1. Academic Library Top Strategies
Stephen Abram, MLS
Computers in Libraries CyberTour
Washington DC
April 7, 2014

2. Grocery Stores

3. Cookbooks, Chefs . . .

4. Cookbooks, Chefs . . .

5. Meals

6. Remaining Relevant and Having a Positive Impact

7. Up Your Game
• Know your local community demographics
• Focus on needs assessment and social assessments
• Prioritize: Love all, Serve all, Save the World means nothing
gets done
• Priorities are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Relevant, & Time bound
• Look for partnerships that add value

8. Up Your Game
• Programs that aren’t text first – Arduino, Makerspaces, music, media…
• Scalability, reproducibility, sustainability, affordability
• Targeting
• Align with Collections – every collection must be justified by programs
and strategic alignment
• Force strategic investment budgeting
• Look for partnerships that add value
• Don’t go it alone. Focus on large scale sustainable programs
• Connect to the longer process not just events
• Virtual and in-person
• In the Library and reaching out with partners

9. What are the real issues?
• Craft versus Industrial Strength
• Personal service only when there’s impact
• Pilot, Project, Initiative versus Portfolio Strategy
• Hand-knitted prototypes versus Production
• e.g. Information Literacy and Fluency initiatives
• Discovery versus Search versus Deep Search
• eLearning units and program dissemination
• Citation and information ethics
• Content and repository archipelagos
• Strategic Analytics
• Value & Impact Measures
• Behaviours, Satisfaction
• Economic and strategic alignment

10. Up Your Game
• Align with Collections – But add virtual experiences
• Start being Mobile in the extreme
• Look for partnerships that add value
• Focus on relationship management / liaisons
• Ensure the program delivery person is embedded including
librarians
• What are your top learning or research domains? Start there.
• Don’t go it alone. Build scalability and sustainability.
• Look for replicability – look for commonalities

11. The new
bibliography and
collection
development
Ask Us, KNOWLEDGE
PORTALS
KNOWLEDGE,
LEARNING,
INFORMATION &
RESEARCH
COMMONS

12. Up Your Game
• Start offering diplomas and certificates
• The Non-credit Course
• Look for partnerships that add value
• Offer real educational opportunities not just adjacencies
• What does your community need for economic advantage?
• What courses to you offer or recommend? (MIT, Harvard, Stanford,
TED, Khan Academy, etc.)
• Play and connect yourself

13. Up Your Game
• OCLC Linked Data & APIs
• DPLA Vault & APIs
• 3D, learning object, LibGuides, audio, or streaming media repositories
• Understand Pedagogy in the context of student experiences and
educational goals
• Understand human development from teens to adult learning
• Understand the projects
• Makerspace… laboratories – onsite relevance
• Consider partnerships to put librarians into real liaison
• Consider coaches and tutoring partnerships

14. Up Your Game
• Take the strong ‘library’ brand and add dimension
• Personal branding – Who are your stars? Promote them.
• Program branding
• Take risks for attention (AIDA)
• Embed your brand beyond the library walls and virtually
• Go beyond the information brand to informing, creating, and
social

15. Up Your Game
• Grow collections investments in strategic areas but digital first
and not just size . . . Alignment trumps size any day
• Develop hybrid strategies that are consistent and integrated for
digital and print and programs
• Be obsessive about consultation, recommendations and advice
• Truly integrate virtual and physical – hybridize
• Social alignment rules

16. Up Your Game
• Learn how to reach and teach online
• Teach how to learn online
• Teach how to research online
• Everyone in academic libraries should be focused on
teaching/researching first, then library
• Learn more systems than one!
• Be obsessive about consultation, recommendations and advice
• Social alignment rules and use the tools

17. Up Your Game
• Dog, Star, Cow, Problem Child/?
• Reduce investment in successes
• Increase investment
• Look at TCO
• Look at all costs incurred and not just hard costs
• Do NOT value your time at zero
• Review opportunity costs in soft costs

18. Being Open to Ambiguity
Be the Change We Want to See

19. Stephen Abram, MLS, FSLA
Consultant, Dysart & Jones/Lighthouse Partners
Cel: 416-669-4855
stephen.abram@gmail.com
Stephen’s Lighthouse Blog
http://stephenslighthouse.com
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