1. Strategic Priorities in Libraries:
Focus on the Transformations
Stephen Abram, MLS
Web 2.012
Oct. 3, 2012

2. Change
These slides are available at Stephen’s Lighthouse blog

3. We Only Get So Many
Once-in-a-Lifetime
Chances To Do Great
Things

4. News Flash
“The Internet and technology have
now progressed to their infancy”

8. So how must library
strategies change?

9. Conclusions Up Front
1. Prioritize Programs not Collections
2. Drive ‘Reference’ with Data and Know Your Top
Questions
3. Balance of Physical and Virtual
4. Invest Time in Demographics and Analytics
5. Put Technological Tools in Context . . . As tools
6. Build Recreational Reading Away From Effort and
Get Real About the eBook Issue
7. Homework: Deal With It
8. Transliteracy is a Key Opportunity
9. Partnerships are about everything

10. Specific Challenges
1. Setting Priorities and Making Sacrifices
2. Innovation Culture, Pilots and Diffusion
3. Program Hiatuses
4. Backroom and Front Room Balance
5. Alignment with Goals
6. Measuring the Right Stuff
7. Organizational Structure and Governance
8. Investing in HR Development & Cross-training
9. Sacred Cows (desks, books, …)
10. Promotion, Marketing, Communication, Advocacy

11. Change can happen very fast

12. Sensemaking

13. What is an EXPERIENCE?
What is a library experience?
What differentiates a library experience from a transaction?
What differentiates libraries from Google/Bing?

14. The Evolution
of Answers

15. Why do people ask questions?
Is your library experience conceptually organized around
answers and programs?
Or collections, technology and buildings?

16. Why do people ask questions?
 Who, What, When, Where
 How & Why
 Data – Information – Knowledge - Behavior
 To Learn or to Know
 To Acquire Information, Clarify, Tune
 To Decide, to Solve, to Choose, to Delay
 To Interview, Delve, Interact, Progress
 To Entertain or Socialize
 To Reduce Fear
 To Help, Aid, Cure, Be a Friend
 To Win A Bet

17. What are your top 10-20 questions?
What is the service portfolio model
that goes with those?

18. The Baker’s Dozen: Sample Top 13
1. Health and Wellness / Community Health / Nutrition / Diet /
Recovery
2. DIY Do It Yourself Activities and Car Repair
3. Genealogy
4. Test prep (SAT, ACT, occupational tests, etc. etc.)
5. Legal Questions (including family law, divorce, adoption, etc)
6. Hobbies, Games and Gardening
7. Local History
8. Consumer reviews (Choosing a car, appliance, etc.)
9. Homework Help (grade school)
10. Technology Skills (software, hardware, web)
11. Government Programs, Services and Taxation
12. Self-help/personal development
13. Careers (jobs, counselling, etc.)
14. Readers Advisory was 14th

19. Top 12 Patron Hobbies
Recreational Reading
Cooking & Recipes
Computers
Movies & Film
Exercise, Cycling & Walking
Traveling, Tourism & Vacations
Top Hobbies?
Music
Top Homework Questions?
Pets Top Travel Destinations?
Gardening
What do you know?
Television Shows
Arts & Crafts
Knitting & Needlecrafts
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

20. Seth Godin on Decisions (June 8, 2011)
o Which of these are getting in the way?
o You don't know what to do
o You don't know how to do it
o You don't have the authority or the resources to do it
o You're afraid
o You believe that money matters most
o Once you figure out what's getting in the way, it's far
easier to find the answer (or decide to work on a
different problem).
o Stuck is a state of mind, and it's curable.

21. What Are Libraries Really For?
• Community
• Learning
• Discovery
• Progress
• Research (Applied and Theoretical)
• Cultural & Knowledge Custody
• Economic Impact

22. What Are Libraries’ Strategies?
• Answer Questions
• Train & Educate People
• Align with curriculum standards
• Align with Research Agenda
• Improve the community from a social
AND economic point of view

23. What Are Librarians For?
• Expertise
• Relationships
• Transformation
• Service (not servant)
• Vision
• Leadership
• Economic Impact

24. Questions for Libraries Today:
1. Are our priorities right?
2. Are learning, research, discovery changing
materially and what is actually changing?
3. What is the foundation of future library
success . . . Books? Meh…
4. What is the role for librarians in the real
future (that is not an extension of the past)?

26. Grocery Stores

27. Grocery Stores

28. Grocery Stores

29. Cookbooks, Chefs . . .

30. Cookbooks, Chefs . . .

31. Meals

32. Let’s chat
What is a meal in library end-user or education
and learning terms?
 Books versus Reading
 Library or Lesson level
 Niche marketing – undergrads, faculty, PhDs?
 How does the user change? Transform over
time?

35. Chefs, counsellors, teachers, magicians
Librarians play a vital role in building the
critical connections between
information , knowledge and learning.

36. Service Metaphor
o Cafeterias
o Take Out
o Private Dining Rooms
o Private Chefs
o Variety

37. Programs
What are the components of a program focus?
What lifts libraries beyond the foundation?

38. You have the tools.

39. Stop Making it So Hard!

41. Trans-Literacy: Move beyond reading & PC skills
 Reading literacy  News literacy
 Numeracy  Technology literacy
 Critical literacy  Information literacy
 Social literacy  Media literacy
 Computer literacy  Adaptive literacy
 Web literacy  Research literacy
 Content literacy  Academic literacy
 Written literacy  Reputation, Etc.

43. Steal
This
Idea

47. The nasty facts
about Google &
Bing and
consumer search:
SEO / SMO
Content Farms
Advertiser-driven
Geotagging

48. Strategic
Analytics

50. What We Never Really Knew Before (US/Canada)
 27% of our users are under 18.

We often 59% are female.
 believe a lot
29% are college students.
that isn’t
 5% are professors and 6% are teachers.
true.
 On any given day, 35% of our users are there for the very
first time!
 Only 29% found the databases via the library website.
 59% found what they were looking for on their first search.
 72% trusted our content more than Google.
 But, 81% still use Google.

51. 2010 Eduventures Research on Investments
 58% of instructors believe that technology in courses positively impacts student engagement.
 71% of instructors that rated student engagement levels as “high” as a result of using technology
in courses.
 71% of students who are employed full-time and 77% of students who are employed part-time
prefer more technology-based tools in the classroom.
 79% of instructors and 86 percent of students have seen the average level of engagement improve
over the last year as they have increased their use of digital educational tools.
 87% of students believe online libraries and databases have had the most significant impact on
their overall learning.
 62% identify blogs, wikis, and other online authoring tools while 59% identify YouTube and
recorded lectures.
 E-books and e-textbooks impact overall learning among 50% of students surveyed, while 42% of
students identify online portals.
 44% of instructors believe that online libraries and databases will have the greatest impact on
student engagement.
 32% of instructors identify e-textbooks and 30% identify interactive homework solutions as having
the potential to improve engagement and learning outcomes. (e-readers was 11%)
 49% of students believe that online libraries and databases will have the greatest impact on
student engagement.
 Students are more optimistic about the potential for technology.

53. What do we need to know?
 How do library databases and virtual services
compare with other web experiences?
 Who are our core virtual users? Are there gaps?
 Does learning happen? How about discovery?
 What are user expectations for true satisfaction?
 How does library search compare to consumer
search like Google and retail or government?
 How do people find and connect with library virtual
services?
 Are end users being successful from their POV?
 Are they happy? Will they come back? Tell a friend?

54. So how must library
strategies change?

56. Strategic Challenges for Reference and
Research Work
in the Coming Decade

57. The BASICS
 Data
 Information
 Knowledge
 Wisdom NOT
 Behavior

58. Death of Reference
 Who
 What
 Where
 When
 Why
 How

59. How & Why Questions
 Now that’s research
 The interview is more involved
 Transformational not Transactional
 Expertise counts
 The position and reputation of the delivery
professional is key
 Expertise is shared mutually
 Groups and patterns matter

60. What does all this mean?
 The Article level universe
 The Chapter and Paragraph Universe
 Integrated with Visuals – graphics and charts
 Integrated with ‘video’
 Integrated with Sound and Speech
 Integrated with social web
 Integrated with interaction and not just
interactivity
 How would you enhance a book?

61. What Strategies Should Change?
1. Evidence-based Reference Strategies
2. Experience-based Portals: The New Commons
3. Personal Service on Steroids
4. Quality Strategies: Consumer vs. Professional
Search
5. Social Networks and Recommendations
6. Trans-literacy Strategies
7. HR! People-driven Strategies
8. Curriculum and Research Agenda
9. Service and Programs

62. Recommendations
 Strengthen Your Personal Brand
 Reposition the Library and Librarian separately
 Don’t Tie Yourself directly to Collections or
Physical Space . . . But access
 Network with Your Users Socially
 Measure, Don’t Count, Analyze
 Engage in partnerships
 Know
 Take Risks

63. Consider the differences . . .
 Computer Commons
 Mall
 Service Commons
 Information Commons
 Knowledge Commons
 Learning Commons
 Science Commons
 Centre or Central?
 Physical / Virtual Hybrid

65.  Living in a parallel world
 Serving a hybrid world
 Changing their strategic planning models to add
more stretch into the environmental
scans, creative thinking and imagination
 Bringing staff and profession along the curve
 12 steps . . .

66.  Differential Adoption
 The generations are adopting at much
different rates and for different purposes
 Boomers are the primary adopters of e-
reading
 Adult women are a major market for e-
gaming
 Students are resisting e-textbook adoption
– for now.
 Tablet adoption (ownership)

67.  End of CD and DVD
 More e-Book and e-content formats
 Dealing with new potential walled gardens
for e-content (app stores, e-formats, single
device stuff, etc.)
 Mobility and smartphones and tablets

68.  This is an evolution not a revolution
 The REAL revolution was the Internet and the Web.
 The hybrid ecology is winning in the near term for
operating systems and content formats.
 This is good since competition drives innovation.
 Engage in critical thinking not raw criticism. Be
constructive.
 Critical thinking is not part of dogma or religious fervor
or fan boy behavior.
 Blamestorming is a silly response & not strategic

69.  This is an evolution not a revolution
 Perfectionism will not move us forward at this
juncture.
 Really understand the digital divide and remove your
economic and social class blinkers
 Get over library obsession with statistics and
comprehensiveness.
 Get excellent at real measurements, sampling and
understanding impact and satisfaction.
(Analytics, Foresee, Pew)

70.  This is an evolution not a revolution
 We need to revisit the concept of
preservation, archives, repositories, and
conservation.
 Check out new publishing models like
Flipboard.
 Watch for emerging book enhancements and
other features that will challenge library
metadata, selection policies, and collection
development.

72. Smelly Or
Yellow Sex
Liquid Appeal?

74. There are no knights on horses
in technology. Don’t hide!

76. Stephen Abram, MLS, FSLA
VP strategic partnerships and markets
Cengage Learning (Gale)
Cel: 416-669-4855
stephen.abram@cengage.com
Stephen’s Lighthouse Blog
http://stephenslighthouse.com
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