The document outlines a strategic vision for the Copenhagen libraries aimed at adapting to changing societal and technological landscapes by 2020. It emphasizes a fundamental shift in library roles from merely providing access to media to enhancing user engagement through digital services, community involvement, and lifelong learning initiatives. The library's mission is redefined to focus on creating knowledge and fostering cultural activity, responding to new user needs and declining relevance of physical collections.

1. The Proactive Library
- Getting smarter together
Copenhagen, June 17, 2016
Mikkel Christoffersen
// Senior adviser, Copenhagen Libraries

2. Mikkel Christoffersen
• Senior adviser, City of Copenhagen and project
manager of ”eReolen” (national ebook platform)
• Works with digitisation, digital strategy, business
and lending models for ebooks etc.
• BA in Greek and English, MLIS
• Former consultant to ”Danish Agency for Culture”
– National representative; DG Connect MSEG on digital culture
– European framework project manager
– Nordic programme manager of Open Access R&D

3. More importantly
• Father of Mathilde (5)
and Josephine (12)
• The secretary in
Nyborg Karate Club
• Avid CCG player
• A horror and SF freak
• Neophyte baseball fan

4. Background
• Copenhagen needed a library strategy toward 2020
• We identified salient trends and megatrends
• Conclusion: The library needs to change
fundamentally
• Because the world has changed fundamentally
• Change brings threats and opportunities
”Opportunities are either seized or
lost. They don’t pile up.”
Hans Engell, former minister of justice

5. The strategy
• Strategy work
began September
2013
• Based on an
analysis of our
societal
surroundings and
megatrends

6. Changing framework conditions
Gøre en større
forskel for flere
københavnere
Resource strain
Cut-backs
New tasks
Reach non-users
New user needs
Media literacy
Reading skills
Life-long learning
Community
Media development
Internet-based media
Social media
Decline in loans of
physical materials
New opportunities
Digitisation
Digital service
Self-service
Citizen involvement
Need for a new
library mission

7. The media landscape
- the seismic shift

8. The open
internet
Music
Printed
books
TV
Movies
The library
The user’s information environment
in 2000
Radio
News-
papers
and
journals
https://www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/reports/escan/downloads/future.pdf

9. The open internet
Social media
E-
books
Music
Printed
books
TV
Movies and
tv-series
The library
The user’s information environment
2015
Radio
News-
papers and
journals

10. The user’s information
environment
The user’s information
environment
The library
collection
The library collection has
decreasing relevance
Do you help the
user by teaching
her to navigate
the green area?

11. Internet magazine Quartz: http://qz.com/124899/in-a-year-netflixs-competition-shifted-from-hulu-to-
hbo-to-everything/#!
Netflix is simply acknowledging that it doesn’t just
compete with other TV networks… It also competes
for attention with nearly any kind of leisure activity.
If you’re in book publishing, say, the reality is that you
don’t just have to think about the shift from paper to
tablets. You also need to worry about whether people
will use their tablets to read, or instead prefer to surf
the web, watch movies, etc.
Attention as the scarce resource
The user’s attention and time as
scarce resources

12. In short …
• The quasi-monopoly of being the place where
people could go for free and equal access is gone
• Copenhagen Libraries’ motto used to be:
”Everything you can imagine”
• Arguably; the internet does that better now
• But is providing access and media to people a
good place to be now anyway?

13. The bad place
• Everyone standing between content creator
and content consumer must prove value
• Getting content from creators to consumers is
a painful place with lots of huge players
• But it’s also a tiny thing in the whole process!
We don’t need to be the
ones handing people
the media to be
valuable! What they do
before and after is more
important

14. Filter
bubbles

15. We have ambitions!
• … on behalf of our users
• When every selfrespecting commercial service
gives you something, the library should give you
something completely new and unexpected you
didn’t know you needed!
• Read Vampire Diaries and Twilight and a
commercial service will give you The Immortal
Instruments. The library should give you James
Joyce and Medieval French poetry!

16. Reading and learning
- new user and societal
needs

17. Children’s leisure reading, intl.

18. Children’s leisure reading, DK
3 hours daily media consumption
Years
http://www.dr.dk/NR/rdonlyres/7D4E2F8D-FAF8-4285-8196-827CE78C646B/6079828/Media_Development_2014.pdf

19. The importance of reading
“The bottom line: Fewer students today are
reading for pleasure, even though daily reading
for pleasure is associated with better performance
in school and with adult reading proficiency”
PISA in Focus, OECD 2011

20. Reading is the fundamental skill
• Reading underlies other skills like IT and math
• It also underlies social skills
• Don’t read well at 8?
You never catch up!
• Reading is your ticket to
culture, social communities
and learning
• You learn to read
and then your read to learn
The early catastrophe: The 30million word gap
https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/TheEarlyCatastrophe.pdf

21. Globalisation and
lifelong learning
But as the world has gone flat, Gates said,
and so many people can now plug and play
from anywhere, natural talent has
started to trump geography.”Now,” he
said, ”I would rather be a genius born in
China than an average guy born in
Poughkeepsie.”
Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat, p. 226

22. Programme for the International Assessment
of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)
• At least one in ten adults is
proficient only at or below
Level 1 in literacy or
numeracy
• In other words, significant
numbers of adults do not
possess the most basic
information-processing skills
considered necessary to
succeed in today’s world

23. Literacy levels
LEVEL 1
Read short texts, locate a single piece of
information.
 Complete simple forms, understand basic
Vocabulary, determine the meaning of
sentences, and read continuous texts with a
degree of fluency.
LEVEL 2
 Integrate two or more pieces of information
based on criteria
 Compare and contrast or reason about
information and make low-level inferences.
 Navigate digital texts to access and identify
information from various parts of a document
LEVEL 3
 Understand and respond appropriately to dense
or lengthy texts.
 Understand text structures and rhetorical devices.
 Identify, interpret, or evaluate one or more pieces
of information and make appropriate inferences.
 Perform multi-step operations and select relevant
data from competing information
LEVEL 4/5
 Perform multiple-step operations to integrate,
interpret, or synthesise information from complex or
lengthy texts that involve conditional and/or
competing information.
 Make complex inferences and appropriately apply
background knowledge as well as interpret or
evaluate subtle truth claims or arguments.

24. 0,7
0,8
17,7
0,8
0,5
0,0
1,8
4,2
1,5
1,4
0,3
0,4
1,2
0,6
0,9
5,2
0,3
0,0
0,4
2,2
1,9
0,0
2,3
0,0
1,2
100 80 60 40 20 0 20 40 60 80 100
Italy
Spain
Cyprus¹ ²
France
Ireland
Poland
Austria
United States
Germany
England/N. Ireland (UK)
Korea
Denmark
Average
Czech Republic
Canada
Flanders (Belgium)
Slovak Republic
Russian Federation³
Estonia
Norway
Australia
Sweden
Netherlands
Finland
Japan
Percent
Lvl DK Avg
1 3.81% 3.31%
2 11.89% 12.16%
3 33.97% 33.29%
4/5 10.01% 11.79%
Who produces value
in the globalised
knowledge economy?

25. Reading makes you a
better person! (if you read good things)

26. The crisis of the wellfare
state and why it matters

27. http://fremtidensbiblioteker.dk/wp/wp-
content/uploads/2013/04/Rapport_Folkebibliotekernes_samfunds%
C3%B8konomiske_v%C3%A6rdi_lang.pdf
2015 report: Public
libraries contribute a net
+€800 mn to the
economy of Denmark
annually due to their
beneficial contributions
to reading, education etc.

28. So when can we expect more
money?
• Based on two days reading the newspaper looking
for sectors calling out for more funding:
• The elderly, the school system, the mentally
disabled, the physically handicapped, every ward in
every hospital for rising medicine costs, refugee aid,
the foreign service, the suicide hotline, the
universities, the university colleges, nature
preservation programs, the rest of the cultural
sector, the police AND the F16s fighting ISIS

29. We are not eternal and no
additional funding is coming 
• Our short and sweet analysis; we are last in line
for new funding
• We will be missed but we are not irreplacable
• We will lose the funding we do have, if we cannot
explain what we do and for whom and
why it matters greatly
• Greatly!

30. Physical space

31. The future of the physical
library?
A new library space with
more people and fewer
bookcases?

32. Should we go all digital?
Copenhagen Libraries
We are just one app. Why should people
choose us?
Indeed; are we not all small apps in the
great iPad of life?

33. Physical space
• Loans are going down, attendance is going up
William Mitchell quoted by
Lorcan Dempsey in his
blog reprinted in the book
”The Network Reshapes
The Library.”
• We need more space for activities arranged by ourselves,
facilitated by ourselves or that we don’t know of
• Longer opening hours, fewer shelves, more self-directed
services, links between physical and digital library, online or
screen or phone help, collections digitised

34. The conclusion

35. Disconnect between library ends and
means
The objective of the public
libraries is to promote
information, education
and cultural activity ...
… by making available
books, periodicals, talking
books and other suitable
materials.
x

36. Create
knowledge
share
Workshops labs
Learning and participation
Courses, clubs and forums
Inspiration, communities and experiences
Events, presentation and interaction
Easy access and flexible library facilities
Digital library, extended opening hours and modern
physical libraries
Literature, music, movies and databases
Efficient collection development and digitisation
Digitisation
Digital service
Self service
User
involvement
Volunteers
Partnerships
The value
pyramid

37. Napkin
logic

38. Napkin
logic

39. The proactive library
The Classical Library
Media as scarce resourcesMedia as scarce resources
Library collection central for citizenLibrary collection central for citizen
The citizen comes to the library
Recommendations from experts
The collection as centre of attention
Visits and loans as KPI
Library system as key system
The proactive library
Abundance of media
Attention as the scarce resource
The library comes to the citizen
Recommendation from peers
The citizen as centre of attention
Focus on effect and target groups
Customer relations management
system as key system
Access and presentation Learning and user involvement

40. Getting
smarter
together!
Homework
cafés
It-courses
It-cafés
Literature presentation at
schools
Author presentations
Reading campaigns
Guidance in high schools
Individual guidance in
the library
Reading clubsEvents
New concepts
Digital library service
Self-service
Digitisation
Citizen
involvement
Everything
you can
imagine

41. The digital library

42. The development of a digital
library
• A public digital library is not the
library homepage
• It can be defined as:
– An organised collection of
information resources and
related services that is made
available to the public on the
internet
• Notice that it also includes
access to physical materials
e.g. through an integrated
library system

43. The need for a digital strategy
• A digital library can be as traditional and
irrelevant as a an outdated physical library
• For instance by relying on a homepage
• The digital library must support the overall library
strategy
• It-systems and development must support the
purpose of the digital library
• There is a need to prioritise and make choices
• If there is no plan, it is guaranteed not to work

44. eReolen : a cornerstone
Please see separate slideshow later 

45. The digital library requires new
competencies
• Access independent of time and
space is the main advantage of a
digital library and digital service
• But access is not enough
• The internet is not just a
distribution platform – it is also an
ongoing conversation
• It requires new competencies, a
new way of thinking and more
resources
• But it must be closely linked to the
physical library

46. Social media – new expertise
Time and attention are commodities. Most marketers treat
social media as a distribution channel. They are missing the
fact that social networks are the first platforms ever that are
actually a two-way conversation. Now what makes you a
good cocktail party guest? Is it talking about yourself for
95% of the time?
http://www.slideshare.net/vaynerchuk/storytelling-slideshare-finalpdf
In a connected world, you can’t just sell copies of files. You
also have to sell context, community, convenience, and
connectivity
http://gerdleonhard.typepad.com/files/gerd-leonhard-inma-future-of-content-ideas-
1.pdf

47. Strategy overview

48. General action areas
https://bibliotek.kk.dk/sites/default/files/files/page/copenhagen_libraries_strategy_2014-2019.pdf#overlay-context=About

49. External target groups
Strategic focus Initiatives Effect
Schools and youth education
Critical information users and
keen readers
• The large assignments
• Library introduction and social
media norms
• Homework help and support
• Literature presentation and
inspiration
• Events for schools and youth
education
The best educated
generation
+ =
Active citizens
All Copenhageners can contribute
to the city’s development
• Reading clubs
• Digital Copenhagener
• Community centres
• Debate and open government
• Read Danish
Strong and diverse local
communities+ =
Children and culture
Culturally quality-aware and
inquisitive children
Cultural foundation for the
good children’s life+ =
• The 2-year book
• Parents and children
• Children and art
• The digital children’s library
• Network for children’s culture

50. The citizen as the library’s most
important asset
• Citizens get smarter together (than they do individually)
• The library has ambitions on behalf of the citizen – and it’s felt!
• The library must serve all citizens; but not all are created equal
• Loans are not the purpose of the library
• Digital solutions and self-service are not sufficient to fulfil the
purpose of the library
• Learning and cultural activity is enhanced by activities with other
citizens
• The library purpose is fulfilled by deliberate planned activities
• The library supports reading and digital competencies
• The library is a space for conversations among
citizens based on literature and other media
• Volunteers are not used to replace library
employees but to deliver a new and different offer

51. • A so-called package
• Invest €5.6 over four years; then save 1/3 of that
annually afterwards from year 4
• An implementation of the strategy
• A godsend to our digital strategy
• For some a herald of doom
https://bibliotek.kk.dk/sites/default/files/files/page/empower_the_citizens.p
df#overlay-context=About

52. The elements of the plan
Targeted library
service
Differentiated service
and increased self-
service
User involvement
and voluntary work
Digital service
Outreach initiatives
Investments
It-systems
Service development
Competence
development
Digitisation
Digital library
New library system
for digital media
New library system
for printed materials
More e-books
Integrated citizen
service
Integration with
libraries
Citizen service at
employment centres
and social services
Digital Copenhagener
courses

53. The librarians

54. Collective pool of work hours in case of
self-service
2.500 daily work hours(340 x 7,4)
distributed to new services
Thought experiment

55. Digital service – call center
• Joint e-mail, phone,
chat and interactive
screen service
• Open 8 am – 10 pm
• Reduction of individual
guidance in the physical
library
• Supports growing need
for assistance with
digital materials
SCREEN TECHNOLOGY
Face to face

56. JOINT
TASKS &
EXPERTISE
NEW
ROLES
% ? % ?
% ? % ?
% ?
% ?

57. 01-07-2016