are not seen as open but as controlling
We are seen as too focused on one sector and one issue
We cannot get across the message that this is not entirely the case
We must address this, and ensure that we work together to spread the word to LIS users and to the wider public
We must tailor our messages to our users, not to ourselves
We must get our message into the boardrooms and into government
We must support would-be activists Employer engagement – explain benefits of activism
Address creeping de-professionalisation in all sectors
We must continue to address the governance issues The Audit Panel started work in September
Ensuring initiatives don’t stop on 31 December each year
Not just our own governance – one issue can involve four or five government departments
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
What can YOU do?
Drive change from within CILIP
Be an activist and support others to be active
Use your expertise to inform CILIP’s policy process
Help to formulate policies that accurately reflect the issues
Argue the case for LIS professionalism in YOUR workplace
Especially if it’s a non-traditional environment
Recruit LIS professionals to LIS professional posts
Use your expertise and practitioner experience to contribute to the evidence base, and follow @LISResearch
Offer constructive criticism and get involved to make CILIP more open, responsive and modern
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
Some good news to end with
Our profession faces an insurmountable opportunity
New areas of work more than compensate for losses in our traditional territories, but we must be flexible
So much is happening in the world of information that we must be a key player (or we are corporate toast within five years)
Come to Online and hear me say more!
(Blatant plug)
Copyright 2009 Peter Griffiths
