In this presentation for the BIALL, SLA Europe, CLSIG Graduate Open Day 2014, I discuss the growing field of 'digital librarianship' and discuss the everyday work of a systems librarian at a major academic library. The main focus of the presentation is the technology ethics and values of digital librarians and how these are impacted by open-source software, open access, and user focus.

1. BIALL | SLA Europe | CLSIG
Graduate Open Day
Digital librarianship
Simon Barron
Systems Librarian – Senate House Library
@SimonXIX

2. “Human beings now produce more than five
exabytes worth of recorded information per
year: documents, e-mail messages, television
shows, radio broadcasts, Web pages, medical
records, spreadsheets, presentations, and
books…”
Wright, A., 2007. Glut:
mastering information
through the ages.
London: Cornell
University Press, p. 6.

3. 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes
5,000,000,000,000
megabytes
or

4. Hilbert, M., and López, P. (2011) The World’s
Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and
Compute Information. Science, 332 (60).

5. Hilbert, M., and López, P. (2011) The World’s
Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and
Compute Information. Science, 332 (60).

6. “Human beings now produce more than five
exabytes worth of recorded information per
year: documents, e-mail messages, television
shows, radio broadcasts, Web pages, medical
records, spreadsheets, presentations, and
books…”
Wright, A., 2007. Glut:
mastering information
through the ages.
London: Cornell
University Press, p. 6.

7. Hilbert, M., and López, P. (2011) The World’s
Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and
Compute Information. Science, 332 (60).

12. Mathews, J. M., & Pardue,
H. (2009) The Presence of
IT Skill Sets in Librarian
Position Announcements.
College & research
libraries, 70 (3). 72% of job ads contained
at least one IT skill.
From ALA’s online
JobList over five months:
38% referred to a
requirement for Web
development skills.
57% of those required
at least one more.
Four ads required
programming
languages.

13. Mathews, J. M., & Pardue,
H. (2009) The Presence of
IT Skill Sets in Librarian
Position Announcements.
College & research
libraries, 70 (3).
“…significant inter-section
between the skill sets of
librarians and the skill sets of
IT professionals.”

14. 1. Books are for use.
2. Every reader his [or her]
book.
3. Every book its reader.
4. Save the time of
the reader.
5. The library is a growing
organism.

17. Nemeth, E., at al., 2007.
Linux administration
handbook. Second edition.
Upper Saddle River: Pearson
Education.
Essential tasks of the
system administrator:
Adding, removing, and
managing user accounts
Adding and removing
hardware
Performing backups
Installing and upgrading
software
Monitoring the
system
Troubleshooting
Maintaining local
documentation
Vigilantly monitoring
securityHelping users

21. “…there is little to no evidence about
the consideration of user needs and
perspectives in the literature about
the development of the early Online
Public Access Catalogues (OPACS).”
Christensen, A., 2013. ‘Next-generation catalogues:
what do users think?’ In: Chambers, S., ed., 2013.
Catalogue 2.0: the future of the library catalogue.
London: Facet Publishing, p. 2.

23. Simon’s remarks do
not reflect the
views of either
Senate House
Library or the
University of
London.
Though they really should.
DISCLAIMER:

28. Doctorow, C., 2010. ‘Why I won't buy an iPad (and
think you shouldn't, either).’ Boing Boing, 2 April
2010. Available at
http://boingboing.net/2010/04/02/why-i-wont-
buy-an-ipad-and-think-yo.html.
“…if you can’t
open it, you
don’t own it.”

30. The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it
does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the
source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you
can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to distribute copies of your
modified versions to others (freedom 3).
By doing this you can give the whole
community a chance to benefit from your
changes. Access to the source code is a
precondition for this.
The GNU four freedoms
From:
http://www.gnu.org/phi
losophy/free-sw.html

31. lol my thesis, 6 March 2013. Available at:
http://lolmythesis.com/post/78809120074/make-shit-easy-to-find

32. Chambers, S., ed., 2013. Catalogue 2.0: the
future of the library catalogue. London: Facet
Publishing.
Christensen, A., 2013. ‘Next-generation
catalogues: what do users think?’ In:
Chambers, S., ed., 2013. Catalogue 2.0: the
future of the library catalogue. London: Facet
Publishing, pp. 1-15.
Doctorow, C., 2008. Little brother. Available at
http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/
Doctorow, C., 2010. ‘Why I won't buy an iPad
(and think you shouldn't, either).’ Boing Boing,
2 April 2010. Available at
http://boingboing.net/2010/04/02/why-i-
wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-yo.html.
Hilbert, M., and López, P., 2011. ‘The World’s
Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate,
and Compute Information.’ Science, 332 (60).
References
Mathews, J. M., & Pardue, H., 2009. ‘The
Presence of IT Skill Sets in Librarian
Position Announcements.’ College &
research libraries, 70 (3).
Nemeth, E., at al., 2007. Linux
administration handbook. Second edition.
Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education.
Wright, A., 2007. Glut: mastering
information through the ages. London:
Cornell University Press.

33. ‘Happy Binary Day’ by Flickr user: EJP Photo.
'dvds' by morgueFile user: hotblack.
‘Rise of the digital information age’ infographic from The Washington Post.
‘Newcastle City Library – Self Issue’ by Flickr user: ricaird.
‘iRiver Story eBook Reader Review’ by Flickr user: Andrew Mason.
‘Samsung Galaxy S3 – white, tilted’ by Flickr user: o2 in Deutschland.
All images licensed under
Creative Commons licenses
'Untitled' by Flickr user: naught_facility.
Ranganathan portrait from Wikimedia Commons.
Evil Windows 95 from Neil Cicierega, http://windows95tips.com
'Day 174: Amazing Push-Button Shushing Action!' by Flickr user:
Laura Taylor.
‘exclamation mark’ by Flickr user: Leo Reynolds.
‘Fixing the big apple’ by Flickr user: kylethale.
‘Lock’ by Flickr usre: walknboston.
Various screenshots from Simon Barron, Senate House Libraries.
Kuali OLE screenshots from a presentation by Andrew Preater,
Senate House Libraries.
‘Paper Sheets 3’ by Flickr user:
dantaylr.
‘Polaroid Land Camera 1000 & Q-
Light electronic flash (front)’ by
Flickr user: Timmy Toucan.