The Future of Libraries: Edinburgh’s Position

A Discussion Session with Library Committee

7 December 2011

John Scally

Running Order

Purpose & Context 5 mins

Discussion About Library Strategy using:

• ACRL Top Ten Trends – 20 mins• TAIGA provocative statements – 10 mins• What areas should be in the Library Strategy? 10 mins

University of Edinburgh Strategic Plan 2012-16

IS Knowledge Strategy 2012 -16

Library Strategic Plan 2012-16

Purpose

The Network is transforming whole industries:

Book Retail

Travel

News

Legal Practice

Libraries

Context - 1

UK & Global

The Network. The Cloud. Webscale Environment.The Collection (collective collection).

Academic Enterprise (teaching & research).Traditional Services & New Services.

User Behaviour.Student Experience.

Personalised & Recommender Services

Context - 2

The Edinburgh Position

• multiple formats formulated around user need: electronic, print, born digital, special collections and archives

• Space and Destination – physical and digital• Growing areas: online distance learning (ODL), mobile

services, content aggregation (internal & external)• Staking out the library’s position in the University’s digital

spaces• Alignment: University’s position of

being a ‘broad church’ institution supporting teaching and research across a wide range of disciplines

Edinburgh Statements

1. The Library is a strong brand in Edinburgh, capable of absorbing new collections, new services and new priorities as directed by the University Strategy and academic need.

2. The Library is a provider of current and non-current collections in multiple formats, physical and virtual services, and high quality spaces for learning and research.

3. There is a continued move to digital within a mixed offering of electronic, print, manuscript, archive, and born digital.

4. Is an increasing importance of network level activity and services (cloud, e-science, networked research, digital humanities).

5. Materials Budget expenditure (electronic, print, new formats [e-books]) needs to be stable, well funded and precisely targeted.

6. The Bundle is still the favoured model for acquiring electronic journals & consortial purchasing is pursued based on the basis of vfm.

Edinburgh Statements

7. Existing print collections - committed to active management based on demand, use and rarity.

8. Local publications repositories are a core service and will continue to evolve (eg adoption of PURE).

9. Pursuing OA (Open Access) is increasingly accepted.10. New areas of institutional collaborative activity will continue to

emerge – eg Research Data Management11. New services borrowed from the network level will become part of

the local offering, eg personalisation and recommender-type services.

12. Growing concentration on exposing unique and distinctive collections (including special collections and archives).

ReviewsReportsRuminations

Discussion Session

ACRL: Association of College & Research Libraries Top Ten Trends in Research Libraries 2010

(produced by the ACRL Research, Planning and Review Committee)

TAIGA Provocative Statements 2011

(The Taiga Forum is a community of AULs and ADs challenging the traditional boundaries in libraries. The Taiga Forum meets annually.)

ACRL Trends 1-5

1. Academic library collection growth is driven by patron demand and will include new resource types.

2. Budget challenges will continue and libraries will evolve as a result.

3. Changes in higher education will require that librarians possess diverse skill sets.

4. Demands for accountability and assessment will increase.

5. Digitization of unique library collections will increase and require a larger share of resources.

ACRL Trends 6-10

6. Explosive growth of mobile devices and applications will drive new services.

7. Increased collaboration will expand the role of the library within the institution and beyond.

8. Libraries will continue to lead efforts to develop scholarly communication and intellectual property services.

9. Technology will continue to change services and required skills.

10.The definition of the library will change as physical space is repurposed and virtual space expands.

TAIGA 1-5

1. Organizational structures flattenWithin five years, the current university organizational structures will have been forced to dissolve, finally flattening the organization. Libraries will have less autonomy and librarian roles will have been subsumed into other parts of the university.

2. radical cooperationWithin five years, campus administrators will expect research libraries to significantly reduce library budgets by engaging in radical cooperation among competing universities: jointly-owned collections, deep outsourcing, shared staffing, and shared services.

3. Collaborative space partnersWithin five years, academic libraries will either choose collaborative space partners or have them chosen for them. Librarians will not be able to play the "library as place" card without opening up their spaces to complementary programs.

4. Books as decorWithin five years, graduate students and faculty will fill all their information needs online, never coming into the library, yet they will continue to idealize the library as a sacred place to commune with books. Libraries will respond by flipping their stacks into designer reading rooms that use books as decor.

5. No more collection buildingWithin five years, information needs will be met through on-demand purchasing. Big deals will have been eliminated and collection building will only be meaningful for a select few designated libraries.

TAIGA 6-10

6. New model of liaison librarianshipWithin five years, efforts to develop research data management and curation services will have led to a wholly new model of liaison librarianship that is focused on institutional content.

7. Staff reallocation, elimination, and retrainingWithin five years, libraries will have undergone skills inventories and begun addressing identified gaps. Successful libraries will have developed rolling plans for staff reallocation, elimination, and retraining. Unsuccessful libraries will have failed to root out resistance to change, driving out their best and brightest.

8. Library in the cloudWithin five years, all library collections, systems, and services will be driven into the cloud. This will enable more "above campus" collaboration for libraries. 

9. Boutique servicesWithin five years, libraries will be forced to acknowledge that our boutique services have been collecting "in the basement." To clean house, libraries will implement planned abandonment.

10. Oversupply of MLSsWithin five years, library programs will have overproduced MLSs at a rate greater even than humanities PhDs and glutted a permanently diminished market.

What areas should be in the Library Strategy?