Marc Gartler, Manager, Madison Public Library – Sequoya & Alicia Ashman Libraries A member of the advisory committee for ALA’s Policy Revolution! will facilitate a discussion about trends and challenges identified in research by the ALA Office of Information Technology Policy. These trends and their implications are guiding the formation of a national public policy agenda that will guide focused and energetic outreach to key decision makers and influencers.

1. From Network Revolutions and
Trends in Information to a
National Public Policy Agenda
for Libraries
Marc Gartler

2. Handouts: Agenda foreword

3. Handouts: Agenda exec. brief

4. Handouts: the whole Agenda

5. Handouts: Trends exec summary

6. A National Public Policy Agenda

7. Policy Challenges
Policy decision maker:
“I love libraries, and used to go there all the
time. Before the internet. Loved them.”

8. Policy Challenges
IT manager: “As directed by the County Board,
our fiber network will reach all public safety
buildings by 2016.”
Citizen: “No libraries?”
IT manager: “No. Why would we run the
network to the libraries?”

9. Policy Challenges
Librarian 1:
“Libraries are essential to literacy”
Librarian 2:
“Libraries really aren’t about books anymore”

10. Policy Challenges
School librarian: “We help kids learn”
Public librarian: “We help job seekers”
Academic librarian: “We facilitate innovation”
Policy maker: “Okay…good to know.”

11. So, what’s the best message…
• …for the next 5 years?
• …given the political environment?
• …where it’ll have an impact?

12. A scan outside the library sphere
• Implications for libraries and public access to
information?
• opportunities and competitive advantages?
• “Threats”? Emerging competitors?
• Implications for policy advocacy for libraries

13. Not a handout today (91 pages)

14. Wheeler on network revolutions
1. Printing press = info explosion, spread of
knowledge
2. Railroads = speed of transport
3. Telegraph = instant communication

15. Wheeler on network revolutions
4. Digital =
– “end of the tyranny of place”
– acceleration of info use & transmission
– Decentralization of economic & creative activity

16. Key tech trends
• Mobile
– #1 economic impact
– by 2025 will have twice the economic impact as
#2—automation of knowledge work
• Big data
– The quantified self: mood, blood pressure
– Privacy: who should have access to my physical or
mental state?

17. Key tech trends
• Augmented reality
– Increased desire to disconnect?
– augmented reality may have a localizing force as
we can find out more about what’s here
– Anticipatory (e.g. Google Now)
• VR
– Google cardboard < $20

18. Key tech trends
• Internet of things
– Increased ability to change the physical world via
remote interfaces
– Physical world is an information system
• Customizable, free, simple digital products
• Human computer interaction
– Speech, biometric sensing, action detection
• AI

19. Big tech employment
• Google—55,000 employees
– 30,000+ in Mountain View
– 2,292 in 2004
• Apple—38,000 (excluding retail)
– 14,800 in 2005
• Amazon—25,000 (Seattle only)
– Building space for 71,500 in Seattle by 2019

20. Trouble ahead
• Digital overload
• Digital divides
• Continued job losses
– Lawyers & radiologists perform data analysis…
– Middle managers in knowledge work
• Security
– A threat to the internet is a threat to everything

21. Implications for libraries
• Will providing access to computers/internet
become an irrelevant library service?
• How will libraries continue to integrate new IT
into their operations? At what point does
integration stop and re-invention stop?
• How will libraries deal with threats that new IT
poses to traditional library values such as
privacy?

22. Implications for libraries
• How might developments in human computer
interaction reshape library experience?
• Could aspects of librarians’ jobs be made
obsolete?
• Will libraries remain relevant bridging future
digital divides as we move increasingly from
PCs to mobile devices?

23. Discussion of one implication
• How might libraries help with information
overload?

24. Publishing trends
• Who controls value in the book industry?
• How will traditional relationships between
publishers, authors, distributors, retailers, and
readers change?
• 11,000 books published in 1950
• 328,000 books published in 2010
• Average US nonfiction book selling < 250
copies/year

25. Publishing trends
• Information access; business/revenue models;
new competitors; DRM & piracy

26. Global context
• Global opportunities for some, unrest for
others
• Climate change  shortage, conflict,
migration
• 1-3 billion more people coming online
• Global economy
– 1990: 54% of trade betw. developed economies
– 2012: 28% of trade betw. developed economies

27. Implications for libraries
• Veterans
• Refugees
• Info role during epidemics
• Facilitating open government and use of
public sector data

28. Other trends examined
• Environmental
• Demographics: bigger, older, more diverse
• Rising inequality
• Public sector budget shortfalls
• Education: self-directed, lifelong, collaborative
• Work: new skills, new structures

29. Back to our National Agenda
• From “nice to have” to “essential”
• Speak with a common voice
• Draft strategic communications plan went to
ALA Board recently
• Rollout 2015-2016

31. Message development
• Education & Learning
• Employment & Entrepreneurship
• Health & Wellness
• Government Information
• Heritage & History

32. Message development
• Funding
• Copyright & licensing
• Digital content systems
• Privacy
• Broadband
• Library functions in federal goverment
• Information professionals

33. The E's of Libraries™
“Today's libraries, with the Expert assistance of
library professionals, help facilitate
Education, Employment, Entrepreneurship,
Empowerment, and Engagement for Everyone,
Everywhere”
http://www.ala.org/offices/oitp/Es_of_libraries

34. Marc Gartler
mgartler@madisonpubliclibrary.org
@gliblib