Branding InnovationPrototyping Libraries of the Future

Camp Helsinki

November 2008

Knud Schulz

Modern library practice and strategies

– means that roles constantly change

The frame of the camp!

• The task is to create the best library of the future• Today we are one organization – here together• We need you as professional specialists and

managers• We have the opportunity – and mild pressure• We are going to present our results to the

colleagues from the Helsinki region and representatives from the ministry tomorrow afternoon

• The world expects the best of you!

RethinkingDo we need to disintegrate the library before

reconstructing it?

The change in society and the way of living are creating new premises for the need of the library

The identity of the human beings are related to and depending on new ways of communication

The Challenge

“ – only the paranoid survive”Andy Grove – Intel 1995

The Worst Scenario?Expect the worst• Nobody needs the library• Google serves the digital library users• The physical library change into a museum

showing the industrial decade’s way of handling information

• Library managers will be strategic attendants at the museums

• Librarians become zombies

Are the managers the obstacles?

• Often miss to develop & innovate

• Are in a position of rest

• Unwilling to set new agendas and new goals

• Afraid of change

Focus on InnovationThe most common barriers are the lack of:• Risk culture• Competencies • Rigidity in the organization• Finance• Involving of costumers/users • Management priority• Professional know how• Priority of time for development

What’s Going On In the Libraries?• The change from “industrial

society” libraries to “knowledge society” libraries

• A lot of the routine work is done by the users

• The digital content, the internet and browsers provide more information resources than educated librarians did 5 years ago

Worst case scenario - What will be the need for libraries in the future?

The strategy for changing

• The need for rethinking the library

• The need for a fusion between physical – virtual

• Focus on development• Bringing new skills into the

library• Promoting learning in the

organization• Force users to dismiss the

book as library brand

The library as a space – in the future?

• The building supports the needs of the users

• The building interacts with the surroundings and environment

• The building acts adaptively

The ChangeFrom

Transactions – loans, search etc.

Relations – new services based on facilitating relational communication

Innovation Strategy

A strategy is not something you have

– it is something you do

The strategy constantly need to be reformulated

The Innovation Strategy

“..to generate ideas is to be creative; to convert ideas to results is to be innovative. Being innovative in an organized and user-oriented fashion is the essential competitive parameter of the 21st century…”

Steve Jobs, Apple inc.

Users as focal point

• Users are the potentiality of change

• Users should be part of the innovation processes - from the creative phase to testing and realisation

User-driven innovation

• User-driven innovation is a systematic approach to the development of new products, services etc., based on exploration and involvement of users’ lives, identities, practices and needs – including the needs that users are not even aware of.

• User-driven innovation is a method to increase accuracy in developmental work. Users are not driving innovation, but innovation is anchored in users’ life situations and needs – more than in library staffs traditional thinking

Development Process

User driven innovation

Innovation requires prioritized ressources

• Citizens’ Services and Libraries annually allocates a common pool for innovation.

• 10 % of the budget of the Main Library are dedicated to development/innovation

Innovation requires management focus and

commitment

• Each year, processes to prioritise ideas are carried out, in which the management changes strategies into decisions by allocating funds for innovative ideas

Competences exist in networks

• Innovation processes involve competences from Citizens’ Services and Libraries and from national and international network partners

Innovation is branding too

• Innovation processes must result in positive attention from users and politicians as well as from professional colleagues

Rethinking the Physical Library

• ‘Self-service’ the traditional library routines

• Support the user needs by using pervasive technologies

• Facilitate the users’s ownership • Redesign the library• Merge the digital and the physical library

Every library should be a research centre of its own- with users as performersand- staff as supporters

thank you for listening