This document discusses the changing role of libraries and information in the digital age. It notes that libraries now provide access to both print and digital information and must help users develop digital literacy skills. There is debate around whether digital formats can fully replace print and the role of libraries in providing long-term access to reliable information. New technologies like mobile devices and open data present opportunities but also challenges around issues like copyright and the risk of information being lost. The future of libraries may involve roles in areas like data management and supporting rights in the evolving information environment.

1. The future of libraries (and us)
Northern Sydney District Teacher Librarian
Association

2. 2
http://blogs.murdoch.edu.au/
katelyncollins/category/week-5 CC BY

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

5. 5

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

7. iPads even a 2 year old can use
them
Is a 2 year old a model for researchers?

8. App world
Angry birds
Facebook
Skype
Angry birds Rio
Google Maps
iBooks
Angry birds seasons
Fruit ninja
Talking Tom
Twitter
http://mashable.com/2011/12/23/top-10-apps/#4008910-Twitte
Top 10 in 2011

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

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

11. Dense information
Read short segments Can use dense complex
publication
Our mutual friend
4224p, 2668p
Our mutual friend 985 p
annotations – an
impossible dream
Marginalia, the print
experience
Access to lots of
information – reliable,
long term?
Quality – role of scholarly
publishers
Many versions
Mobile and tablets vs print

12. 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

13. Debates
• 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

14. Remembering and knowing
• Students operate in print and e environments
• Garland study
– Small differences but
– More repetition required for digital texts to impart the
same information
– Book readers digest material more easily
(Szalavitz, Maria “Do e-books make it harder to
remember what you just read?”)

15. Game changes
• Google
• What is a publication? What is Data?
• Open access
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16. A future narrative
• Digital coevolution
(Nick Harkaway)
• Nicholas Carr “Is
Google making us
stupid?”

17. Google: licence to hunt
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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

18. data vs publishing
http://datavisualization.ch/showcases/just-landed-a-twitter-visualization-in-processing/

19. 19

20. 20

21. Australian National Data Service
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22. 22

23. 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, 2013)
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24. 24

25. Government informaiton
• President Obama’s Executive Order
directs government-held data be made
more accessible to the public and to
entrepreneurs and others as fuel for
innovation and economic growth. (9 May
2013)
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26. Libraries
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27. 27

28. Selected National Statistics 2010-2011
• 1,491 public library service points
• Over 182 million items were lent to more
than 10 million members of Australia’s
public libraries.
• Over 114 million customer visits annually,
or more than 9 million per month
(State Library of Queensland, 2012)
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29. Reading
29

30. 30

31. Roles
• Started with information literacy
• Now digital literacy
• Next??? – rights management, data
management
• Canary in the knowledge
coal mine?
31
Thorpe Jim Canary in the coal mine… wear a mask!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/studiomiguel/3946174063/

32. • Will a design for a 2 year old suit
academic publishing?
• Is the battle for quality worth fighting for?
• Collaboration a new alternative?

33. Futures thinking
National
context
(West, 2013)
33

34. • ALIA paper – themes
convergence,
connection, the
golden age of
information
• MOOCs new
environment – many
opportunities beyond
traditional academic
outcomes
34
Small beauty By SharonPerrett
http://www.flickr.com/photos/81494696@N00/287199385/

35. 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
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36. • Are we “run over by technology”?
• Sir Bruce Williams Boyer lecture 1982
• What must we do to demonstrate value?
• Elliot – collection value, public libraries
contingent valuation
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37. … the electronic screen lends the text within
its frame the eternally pristine appearance of
a newly cut page, and this produces in me a
distancing feeling that, like Brecht’s dramatic
techniques, allows me a freer reading,
uncluttered by the sense of labouring under
previous perusals by myself and others.
Alberto Manguel cited in Barmé

38. Either you print things out, and find yourself
oppressed by piles of documents you’ll
never read, or you read online, but as soon
as you click onto the next page you forget
what you’ve just read, the very thing that has
brought you to the page now on your screen
Alberto Manguel cited in Barmé

39. References
• ALIA (2013) Library and information services: the future of the profession themes and
scenarios 2025, Discussion paper. Canberra: ALIA http://aliafutures.wikispaces.com/
• Barmé, G. R. (2011) “Slow reading and fast reference, East Asian history 37.
http://www.eastasianhistory.org/37/barme
• 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/F10
RecentAcqsExhibitHandout.pdf
• Britannica Editors (2012) Change: It’s Okay. Really. Encyclopaedia Britannica Blog.
http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2012/03/change/
• Brockman, J. ed. (2012) How is the Internet changing the way you think? Allen &
Unwin. (also see review by Appleyard at
http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2012/01/appleyard-internet-book)
• Elliott, V. (2010) ‘Why then we rack the value’ Building Value Frameworks for
Academic Libraries, presentation to CAUL.
http://www.caul.edu.au/content/upload/files/best-practice/caul20101elliott-value.pdf

40. • Gainman, N. (2013) Keynote presentation to London Book Fair’s Digital Minds
Conference. http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2013/05/video-neil-gaimans-keynote-
at-the-2013-london-book-fairs-digital-minds-conference/
• Harkaway, N. (2012) ... everything looks like a nail... Futurebook blog.
http://www.futurebook.net/content/everything-looks-nail
• Intel (2012) What happens in an Internet minute?
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/communications/internet-minute-
infographic.html
• Konrath, J. (2012) Amazon Will Destroy You, blog.
• http://jakonrath.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/amazon-will-destroy-you.html
• Murphy, S. (2012) Top 10 Apps Downloaded in 2011, Mashable.
http://mashable.com/2011/12/23/top-10-apps/#4008910-Twitter
• Miller, C. et al (2013) http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2013/05/01/parents-children-
libraries-and-reading/
• Plato's Phaedrus from Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9, translated by H.N. Fowler. Ca
mbridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.

41. • Rainie, L. (2012) The Shifting Education Landscape: Networked Learning, Pew
Research. http://www.pewinternet.org/Presentations/2012/Mar/NROC.aspx
• Samtani, H. (2013) “Librarians Take Aim at Pew Study on Parents and Libraries”
School Library Journal http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/05/research/librarians-
take-aim-at-pew-study/
• State Library of Queensland (2912) Australian public libraries statistical report 2010-
2011. Brisbane: the Library.
http://www.nsla.org.au/sites/www.nsla.org.au/files/publications/Aust_Pub_Lib_Stats_
2010-11.pdf
• Szalavitz, M. (2012) Do E-Books Make It Harder to Remember What You Just Read?
TimeHealthland. http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/14/do-e-books-impair-memory/
• telstarlogistics (2010) A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter with An iPad, YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT4EbM7dCMs
• Tenopir, C. (2013) Scholarly Reading in a Digital Age: Some things change, some
stay the same. Presentation given at ANU.
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42. • Van Noorden, R. (2013) “Open access: The true cost of science publishing” Nature
27 March 2013 Corrected: 5 April 2013 http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-
the-true-cost-of-science-publishing-1.12676
• West, M. (2013) Benchmarking Australian science performance. Canberra: Office of
the Chief Scientist. http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/OPS6-Paper-
for-print.pdf
• Wikipedia (2012) “Is Google making us stupid?”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_Google_Making_Us_Stupid%3F
• Wright, E. (2010) The Future of the Book Business: A Classicist’s View, Futurebook
blog. http://www.futurebook.net/content/future-book-business-classicist’s-view
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