The document discusses challenges facing libraries and librarianship in an evolving information environment. It notes changes in technology, society, and the information marketplace. It suggests librarians focus on services for young people, technological sophistication, advocacy, and institutional repositories. The document argues librarianship needs to be more responsive to remain central to communities' information needs and should leverage tools like Wikipedia, YouTube, blogs and social media to stay relevant.

1. first, a (semi-shameless) plug
What to Do Now, and Why
send us your best people
Metropolitan Library System/
North Suburban Library System
application deadlines January 15th (full time residential),
March 15th (part time distance)
www.ischool.washington.edu
Joseph Janes
Associate Dean for Academics
The Information School
of the University of Washington
jwj@u.washington.edu
my libraries my libraries
my libraries what we do
examine the information needs of our communities and
individuals
survey and understand the information environment
design, devise, evaluate, plan, manage and refine the most
efficient and effective spaces and ways of meeting those
needs
or else
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2. the information environment
technology
evolves
as it always does it’s all on the Internet, right?
technology, sure—about which more soon Google does just fine, right?
competitive and volatile information marketplace (publisher well, no…and yes
and consumer)—likewise
what’s not there, what’s no good, what’s really great, what
and the society changes
we pay for that’s better
§ median age inc to 38.7 by ’30, 69M over age 65, 20% of
not to mention what we know
US population (from 39M in ’10)
will continue to evolve, change, with increasing complexity
§ nonhispanic whites 53% of population by ’50 (now 74%)
and rapidity, and will profoundly affect the information
§ Hispanic, Asian growth rates 2% per year
environment of our communities
a couple of recent examples $ (£, ¥, €)
Wikipedia an increasingly complicated information marketplace
good, bad, when, how, for whom? mergers, acquisitions; book and journal publishers, media
companies, even system vendors
YouTube
smile! Candid Camera for the 21st c a great deal of “free” content (tho free ain’t always)
Second Life are these temporary or ephemeral phenomena?
what’s important about this (and things like it), if anything? how do you beat free, easy, quick, and good enough?
another recent example privacy & intellectual freedom
Google Book Search, Open Content Alliance, Windows Live increasing logging and capture functions (circulation,
Books database searching, digital reference transactions)
moving beyond the free Web side benefit of learning about users, communities, uses,
needs
deals with content providers, starts to look a lot more like the
“traditional” content industry
increasing governmental ability, willingness (?), need (?) to
play in this realm [CDA, COPA, CIPA, PATRIOT Act,
beyond?]
young people seem not to care about this as much as we
do in exchange for convenience
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3. perception librarianship evolves
place to get good books, for kids, inspire reading and learning as it always has, to meet the present and likely future
challenges
pornographers
place to read your email we have to be worth it, necessary, and make a convincing
boring case
hysterical so what do we do now?
ignored
we do such a good job….
all of these?
we are becoming increasingly marginal in the popular mind,
excepting dedicated library users, even as actual usage rises (as
measured by interaction with quality resources paid for by the
library)
what to do ideas
something, anything that advances the cause of centrality; Wikipedia
what makes us better, stronger, more central to their create and edit entries, cite sources, fight for quality, be a
information lives positive force
YouTube
be where they are, be relevant to what they want and want
to do make a video, show how cool libraries and librarians really are
MySpace, Facebook
stand for what we stand for
make a page, offer service, resources
Second Life
the next generation of creativity
ideas what to do
learn, play, succeed, fail, share focus on services to the young
read and participate in the library blogosphere reading & literacy, incl reading advocacy, services to new
members of community
use these tools but don’t compete with things you can’t
beat (search tool bar) technological sophistication, tool building and
assessment
make judicious choices based on your experience &
professionalism advocate for intellectual freedom & privacy
put creativity at the center of what you do (in both ways) institutional repositories
rethink priorities & assumptions
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4. skills, training, experience,
what to do
background
play to our strengths librarianship is a “conservative” profession
focus on things that we can uniquely do, that uniquely emphasis on tradition, consistency
define us: quality, depth, education, instruction, literacy, cf overemphasis
community & clientele basis, tool building, and so on and yet there are so many new things we could do, or old
and how they fit in the emerging information environment things we could do newly
and… what old things to give up or cede to competitors, profession will need to be continually responsive and agile
what could other people, organizations, institutions do in training and preparing ourselves to effectively compete
better or don’t need to be done at all? in this environment
all this implies and what do we do?
an extended notion of “library”, “librarianship”, etc a profession first among equals
anywhere, anytime, any way in which people interact with no us, nobody else
information organized, provided, supported by their own make humanity more human
community via their library staff allow us to better ourselves individually and collectively
and thus…we have to be even better online than in person these are the goals, only one way to do it: centrality to the
information lives of our communities
What to Do Now, and Why
Metropolitan Library System/
North Suburban Library System
Joseph Janes
Associate Dean for Academics
The Information School
of the University of Washington
jwj@u.washington.edu
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