This document discusses issues related to the changing roles of librarians and library technicians in light of technological changes. It provides tips for "guerrilla librarianship" such as going where users are instead of expecting them to come to the library, rethinking space and costs by focusing on digital collections and services, and taking services out into the community in new ways. The document suggests librarians will need to adapt to remain relevant as the field undergoes significant changes.

1. Guerrilla librarianship: issues for
survival for organisations – new roles
for librarians and library technicians
Roxanne Missingham
2013 ALIA National Library & Information
Technicians’ Symposium

2. "You went through to the CIA or the National
Security Agency or something?" "No, a
reference librarian up at St. Charles. She
could find the street address of the caveman
who invented the wheel"....
Creole Belle by James Lee Burke.....
http://www.jamesleeburke.com/bibliography/46.php

3. A library outranks any other one thing a
community can do to benefit its people. It is
a never failing spring in the desert.
Andrew Carnegie
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/23387.Andrew_Carnegie

4. Libraries are the thin red line between
civilisation and barbarism
Neil Gaiman
https://twitter.com/wordsbydan/status/303668615956275200

5. Do I have to talk to insane people?
You're a librarian (library technician) now.
I'm afraid it's mandatory.
Jasper Fforde, The Woman Who Died a Lot
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/4432.Jasper_Fforde

6. Times of change
Image from Boston College, Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room (2010) Recent additions to the collection – Fall 2010:
An illustrated guide to the exhibit. http://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/schools/law_sites/library/pdf/RBR_items/pdf/F10RecentAcqsExhibitHandout.pdf
6

7. Winds of change
Change: It’s Okay.
Really.
Since 1768. Really.
http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2012/03/change/

8. 8

9. Pew research
http://www.pewinternet.org/Presentations/2012/Mar/NROC.aspx

10. When researchers cannot get hold of a work
in their library, 87% (US) and 90% (UK)
often or occasionally search for a free online
version.
Schonfeld, R. (2013) “The Space Between: Our latest Ithaka S+R Issue Brief pinpoints where US faculty members
and UK academics diverge and asks why?” http://www.sr.ithaka.org/blog-individual/space-between
10

11. Charles Beagrie Ltd and The Centre for Strategic Economic Studies (CSES) University of Victoria (2012) Economic Impact Evaluation
of the Economic and Social Data Service http://www.esrc.ac.uk/_images/ESDS_Economic_Impact_Evaluation_tcm8-22229.pdf
11

12. 12

13. What is happening in the academy
mrkuroud.tumblr.com/

14. After ipad?
http://politicsjob.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/look-like-pro-clear-off-that-messy-desk.html

15. Locking up access to information
• Deep web
• When is open really open
• Risks to research, teaching and learning
and collaboration
• Locking up is more thank big
publishers….electoral rolls and more
• Up to 75% of government “publications”
disappear in a decade

16. Competition: publishers
• Joseph Konrath “Amazon will destroy you”
• Emma Wright. “The future of the book
business”
– Publishing quality
– Reading (esp children)
– Market and value
• Neil Gaiman - publishers must be like
dandelions

17. Competition: Google - a licence to hunt
http://www.public-domain-image.com/sport-public-domain-images-pictures/fishing-and-hunting-public-domain-images-pictures/camouflaged-hunters-hunt-birds-at-night.jpg.html
17

18. A future narrative
• Digital coevolution
(Nick Harkaway)
• Nicholas Carr “Is
Google making us
stupid?”

19. Open access
But a total conversion will be
slow in coming, because
scientists still have every
economic incentive to submit
their papers to high-prestige
subscription journals. The
subscriptions tend to be paid for
by campus libraries, and few
individual scientists see the
costs directly. From their
perspective, publication is
effectively free.
Van Noorden, R. (2013) Open access: The true
cost of science publishing, Nature,
http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-thetrue-cost-of-science-publishing-1.12676
19

20. Communication
http://datavisualization.ch/showcases/just-landed-a-twitter-visualization-in-processing/

21. 21

22. Libraries
22

23. 23

24. • ALIA future of
libraries project –
themes
convergence,
connection, the
golden age of
information
Small beauty By SharonPerrett
http://www.flickr.com/photos/81494696@N00/287199385/
24

25. But
In the UK
– 293 libraries (258 buildings and 35 mobiles)
are currently under threat or have been
closed/left council control since 1/4/13 out of
c.4265 in the UK.
– 78 libraries and 14 mobiles (est.) were lost in
2012/13
– 201 library service points were lost 2011/12
25

26. Get your cranky pants on
… in Australian government libraries are
closing
26

27. Guerilla tips 1. Where are our users?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/charliebrewer/4317624738/lightbox/

28. 2. Space & costs – collections and
services
http://inhabitat.com/new-uk-library-fits-within-a-phone-booth/

29. 3. Take a new look – it’s digital services
29

30. 4. Out and about – be different
http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelinlibrarian/223839049/

31. • Over to you…….
31