1. Libraries: The Latest Trends &
Opportunities
Stephen Abram, MLS
Western University FIMS Conference
Humans of the New Librarianship
March 22, 2014

2. What does it mean to be human?
To live
To experience
To learn
To create and innovate
To inspire
To love and raise another generation
2

3. The disruptions that were predicted . . .
3

4. 4

6. I my
customers

9. Print was complicated too

10. Change?

11. Focus?

12. Focus?

14. Can everyone source their force?
Can we contribute to everyone’s self-actualization?
Can we turn our heads around from the foundations
(collections) to the users (humans)?
15

15. Is this library ready to support a
world of unlimited content, multiple
formats, massive access, and
consumer expectations of MORE?
Yes?
No?
With Effort, Vision,
Leadership?
Never?

16. Every Day in every way libraries are
throwing pebbles

21. It’s simple really, shift happens, gedoverit
• Users & Communities will continue to be diverse in the extreme
• Expectations around timeliness will increase
• We will have a foot in both camps for many, many years to come:
digital and physical – professionals don’t debate the end of print
• Content will (is already) be dominated by non-text (gamification,
3D, visual, music, video, audio, etc.), acknowledge that!
• Search will explode with options and one-step, one box,
commercial algorithm-based search is for dummies not libraries
• The single-purpose anchored device is already dead as a target
• Devices will focus on social, collaboration, sharing, learning,
multimedia, creation and successful library strategies will align
with that (and libraries’ missions)
• E-Learning, collections, software, and metadata will go to the
cloud massively

22. Library Megatrend
It doesn’t take a genius to see librarian
skills and competencies applied to the
trends and issues in our communities in
very strategic ways – social, economic,
learning, and discovery impacts.

27. Deer in headlamps slide here.

29. Librarians core skill is not
delivering information
Librarians improve the
quality of the question
and the user experience
Librarians are about learning
and building communities

30. Libraries Have Seasons

31. Librarian Magic

32. 33
Librarians Cultural Diseases
• Risk Aversion
• Conflict
avoidance
• Candle under
the basket

34. Failure to Reward Risk & Failure

35. Digital risk has raised the bar on risk taking in library land.

36. Smelly
Yellow
Liquid
Or
Sex
Appeal?
The Complex Value Proposition

37. Books, eBooks
Magazines
Websites
Buildings, Branches
Rooms
Desks
Programs
Databases
Nouns can be warehoused
and ‘cut’
Serve
Answer
Engage
Link
Teach
Entertain
Tell a story
Do
Action verbs imply dynamism
and impact

38. Retail Sales Down?
Teen Reading Down?
Titles Down?
Circulation Down?
Reading Down?
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
Focus on the REAL Issues
Not BOOKS! The experience

39. Grocery Stores

40. Cookbooks, Chefs . . .

41. Cookbooks, Chefs . . .

42. Meals

44. Library Land
What changes, disruptions and
shifts are already in the
environment?

45. Millennials are the largest generation in history
IQ and their brains
Development
Gaming
Reading
Learning Styles
Crime Rate and other issues

46. Gaming
Making
Writing
Reading
Researching
Living
Enjoying

47. What if all music, audiobooks, and video moved to
streaming formats by 2018?
What if the DVD and CD go the way of vinyl, VHS, and
cassettes?

48. What if all books are digital?
What if book services move to a subscription
model of unlimited use for $7/month?
What about next generation e-books?
What if all books are ‘beyond text’?
Can we support books with embedded video,
adaptive technologies, audio, updating, software
tools, assessments, web-links, etc.

49. Could your library support advanced higher
education and offer accredited courses or
support universities and colleges for distance
education?
Have you catalogued them?
Can you see yourself offering diplomas?

50. Could your library support distance education,
high school credits, and home schooling on a
much higher level?

51. Could your library support any kind of mobile
device seamlessly?
Are you fully ready to deliver, agnostically to
desktops, laptops, tablets, phablets, smartphones,
televisions, appliances, at a much higher level?

52. Are you prepared for new forms of content?
Real multimedia? 3D objects and databases?
Holographics? Enhanced media?
Can you be ready for makerspaces, creative
spaces, writing labs, business and start-up
incubators, etc.
Can you publish for your community?

53. What kinds of community spaces are needed in
the future?
Can you support learning spaces, community
meeting spaces, performance spaces, maker
spaces, real advisory spaces, true relationship
and consultation management . . .?

54. What if everything was in the cloud? (software,
databases, metadata, content . . .)
What would you do with those system skills on staff?

55. Semantic, Sentiment, Bias, Visual, Ontological
What if search immersive resource discovery becomes as
ubiquitous as search engines?
What if schools and public libraries partner on discovery
services (a la NYPL, BPL, QBPL, and NYED with their
BiblioCommons initiative)

56. What if all metadata and content discovery is
freely available using open APIs through the
OCLC WorldShare vault and the Digital Public
Library of America / Europeana vault of open and
free metadata?
What does your experience portal look like? Top
questions?

57. What Should Library Priorities Be?
And what would you sacrifice?

58. 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

59. Focus and Understand on the Whole Experience

60. Up Your Game
• Align with Collections – every collection must be justified by
programs
• 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
• SCALE: eLearning and Surveys – e.g. citation methods

61. Up Your Game
• Align with Collections – But add virtual experiences
• Look for partnerships that add value
• Ensure the program delivery person is embedded including
librarians
• What are your top 20 question domains? Start there.
• Don’t go it alone. Build scalability and sustainability.
• Look for replicability – every neighbourhood

63. Up Your Game
• Start offering diplomas and certificates
• 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? (TED, Khan
Academy, MOOCs, Coursera, Udacity, edX, Learn4Life (ed2go),
Online High Schools, Homeschooling, etc.)

64. Up Your Game
• Learn two-way relationship and consultation competencies
• Understand Communities and have deep partnerships
• Understand Pedagogy in the context of student experiences
and educational goals
• Know where your programs are heading
• Consider deep partnerships
• Consider coaches, peer, and tutoring partnerships

65. Up Your Game
• The strong ‘library’ brand – adding 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

66. Up Your Game
• Grow collections investments in strategic areas (for example
economic impact, jobs, early years, hobbies, political alignment,
homework, research agenda …)
• Develop hybrid strategies that are consistent for digital and print
and programs
• Be obsessive about recommendations and advice and added value
• Integrate virtual and physical – hybridize
• Don’t fear off-site cooperation and roaming librarianship

67. Up Your Game
• Move the ILS to the Cloud
• LinkedData models – OCLC WorldShare, Europeana, DPLA, etc.
• Look at TCO and look at all costs incurred and not just hard
costs
• Review opportunity costs in soft costs

68. Up Your Game
• Stop using meat cleavers and use paring knives
• Examples:
• A meat cleaver is undergrad versus grad vs. faculty
• A meat cleaver is kids, teens and adults
• A meat cleaver is medical versus legal

69. Up Your Game
• Dog, Star, Cow, Problem Child?
• Reduce investment in successes
• Increase investment in early strategic innovation
• Be patient and learn, it can take years
• Look at TCO
• Look at all costs incurred and not just hard costs
• Review opportunity costs in soft costs

73. Change is….

74. Global

75. Constant

76. Inevitable

77. Stressful

78. Breathe

79. Rhythm

80. Do you like change?
Does it matter?

81. What are the risks of not changing?

82. We can’t control change…
We can control our attitude towards change…

83. Deny

84. Resist

85. React

86. Explore

87. Commit

88. Change can be difficult

89. Personal change
precedes organizational
change

91. Negativity

92. Contagious

93. I can learn and I can
change and I can do it
quickly.

94. What can you do to deal with
change?

95. Accept that change
is an attitude

96. Create a personal vision
In the context of your team

97. Focus on what you can do…
……not what you can’t do

98. Develop a perspective of opportunity

99. Create Learning Centric Strategies

101. Being More
Open to
Comment

102. Being More Open to Criticism
and Feedback

103. Being More Open to
Recommendations

104. Support Aspiration

105. Be Creative and Attract

106. Being More Open to Change

107. The Library as Sandbox

109. Too Much Respect for Tradition
While Neglecting to Curate the
Future

110. Being More Open Experimentation,
Pilots and Innovation

111. Being More Flexible

112. Being More Open to Risk

113. Being Open
to a Mosaic
of Solutions

114. Be
More
Open
to Social
Technologies
and
Unintended
Consequences

115. Being Comfortable with Speed

116. Being Open to New Ideas

117. Letting Go of Control

118. Remove the Borders Inside Libraries
Be the Change We Want to See

119. Remove the Borders In the
Library Community
Be the Change We Want to See.

120. Remove the
Borders Between
Libraries and Users
Be the Change We Want to See.

121. Be Inspirational

122. Know What Makes Us Different

123. Stand Out!

126. Mission of Librarians (Atlas of New Librarianship)
“The Mission of Librarians is to Improve Society through
Facilitating Knowledge Creation in their Communities.”
David Lankes

127. Honest to G*d – Let’s
Encourage Some Fun!

128. Stephen Abram, MLS, FSLA
Consultant, Dysart & Jones/Lighthouse Partners
Cel: 416-669-4855
stephen.abram@gmail.com
Stephen’s Lighthouse Blog
http://stephenslighthouse.com
Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr: Stephen Abram
LinkedIn / Plaxo: Stephen Abram
Twitter: @sabram
SlideShare: StephenAbram1