RECONFIGURING LIBRARY BOUNDARIES

RLUK pre-conference, London. November 24 2011

Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC @lorcanD

Preamble

Money Network

Microsoft research

Impact

PersonalInstitutio

nalGroupWebscale

Scaling

CONSOLIDATION AT SCALE

The scalability of access: stronger gravitational attraction at network level

Context and community: rich analytics drive richer experiences

Network encourages efficiencies of scale

CONSOLIDATION AT SCALE

The scalability of access: stronger Gravitational attraction at network level

Context and community: rich analytics drive richer experiences

Network encourages efficiencies of scale

INSTITUTION SCALE

Goodness: A large collection in central locations

Organization: Structured around collection

Makes it possible to see library as …

Pic: Günter Waibel

Some directions

Direction?Widespread sharing of infrastructure withingroups?Added value: intelligence from circ, acq, …

Direction?Widespread sharing of infrastructure withingroups?Added value: intelligence from resolution, …

Direction?Digital discovery at network level?Shared preservation frameworks?

Direction?Commodity: How many data wells?The collection?Registration model? Library does A&A?Other players (Elsevier, Thomson Reuters?)

Direction?Discovery moves to the network level …..

More than 75% of requests to SFX originate externally (Google Scholar, PubMed, etc.). U Minnesota, Discoverability

Direction?….. And to local/institutional curation environments.

Direction?Print collections consolidated in national/regional initiatives?

high low

low

hig

h

Un

iqu

en

ess

Low Stewards

hip

High Stewards

hip

In few collection

s

In many collection

s

COLLECTIONS GRID(Lorcan Dempsey and Eric Childress, OCLC Research)

Stewardship/scarcity

Low-LowFreely-accessible web resourcesOpen source softwareNewsgroup archives

Low-HighBooks & JournalsNewspapersGov DocumentsCD & DVDMapsScores

High-LowResearch & Learning Materials Institutional recordsePrints/tech reportsLearning objectsCoursewareE-portfoliosResearch dataProspectusInsitutional website

High-HighSpecial CollectionsRare booksLocal/Historical NewspapersLocal History MaterialsArchives & ManuscriptsTheses & dissertations

Outside in Bought, licensed

Increased consolidation Move from print to licensedManage down printMove to user-driven models

Aim: to discoverLow

Stewardship

High Steward

ship

In Few Collectio

ns

In Many Collectio

ns

Licensed

Purchased

Inside outInstitutional assets: special collections, research and learning materials, institutional records, …Reputation managementIncreasingly important?Aim: to *have* discovered … to disclose

Affiliations

Service

Teaching

Research

Publications

Boundaries

THE NETWORK RECONFIGURES THE LIBRARYBoundaries of the library are changing …

…. as the network reduces transaction costs …..

…. and as economics and functionality encourage new approaches.

ROLE

A university investment in shared information management.

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT?

IT

Computer centre

E-learning

E-learning

Repository, …

e.g. ODAI, Yale

New forms of scholarly communication

Press? Departments …

Research information management

Research office

Data curation and eresearch

Departments

STRATEGY:

E-research, digital humanities, student experience, ….

Making choices

New opportunitiese-researchstudent experience

reputation/expertise

Strategic choices

InnovatePartnerDisinvestShared services

Advantage

SPECIALIZATION: WHAT BUSINESS ARE YOU REALLY IN?

Specialise where can make an impactExternalise what is routine and can be done well collaboratively or by others

Library: what is distinctive

Harvard Business Review (1999)

Core components of a firm

CustomerRelationshipManagement

Product Innovation

Infrastructure

Back office capacities thatsupport day-to-day operations“Routinized” workflowsEconomies of scale important

Develop new products andservices and bring them tomarketSpeed/flexibility important

Attracting and building relationships with customers“Service-oriented”, customizationEconomies of scope important

Engagement Innovation

Infrastructure

Back office capacities thatsupport day-to-day operations“Routinized” workflowsEconomies of scale important

Develop newservices and have them acceptedSpeed/flexibility important

Attracting and building relationships with researchers and learners“Service-oriented”, customizationEconomies of scope important

Shifting boundaries

Libraries externalising infrastructure – economies of scale and network effects

CollectionsSystemsDiscovery?

Relationship management is central – engagement creates distinctive local value

BuildingsThe service turnPeopleAggregate social/analyti cs data

Patterns of externalization varyCollaborative: sharing innovation and resourcesCommercial: contracting for servicesThe emergence of the cloud

SPACEReconfigure around the user experience rather than around collections.Infrastructure >> engagement

SocialAd hoc rendezvousMeeting place

Showcase and sharing

ExhibitionsSpecialist equipmentSpecialist staffGIS, Writing centre, digital humanities, …

Find members of a group in the library ….

EXPERTISEPeople are entry

points

Engagement with research and learning

Marketing/assessment/partnership

Librarans returned in search .. UMich

SERVICESThe service turn

U Minnesota, ARL Institutional profile

In alignment with the University's strategic positioning, the University Libraries have re-conceived goals, shifting from a collection-centric focus to one that is engagement-based.

SERVICEThe service turn

Defining distinctive services with the clarity with which we have defined distinctive collections allows us to acknowledge that the 21st century will be marked by different, but equally valid, definitions of excellence in academic libraries, and that the manner in which individual libraries demonstrate excellence will be distinctive to the service needs, and to the opportunities to address those needs, found on each campus.

Scott Walter. “Distinctive Signifiers ofExcellence”: Library Servicesand the Future of the AcademicLibrary. Coll. & res. libr. January 2011 72:6-8

... to serve the emerging needs of faculty, researchers and graduate students pursuing in-depth research and scholarly inquiry. Access to expertise, hardware and software.

First year initiatives: Bowling Green State Univ Libs

M Publishing, U Michigan

The Library First-Year Initiatives (F.Y.I.) Program strives to make meaningful connections with incoming students early in their academic career.

The University of Michigan Press, the Scholarly Publishing Office, Deep Blue (the University’s institutional repository service), the Copyright Office, and the Text Creation Partnership,

Salman Rushdie Archive, Emory UPersonal digital papers of Salman Rushdie. Have

become his reference collection.

Scholarly Commons, U Illinois Urbana Champaign

SYSTEMSEngagement, cloud and collaboration

Focus on engagementResource guides, integration with learning management, widgets, etcRecommendation (aggregation)

Move to cloud for infrastructureILS, ERM, Discovery: move to cloud-based solutions

Deep collaboration Shared systems infrastructure:Orbis Cascade Alliance, 2CUL

Externalization

Collab Public Third party

Webscale Repec PubMed Worldcat.org

Group Tripod OhioLinkCOPAC

Institutional DspaceVuFind

Hosted LMS

Sourcing

Scalin

g

Rick Luce, LIBER 2011, Barcelona

Scalin

g

Sourcing

Institution

Group

Web

Internalized Collaborative Public Third-Party

1

Self-Sufficiency

2

CollaborativeExternalization

Cooperative catalogingResource sharing

3

StraightExternalization

Licensed e-contentHosted systems

4

Web-scaleExternalization

Google Books/ScholarMendeley

Scalin

g

Sourcing

Institution

Group

Web

Internalized Collaborative Public Third-Party

4

3

2

1

StraightExternalization

Self-Sufficiency

CollaborativeExternalization

Web-scaleExternalization

Hathi TrustEuropeana

JSTORProquest

Google Books

Life cycles?

SOME DIRECTIONSStrengthening engagement

Systems for engagement Relationship with campus partnersMarketing and assessmentThe service turnExternalising

infrastructureGive things up?Deep collaborationCloudJust in case to just in timeSharing Innovation and

expertiseNew skillsOrganizational innovation

External relationships are even more critical:Strategic choices

RECONFIGURING LIBRARY BOUNDARIES

RLUK pre-conference, London. November 24 2011

Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC @lorcanD

Thank you!