Presented at CONUL conference, May 2018, Galway, Ireland

1. Librarians as Leaders &
Partners: strategic
positioning for
transformative services
Wendy White, University of Southampton
CONUL Conference: 31 May 2018 @wendysotonlib

2. Challenges
Policy Scale
Breadth Space
2

3. Broader policy and strategy
Knowledge
Our vision for a knowledge-led economy is
underpinned by world-leading research,
world-class facilities and international
collaborations that push scientific frontiers
and attract the brightest talents, from Nobel
Prize winners to ambitious graduate students
we are also improving the incentives,
processes and skills that support the flow of
knowledge and ideas around society
generating knowledge through research,
transmitting knowledge through teaching,
and translating knowledge into practical uses
through knowledge exchange
Information
The first industrial revolution mechanised
production using water and steam power; the
second created mass production using
electric power; the third automated
production using electronics and
information technology
People need access to the information,
advice and guidance that will help them
make choices as they progress through the
education system and their careers
evaluating the role of digital services, data
and information in the take up of effective
business advice and support services
3Cycle of evidence gathering, information flow & knowledge creation. No mention of Libraries!
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/industrial-strategy-building-a-britain-fit-for-the-future

4. Shaping values
“Research libraries need to define the values by which they want to be measured,
rather than trying to manifest values out of the data they have”
Association of Research Libraries, Assessment Program Visioning Task Force Recommendations (2017)
http://www.arl.org/storage/documents/VTFPublicReport/2017.12.04-AVTF-PublicReport.pdf
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“Establish a digital environment that is agile with the ability to
respond to change in wider strategies and technology trends.”
John Cox
Digital Scholarship Enablement Strategy, NUI Galway

5. Positioning the Library
“One of the issues that came out most strongly in our
research was the need for the library to align closely
with its parent institution. This was seen as a means of
strengthening the library’s position and of delivering
the best services for its user communities”
• Service-provider
• Partner
• Leader
Pinfield, S., Cox, A. and Rutter, S. (2017) Mapping the Future of Academic Libraries: a report for SCONUL
https://www.sconul.ac.uk/news/mapping-the-future-of-academic-libraries
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6. Blurred Identities
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• Enlarged strategic opportunities
• CIO, Provost, Space, Arts, Student
Experience
Directors
• Portfolio approach – wide variety
• Sector networks & leading expertise
Associate
Directors
• University as well as library projects
• Resourced to deliver transformational
change
• Specialist expertise
Managers

7. Broader than Library portfolios
Strategic
collaborative
reach
Highest level
business cases
Deep user
understanding
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8. 8
City Council, Arts Council England, Southampton Nuffield
Theatres, John Hansard Gallery, City Eye, Tate Exchange

9. 9
Involvement at all
levels of
engagement with
most important
and best
resourced
strategic projects

10. 10
Deep
understanding of
users is of high
value
Spread of UX
approach across
services
Enriched picture
through shared
activity with
Student Services

11. Libraries & Internationalisation strategy
European Commission
• 'Universities need to have comprehensive strategies that
go beyond mobility and encompass many other types of
academic cooperation such as joint degrees, support for
capacity-building, joint research projects and distance
learning programmes. And they need to prepare for
"internationalisation at home” Androulla Vassiliou -
Commissioner
• In “Internationalisation of Higher Education” 2015 study report
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/5403
70/IPOL_STU(2015)540370_EN.pdf
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“The breadth of disciplinary coverage is narrower in
Japan than in nations that have similar research systems,
and international collaboration is lower”
http://www.nature.com/news/research-management-five-years-on-from-
fukushima-1.19458

12. Transformative opportunity
Connected Curriculum

13. Connected curriculum, connected University
a university in which its component parts not just listen to each other and pay heed to each other
but also bring the university into a new configuration with the wider world in all its manifestations
(Ronald Barnett)
if diverse students are empowered to collaborate actively in research and enquiry at every level of
the curriculum, engaging others with their ideas and findings, both education and research will be
able to contribute more effectively to the global common good. (Dilly Fung)
Ronald Barnett, Foreword: Energising an Institution, in Dilly Fung (2017) “ A Connected Curriculum for Higher Education”, UCL Press.
http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1558776/1/A-Connected-Curriculum-for-Higher-Education.pdf
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14. Twelve dimensions of connectedness
• 1) Between disciplines
• 2) Between the academy and the wider world
• 3) Between research and teaching
• 4) Between theory and practice
• 5) Between the student and teacher/lecturer/professor
• 6) Between the student in her/his interior being – and in his/her being in the wider world
• 7) Between the student and other students
• 8) Between the student and her/his disciplines – that is, being authentically and intimately connected epistemologically
and ontologically
• 9) Between the various components of the curriculum
• 10) Between the student’s own multiple understandings of and perspectives on the world
• 11) Between different areas – or components – of the complex organisation that constitutes the university
• 12) Between different aspects of the wider society, especially those associated with society’s learning processes.
• Ronald Barnett, Foreword: Energising an Institution
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15. 15
Connected
Curriculum
Co-
designed
learning
Academic
skills
Student
Publishing

16. 16
The Centre for Digital Scholarship is a hub
for translating innovative digital technologies
into multidisciplinary academic practice and
public engagement…. the Centre engages
academics, students, staff and the public with
digital methods.
Bodleian Libraries
open access academic journal
global student independent
research
changing the world for the
better
Publisher, University of
Southampton

17. Academic skills Active social citizenship
• Apply• Debate
• Create• Reflect
Academic
Practice
Curriculum
design
Digital
literacy
Ethics
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18. Transformative opportunity
Storytelling, narrative &
connectivity

19. Sense of place
• Libraries are yet to create successful virtual ‘places’ to mirror the physical
(SCONUL Mapping the Future)
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Historical context
Symbolic resonance
Waymarking
Serendipity
Familarity
Social
Reflective

20. 20
Paths are the habits of a
landscape
Paths are consensual…
because without common
care and common practice
they disappear
In every town and city
today… you’ll see unofficial
paths created by walkers
who have abandoned the
pavements & roads to take
short cuts and asides

21. 21

22. 22

23. Each journey, even if frequent, will be unique
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24. Publishing services: created as part of
University level strategic planning
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25. Storytelling: technologically situated co-creation
• project focuses on children and young people and what it is like to live and grow in a culture that is saturated by digital
technology
• what it means for researchers to operate in the same environment, recognising how our practice is transformed by new
tools and changing relationships of expertise & authority.
Start not end with archive
Multi-media open access co-production
Acknowledge promise of anonymity possibly foolhardy
Curation practice as part of data generation
http://bigqlr.ncrm.ac.uk/2018/04/24/guest-post16-prof-rachel-thomson-dr-sara-bragg-and-dr-liam-
berriman-time-technology-and-documentation/ (Sussex - Researching Everyday Childhoods: Time,
Technology and Documentation in a Digital Age) 25

26. Transformative opportunity
Data & AI

27. What happens to libraries and librarians when
machines can read all the books?
we have to think about what concerns around AI that libraries and librarians are
maybe especially well-suited to addressing; like privacy, context, authority, and
ensuring the data used to train AI is inclusive and diverse and of high quality.
What are the different ways of reading, and what are the various goals of reading?
How can texts (and images, and data) be maximized for human discovery and
reading? For discovery via algorithms and reading by machine learning
applications?
how we might start to think about optimizing our libraries to support new kinds
of research
Chris Bourg, Director of Libraries MIT
https://chrisbourg.wordpress.com/2017/03/16/what-happens-to-libraries-and-librarians-when-machines-can-read-all-
the-books/
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28. Stewardship in the Age of Algorithms
• “If we are to successfully cope with the new “Age of Algorithms,” our thinking
about a good deal of the digital world must shift from artifacts requiring
mediation and curation, to experiences. Specifically, it must focus on making
pragmatic sense of an incredibly vast number of unique, personalized
performances (including interaction with the participant) that can potentially be
recorded or otherwise documented, or at least do the best we can with this”
• Clifford Lynch (2017)
http://firstmonday.org/article/view/8097/6583
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29. Libraries for AI, AI for Libraries
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Performative
discovery &
curation
Knowledge
services
Analytics &
machine
learning

30. Good data management key to successful AI
“Organisations that have good data capability (collection, retention, curation,
analysis, protection) have a head start in becoming AI ready”
Wendy Hall, Jérôme Pesenti (2017) Growing the Artificial Intelligence Industry in
the UK
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/growing-the-artificial-intelligence-industry-in-the-uk
Libraries can play a significant role in “AI readiness”
Digital transformation is a cultural activity
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31. AI Lab in the Library: Rhode Island
“The library, as an interdisciplinary space that values inclusivity, is the ideal place
for people of all backgrounds to learn about AI”
“Faculty may also use the space for teaching, and will be encouraged to incorporate
AI topics into their syllabi” (Boughida)
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Library bridging role
Data privacy
Ethics
Data management
Data visualisation
Computing
Internet of things
Robotics
Natural Language Processing
Automated Image Analysis
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/01/17/rhode-island-hopes-putting-artificial-intelligence-lab-library-will-expand-ais-reach (Lindsay McKenzie)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwMYhF4nJdY

32. Third-space thinking
“Many core library values such as free and equal access to information and
dedication to critical appraisal of such information make libraries plausible
locations for third-place thinking as well as hubs for information/digital literacy”
Pinfield, S., Cox, A. and Rutter, S. (2017) Mapping the Future of Academic Libraries: a report for SCONUL
https://www.sconul.ac.uk/news/mapping-the-future-of-academic-libraries
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Public & Private nexus
Physical & virtual thinking
Provider & user designed
Collaborative impact evaluation

33. Sustainable Innovation in Strategy & Services
• Building and evolving relationships
• Distinctive contributions
– Management & development of socio-infomatic space
– Long term care for access to information for future generations
– Full range of scholarly communication
• Non-textual information environment from data to images
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13614533.2017.1355637
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34. Performative Libraries
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 Students actively participate
 Co-created methodology & journey
 Interactive & ethically aware
 Enriched user experience
 Digital is a physical experience