This document summarizes Stephen Abram's presentation on 12 things to watch in 2012 related to libraries and information. It discusses trends in data driven reference programs, increased use of mobile technologies, the growing importance of location data and mapping, improvements in discovery systems, changes in e-content delivery and ownership models, more seamless payment systems, increased cloud computing and library consortia, a shift towards shared local and cloud-based resources, challenges related to information literacy and evaluating online content, the rise of experience portals, new voice-based search technologies, and expected disruptions in the industry through mergers, acquisitions and discontinued services.

1. Education Institute
Dec. 13, 2012
12 Things to Watch in 2012
Stephen Abram, MLS
VP, Cengage Learning (Gale)

2. The Education Institute Conversation
BARELY NAKED SLIDES FOR EI

4. Talking Points
• Strategic planning
• Vision & Focus
• Programs in Context – not content in
containers and buildings
• 2012, and beyond
• Trends in the context of libraries
• Libraries =
information, questions, quality, access, service
s, community, learning, democracy, reading, re
search, interaction, discovery, . . .

5. ONE
DATA DRIVEN REFERENCE
PROGRAMS

6. Talking Points
• Virtual versus in-person usage
• Database usage analysis
• Foresee demographics & satisfaction data
• Usage targeting – mapping
• Sampling
• Insights and Analysis
• Top Questions
• Prioritization

8. TWO
MOBILE

9. Talking Points
• Smartphones versus Feature Phones (instead of calling
them Dumbphones)
• Personal versus home/family/business phone
• Features . . . ‘We don’t need no stinkin’ features’
• Apps – will they survive?
• HTML5
• Location awareness
• Privacy, personal space
• Seamless content and service access
• OPAC/ILS/website/databases/service access
• ILS Registry data for cardholders/members/students…

10. THREE
GEO EVERYWHERE

11. Talking Points
• Geo will be one of the key debates in 2012+
• Geotagging of SEO and search results
• “XYZ wants to use your location . . .
Approve/Decline?”
• Election year, ads, etc.
• Why do libraries have a geographic presence?
(Branches, departments, collocation, etc.)
• GeoLib project… (Dr. Christie Koontz)
• Mapping use by geo-location… insights of what
we didn’t know before? Google Maps
visualization

12. FOUR
DISCOVERY

13. Talking Points
• The 4/2 Ratio . . .
• 6W: who, what, when, where . . . why, how
• Algorithms: What drives them?
• Ad-centric search algorithms (Google/Bing)
• Behaviour-centric (PowerSearch example)
• Discovery layers – Summon, EBSCO Discover, Ex Libris
Primo, WorldCat Local, etc. (Where to search versus
deep search at this point)
• Sentiment Analysis, Semantic Search, Social Search
(assorted strengths and weaknesses)
• Consumer Search (Google/Bing dominance . . . Vs.
Blekko, DuckDuckGo, Yippy, Exalead, etc. Don’t repeat
user shallow pool behaviour.)

14. FIVE
E-CONTENT, E-BOOKS, E-
ARTICLES, CONTAINERLESSNESS

15. Talking Points
 Harper Collins fiasco: Big 6 issues are fiction-centric
 What about non-fiction????
 Amazon self-published . . . You? Singles
 Amazon “authors” – harvesting
 Amazon Subscriptions and Lending
 New Google Bookstore
 Apple . . . iStore, iBooks
 24Symbols
 Bookish from S&S, Hachette, etc. (Baker& Taylor)
 Pottermore (via Overdrive & Sony)
 Recommendation Engines
(Bibliocommons, LibraryThing, Books & Authors
enhanced content, etc.

16. SIX
FRICTIONLESS PAYMENTS

17. Talking Points
• Wave credit/debit
• Square (via Twitter’s Jack Dorsey)
• QR Codes
• Embedded phone payments
• Micro-payments get real
• Virtual content (articles, books, movies, TV
shows, songs, radio, gaming, learning
objects, tests, study aids, databases, etc.)

18. SEVEN
THE CLOUD AND CONSORTIA

19. Talking Points
• 60-70% TCO savings
• SaaS, PaaS, IaaS –
Software, Platform, Infrastructure
• Requires cooperation on a much grander scale
• The Alberta Library is one model that can
scale up
• Political issues with Knowledge Ontario show
how fragile library cooperation is and how
alive fear and competition are locally

20. EIGHT
SHIFT: LOCAL VERSUS SHARED

21. NINE
TRANSLITERACY / CONTENT SPAM

22. Talking Points
• Librarians and information professionals will
be more important in coming years than EVER
BEFORE

24. List of content farms and general
spammy user generated content sites:
 All Experts (allexperts.com)  Experts Exchange (experts-exchange.com)
 Answers (answers.com)  eZine Articles (ezinearticles.com)
 Answer Bag (answerbag.com)  Find Articles (findarticles.com)
 Articles Base (articlesbase.com)  FixYa (fixya.com Helium (helium.com)
 Hub Pages (hubpages.com)
 Ask (ask.com)
 InfoBarrel (infobarrel.com)
 Associated Content (associatedcontent.com)
 Livestrong (livestrong.com)
 BizRate (bizrate.com)  Mahalo (mahalo.com)
 Buzle (buzzle.com)  Mail Archive (mail-archive.com)
 Brothersoft (brothersoft.com)  Question Hub (questionhub.com)
 Bytes (bytes.com)  Squidoo (squidoo.com)
 ChaCha (chacha.com)  Suite101 (suite101.com)
 eFreedom (efreedom.com)  Twenga (twenga.com)
 eHow (ehow.com)  WiseGeek (wisegeek.com)
 Essortment (essortment.com)  Wonder How To (wonderhowto.com)
 Examiner (examiner.com)  Yahoo! Answers (answers.yahoo.com)
 Xomba (xomba.com)
 Expert Village (expertvillage.com)

25. TEN
EXPERIENCE PORTALS

26. Talking Points
• Top Questions Focus
• Commons:
Computer, Learning, Reference, Information, S
tudent, Knowledge . . . Commons strategies
• Content Portals (access/retrieval focus)
• Knowledge Portals (alignment focus)
• Scholars Portals (target focus)
• Experience Portals (goal focus)

28. Grocery Stores

30. Grocery Stores

31. Cookbooks, Chefs . . .

32. Cookbooks, Chefs . . .

33. Meals

34. ELEVEN
VOICE SEARCH AND RESPONSE

35. Talking Points
• One word: Siri
• Phone centric – truly personal again
• Another word – read aloud
• Auditory learners
• Dealing with different abilities and learning
styles
• Quiet libraries?

36. TWELVE
DISRUPTION IN THE FORCE
MERGE, ACQUIRE, ABANDON, …
CD…

37. Talking Points
• I can easily be right predicting:
• Mergers
• Acquisitions
• Patent debates
• Copyright battles
• US Electioneering
• Format losses . . .CD, DVD, etc. whither USB?
• 50 services discontinued so far by Google in 2011 alone
• Yahoo! Changes . . . Flickr?
• Content Spam . . . AOL/Huffington Post
• AOL discontinues dialup…
• Etc.

38. Bonus: Trendy and worth watching
GESTURE COMPUTING
INTERNET OF THINGS
MAKER, 3D PRINTING

39. Talking Points
• Gesture computing
• Internet of Things
• Maker Faires
• MS Slate Tables
• 3d printing
• Mini-printers

41. Librarians

42. Don’t piss them off.
Ok, sure. We’ve all got our little preconceived notions
about who librarians are and what they do.
Many people think of librarians as diminutive civil
servants, scuttling about “Sssh-ing” people and stamping
things. Well, think again buster.
Librarians have degrees. They go to graduate school for
Information Science and become masters of data systems
and human/computer interaction. Librarians can catalog
anything from an onion to a dog’s ear. They could catalog
you.
Librarians wield unfathomable power. With a flip of the
wrist they can hide your dissertation behind piles of old
Field and Stream magazines. They can find data for your
term paper that you never knew existed. They may even
point you toward new and appropriate subject headings.
People become librarians because they know too much.
Their knowledge extends beyond mere categories. They
cannot be confined to disciplines. Librarians are all-
knowing and all-seeing. They bring order to chaos. They
bring wisdom and culture to the masses. They preserve
every aspect of human knowledge. Librarians rule. And
they will kick the crap out of anyone who says otherwise.

43. Stephen Abram, MLS, FSLA
VP strategic partnerships and markets
Cengage Learning (Gale)
Cel: 416-669-4855
stephen.abram@cengage.com
Stephen’s Lighthouse Blog
http://stephenslighthouse.com
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