The document discusses the future of libraries and the need for them to change strategies to remain relevant. It notes that priorities should be on programs rather than collections, driving reference with data, rebalancing physical and virtual services, and investing in analytics and measurements. Specific challenges include setting priorities, developing an innovation culture, aligning with community goals, and measuring impact. Overall libraries need to focus on experiences rather than transactions by prioritizing learning, discovery, and partnerships.

1. Light ‘em Up
The Future of Libraries:
Stephen Abram, ML
Oregon Library Association Conference
Bend, OR
April 26, 2012

2. Change
These slides are available at Stephen’s Lighthouse blog

3. We Only Get So Many
Once-in-a-Lifetime
Chances To Do Great
Things

4. News Flash
“The Internet and technology have
now progressed to their infancy”

14. Lies we tell ourselves
 Libraries are a big market for fiction
 Libraries are closing in large numbers
 Teens don’t read anymore & Boys don’t read
 The education issue is intractable
 We serve everyone
 People want to search
 Free is all-important
 Social institutions don’t need their staff to
embrace the social tools

15. Speaking of e-
Books...

17. Borders Kobo, B&N Nook, Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad, Sony, etc. . . .

25. GBS

28. Pottermore

32. On a limb:
There is no scenario where public
library circulation will increase.

33. Can we frame the e-book issue in
libraries so that it can be addressed
rationally?

34. Books

35. Fiction

36. Non-Fiction

37. Be More Open to the Users’ Paths -
Filtering

38. So how must library
strategies change?

39. First:
1. Focus on memberships and audiences
2. Then focus on penetration though
engagement
3. Measure (and communicate) impact

40. Conclusions Up Front
1. Prioritize Programs not Collections (align)
2. Drive ‘Reference’ with Data and Know Your Top Questions
3. Re-Balance of Physical and Virtual
4. Invest Time in Demographics & Analytics (Measurements
not Stats)
5. Put the newer Technological Tools in Context
6. Build Recreational Reading Away From Effort and Get Real
About the eBook Issue
7. Homework: Deal With It
8. Transliteracy is a Key Opportunity
9. Partnerships are everything and essential

41. Specific Challenges
1. Setting Priorities and Making Sacrifices (Program
Hiatuses)
2. Innovation Culture, Pilots and Diffusion
3. Fix our Backroom and Front Room Balance through
more Cooperation
4. Alignment with Community Goals & our Values
5. Measuring the Right Stuff - Impact
6. Investing in HR Development & Generations
7. Admit we have Sacred Cows (desks, books, …)
8. Promotion, Marketing, Communication, Advocacy

42. Change can happen very fast

43. Sensemaking

44. What is an EXPERIENCE?
What is a library experience?
What differentiates a library experience from a transaction?
What differentiates public libraries from Google/Bing?

45. The Evolution
of Answers

46. Why do people ask questions?
Is your library experience conceptually organized around
answers and programs?
Or collections, technology and buildings?

47. Why do people ask questions?
 Who, What, When, Where
 How & Why
 Data – Information – Knowledge - Behavior
 To Learn or to Know
 To Acquire Information, Clarify, Tune
 To Decide, to Solve, to Choose, to Delay
 To Interview, Delve, Interact, Progress
 To Entertain or Socialize
 To Reduce Fear
 To Help, Aid, Cure, Be a Friend
 To Win A Bet

48. What are your top 10-20 questions?
What is the service portfolio model
that goes with those?

49. The Baker’s Dozen: 1 Library System’s Top 13
1. Health and Wellness / Community Health / Nutrition / Diet /
Recovery
2. DIY Do It Yourself Activities and Car Repair
3. Genealogy
4. Test prep (SAT, ACT, occupational tests, etc. etc.)
5. Legal Questions (including family law, divorce, adoption, etc)
6. Hobbies, Games and Gardening
7. Local History
8. Consumer reviews (Choosing a car, appliance, etc.)
9. Homework Help (grade school)
10. Technology Skills (software, hardware, web)
11. Government Programs, Services and Taxation
12. Self-help/personal development
13. Careers (jobs, counselling, etc.)
14. Readers Advisory was 14th

50. Top 12 Patron Hobbies
Recreational Reading
Cooking & Recipes
Computers
Movies & Film
Exercise, Cycling & Walking
Traveling, Tourism & Vacations
Top Hobbies?
Music
Top Homework Questions?
Pets Top Travel Destinations?
Gardening
What do you know?
Television Shows
Arts & Crafts
Knitting & Needlecrafts
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

51. What are your demographics?
Did you know…
 The dominant household is singles
 Next is couples
 Then families with children
 Poor neighborhoods use smartphones and
broadband at higher levels
 Poor neighborhoods use the library more
 Hispanics have more smartphones, etc.
 Virtual user is dominant and different than in-person
 Challenge all assumptions . . .

52. News Flash
News Flash
Tech Shift Happens

53. Seth Godin on Decisions (June 8, 2011)
o Which of these are getting in the way?
o You don't know what to do
o You don't know how to do it
o You don't have the authority or the resources to do it
o You're afraid
o You believe that money matters most
o Once you figure out what's getting in the way, it's far
easier to find the answer (or decide to work on a
different problem).
o Stuck is a state of mind, and it's curable.
o Turn Excuses into Reasons

54. Deer in headlamps slide here.

55. What Are Libraries Really For?
• Community & Social Glue
• Learning
• Discovery
• Progress
• Research (Applied and Theoretical)
• Cultural & Knowledge Custody
• Economic Impact

56. What Are Librarians For?
• Expertise (We ARE Experts!)
• Relationships
• Transformation
• Professional Service (not servant)
• Vision & Leadership
• Economic Impact

57. Columbus, Cook, Magellan and Libraries:
Searching for the corners of the earth, the edge of the
oceans and discovering dragons ...

58. Columbus, Cabot, Cortes

59. Magellan Columbus Cook

61. Questions for Libraries Today:
1. Are our priorities right?
2. Are learning, research, discovery changing
materially and what is actually changing?
3. What is the foundation of future library
success . . . Books? Meh…
4. What is the role for librarians in the real
future (that is not an extension of the past)?

63. Grocery Stores

64. Grocery Stores

65. Grocery Stores

66. Cookbooks, Chefs . . .

67. Cookbooks, Chefs . . .

68. Meals

69. Let’s chat
What is a meal in library end-user or education
and learning terms?
 End users want to find
 Their goal is a transformational experience
 They don’t see the library as inventory and
logistics
 Our generational assumptions need updating
 Sometimes they don’t need help
 Listen to the stories

70. The new
bibliography and
collection
development
KNOWLEDGE
PORTALS
KNOWLEDGE,
LEARNING,
INFORMATION &
RESEARCH
COMMONS

72. What are
your user’s
real goals?

74. Chefs, counsellors, teachers, magicians
Librarians play a vital role in building the
critical connections between
information , knowledge and learning.

75. Programs
What are the components of a program focus?
What lifts Libraries beyond our foundations?

76. You have the tools.

77. Stop Making it So Hard!

79. Trans-Literacy: Move beyond reading & PC skills
 Reading literacy  News literacy
 Numeracy  Technology literacy
 Critical literacy
Failure
 Information literacy
 Social literacy is not an
100%
 Media literacy
 Computer literacy  Adaptive literacy
Option
 Web literacy  Research literacy
 Content literacy  Academic literacy
 Written literacy  Reputation, Etc.

81. Steal
This
Idea

82. E-Learning
Do you know
the new
curriculum
and the
goals?

83. E-Learning

85. List of content farms and general spammy
user generated content sites:
 Experts Exchange (experts-exchange.com)
 All Experts (allexperts.com)
 eZine Articles (ezinearticles.com)
 Answers (answers.com)
 Find Articles (findarticles.com)
 Answer Bag (answerbag.com)
 FixYa (fixya.com Helium (helium.com)
 Articles Base (articlesbase.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)
 Expert Village (expertvillage.com)
 Xomba (xomba.com)
 )

89. The nasty facts
about Google &
Bing and
consumer search:
SEO / SMO
Content Farms
Advertiser-driven
Geotagging

90. Strategic
Analytics

92. What We Never Really Knew Before (US/Canada)
 27% of our users are under 18.

We often 59% are female.
 believe a lot
29% are college students.
that isn’t
 5% are professors and 6% are teachers.
true.
 On any given day, 35% of our users are there for the very
first time!
 Only 29% found the databases via the library website.
 59% found what they were looking for on their first search.
 72% trusted our content more than Google.
 But, 81% still use Google.

93. 2010 Eduventures Research on Investments
 58% of instructors believe that technology in courses positively impacts student engagement.
 71% of instructors that rated student engagement levels as “high” as a result of using technology
in courses.
 71% of students who are employed full-time and 77% of students who are employed part-time
prefer more technology-based tools in the classroom.
 79% of instructors and 86 percent of students have seen the average level of engagement improve
over the last year as they have increased their use of digital educational tools.
 87% of students believe online libraries and databases have had the most significant impact on
their overall learning.
 62% identify blogs, wikis, and other online authoring tools while 59% identify YouTube and
recorded lectures.
 E-books and e-textbooks impact overall learning among 50% of students surveyed, while 42% of
students identify online portals.
 44% of instructors believe that online libraries and databases will have the greatest impact on
student engagement.
 32% of instructors identify e-textbooks and 30% identify interactive homework solutions as having
the potential to improve engagement and learning outcomes. (e-readers was 11%)
 49% of students believe that online libraries and databases will have the greatest impact on
student engagement.
 Students are more optimistic about the potential for technology.

95. What do we need to know?
 How do library databases and virtual services
compare with other web experiences?
 Who are our core virtual users? Are there gaps?
 Does learning happen? How about discovery?
 What are user expectations for true satisfaction?
 How does library search compare to consumer
search like Google and retail or government?
 How do people find and connect with library virtual
services?
 Are end users being successful in their POV?
 Are they happy? Will they come back? Tell a friend?

96. Emboldened Librarians hold the key

97. So how must library
strategies change?

98. What is Changing?
1. Evidence-based Reference Strategies
2. Experience-based Portals: The New Commons
3. Personal Service on Steroids
4. Quality Strategies: Consumer vs. Professional
Search
5. Social Networks and Recommendations
6. Trans-literacy Strategies
7. People-driven Strategies
8. Curriculum and Research Agenda
9. Service and Programs

99. Recommendations
 Strengthen Your Personal Brand
 Reposition the Library and Librarian
 Don’t Tie Yourself directly to Collections or
Physical Space
 Network with Your Users Socially
 Measure, Don’t Count
 Engage in partnerships
 Know
 Take Risks

100. Technology Context
 Cloud (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS)
 Laptops and Tablets
 Mobility / Smartphones
 Bandwidth (Wired, WiFi, Whitespace)
 Learning Management Systems
 Streaming video and audio vs. download
 HTML5 and Apps – the battle
 Advertising auction models and ‘product’
 New(ish) Players (Amazon, Apple, G, B&N, Uni’s,
states/provinces/nations)

101. Book Challenges
 Format Agnosticism
 Browsers: IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari
 Devices: Macintosh, PC Desktops & Laptops
 Mobile: Laptops, Tablets (iPad, Fire, etc.)
 Mobile: Smartphones (iPhone, Blackberry,
Android, Windows, etc.)
 Container: PDF, ePub, .mobi, Kindle, etc.
 Learning Management System: Blackboard /
WebCT, D2L, Moodle, Sakai, etc.
 Purchasing (Amazon, B&N, Chegg, CengageBrain,
Apple Store, University Textbook Store, etc.)

102. Should we tie users and students to a
specific and proprietary device or
operating system?

103. This era will see a Fundamental
Reimagining the Book
For the present there will be those who
resist and the resisters will be the
majority.

104. Reimagine Service
Reference and Research

105. Consider the differences . . .
 Computer Commons
 Mall
 Service Commons
 Information Commons
 Knowledge Commons
 Learning Commons
 Science Commons
 Centre or Central?
 Physical / Virtual Hybrid

106. Mobility

107. A 1965 iPhone

112. What Would You Attempt If
You Knew You Would Not
Fail?

114. A Third Path

119. Smelly Or
Yellow Sex
Liquid Appeal?

120. Consider the Whole Experience

123. There are no knights on
horses in technology.

124. ‘Reading’ trumps print books . . .

126. 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
Facebook, Pinterest: Stephen Abram
LinkedIn / Plaxo: Stephen Abram
Twitter: @sabram
SlideShare: StephenAbram1