Slides for a talk on "Identifying and Preparing for Technological Developments" given by Brian Kelly, Innovation Advocate at Cetis, University of Bolton at a JIBS meeting held in Birmingham on 26 February 2015. See https://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/jibs-2015/

1. 1
Identifying and Preparing for Technological Developments
Brian Kelly, Innovation Advocate, Cetis
• A presentation for the SAOIM 2014 conference
What approaches does our
enthusiastic librarian take in
identifying technology trends?

2. Identifying and Preparing for
Technological Developments
Brian Kelly
Innovation Advocate
Cetis
University of Bolton
Bolton, UK
Contact Details
Email: ukwebfocus@gmail.com
Twitter: @briankelly
Cetis Web site: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/
Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
2
Slides and further information available at
https://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/jibs-2015/
A presentation for the JIBS 2015 event, Birmingham on 26 February 2015
Event hashtag: #jibs15

3. Contents
• About me
• The NMC Horizon Report for Libraries and the Delphi
process:
 What are the major technology trends?
 Beyond the technology trends – the drivers
accelerating technology adoption
 Beyond the technology trends & drivers – the
challenges impeding technology adoption
• Carrying out your own trend analysis and preparing
for the implications
• Conclusions
3

4. About Me
Brian Kelly
• Innovative Advocate at Cetis since Oct 2013
• Was UK Web Focus at UKOLN from 1996-2013
• Interests in promoting use of innovative technologies
and practices in higher education
In 2014:
• Delivered “planning for the future” half-day workshops at
international library conferences in Pretoria & Bath
• Invited expert, NMC Horizon Report, Academic Libraries
In 2013:
• Presented paper on “Reflecting on Yesterday,
Understanding Today, Planning for Tomorrow”
paper at Umbrella 2013
4

5. Predicting the Future: The Risks
Risks in attempting to predict the future:
• We get it wrong
– the future didn’t materialise
• We get it wrong
- we were too cautious
• Futorologists have biases
5

6. Looking at the Futurologists
• Gartner report
6

7. Gartner
Beware vested
interests which
may be
threatened by
implications of
predictions
7
Gartner May Be Too
Scared To Say It, But the
PC Is Dead,
Mark Hachman,
Readwrite Web, 5 April
2013

8. We commission
reports from
experts in the field
8PDF

9. We commission
reports from
experts in the field
9
… is an information professional who has specialized
in the fields of electronic information provision for over
20 years.
In recent years, he has specialized in metadata for
digital libraries, in which capacity he is a member of
the editorial board for the METS (Metadata Encoding
and Transmission Standard) standard for digital library
metadata.

10. A Collaborative Approach
We could use Twitter
10
Tweet your ideas
with event hashtag
I think teleporting could have implications for libraries in the future! #jibs15
58
Teleporting could have implications for libraries as people won’t be put off
from visiting when it’s raining! #jibs15 22
and implications
for libraries
We would therefore need larger physical spaces for the teleporting visitors to
the library #jibs15 41
Discuss alternative
implications …
So maybe the books could be teleported. Would we need a physical library
building? #jibs15 48
10
& issues such as legal
implications, business
models, …
What about the legal implication? Border control? Which VAT rate to use?
Importing banned book? … #jibs15 #wtf 27
Feel free to add
implications for users
…
Open collaborative approaches can help minimise biases, provide fresh
insights, … (but Twitter probably isn’t the best tool for this!)

11. THE Article
Article which summarised the
“6 key trends accelerating
technology adoption in
higher education in 2015”
published in Times Higher
Education on 23 Feb 2014
Based on the NMC Horizon
Report: 2015 Higher
Education Edition
11

12. About the NMC Horizon Library Study
12
NMC Horizon Report, 2014:
Library edition:
• Published in Aug 2014
• Based on ideas from panel
of experts
• Ideas refined using Delphi
process
• Report available under
Creative Commons licence
Your interests:
• What are the technology trends? What are the implications for me?
• What is the ‘Delphi process’? Can I use it?

13. NMC Panel
Panel composed of 47
library and technology
experts from 16
countries on five
continents (including 3
from UK)
13

14. Short-Term Technology Trends
What technology trends did the NMC Horizon panel identify?
14
Seven key categories were identified:

15. Short-Term Technology Trends
Two areas of importance in the short-term (<1 year to
adoption) were identified and prioritised:
15
“electronic publishing is redefining the tools between print and digital,
still image and video, passive and interactive”
Report gives examples of innovative uses e.g. ANU Press, established
in 2003 to explore & enable new modes of scholarly publishing.
“the way we think about software itself is changing, and whole industries
are adjusting to a new world in which sophisticated but simple tools
routinely sell for 99 cents or are completely free”
TechnologyTrends

16. What’s Missing?
Let’s use the Delphi process (abbreviated version!):
• What significant technology trends do you feel will
have an impact in the short term (< 1 year)
• Tweet (or shout) your ideas!
• Session chair will record ideas
This is an example of crowd-sourcing ideas from a group
of experts
16
Vote on two ideas which you feel are most important:
• Area 1
• Area 2
This is an example of how crowd-sourced ideas can be
refined and prioritised
TechnologyTrends
hashtag: #jibs15fut

17. Medium-Term Drivers
What trends driving technology adoption in the medium
term (3-5 years?) did the NMC Horizon panel identify?
17
Trends are sorted into three movement-related
categories: (1) fast-moving trends that will realize their
impact in the next 1-2 years and two categories of
slower-moving trends that will realize their impact within
(2) 3-5 or (3) 5+ years.
After summarising technologies important in short-term,
lets look at medium-term drivers of technology adoption
TechnologyDrivers

18. Medium-Term Drivers
Two drivers of technology adoption in medium term (3-5
years to adoption) were identified and prioritised:
18
“Once limited to print-based journals and monographic series, scholarly
communications now reside in networked environments and can be
accessed through an expansive array of publishing platforms”.
“Academic & research libraries are gradually embracing the movement
toward openness as the Internet has opened the floodgates of
information and scientific knowledge”.
TechnologyDrivers

19. What’s Missing?
Let’s use the Delphi process:
• What significant drivers of technology adoption
do you feel will have an impact in the medium term
(3-5 years)
• Tweet (or shout) your ideas!
• Session chair will record ideas
This is a further example of crowd-sourcing ideas from a
group of experts
19
Vote on two ideas which you feel are most important:
• Area 1
• Area 2
This is a further example of how crowd-sourced ideas can
be refined based on your experiences
TechnologyDrivers
hashtag: # jibs15fut

20. The Challenges
What challenges impeding technology adoption in
academic and research libraries did the NMC Horizon
panel identify?
20
These were classed as:
• Solvable Challenges: those that we
understand and know how to solve
• Difficult Challenges: Those that
we understand but for which
solutions are elusive
• Wicked Challenges: Those that are
complex to even define, much less
address
TheChallenges

21. The Challenges
Two difficult challenges were identified:
21
“It is important for these new digital data sets to be preserved alongside
the research derived from them for future use and in longitudinal
studies, but this presents a perpetual challenge for library acquisition
and archiving practices as formats continue to evolve”.
“.. advents in Internet technology are fostering changes in patron
behavior, challenging libraries to either participate in the online
knowledge exchange or risk becoming obsolete over time. ”.
TheChallenges

22. What’s Missing?
Let’s use the Delphi process:
• What:
 Solvable  Difficult  Wicked
challenges are missing?
• Tweet (or shout) your ideas!
• Session chair will record ideas
22
Choose on one idea per category:
• Solvable
• Difficult
• Wicked
This is a further example of how crowd-sourced ideas can
be prioritised based on your personal/institutional context
TheChallenges
hashtag: # jibs15fut

23. Review
NMC Horizon report:
• Provides insights into technological trends,
driver & barriers for library
• Open methodology which caters for experts
highlighting their own particular interests
But:
• It may not be applicable to your specific
context
• It doesn’t address “What do I need to do
next?”
23
Review

24. The Full NMC Horizon Report
NMC Horizon report
for Libraries 2014:
• 50 pages
• 18 topics
 6 key trends
 6 significant
challenges
 6 important
technologies
24
2
1
3

25. Tools for Futurists
Some tools which can help you to predict the future:
• Quick surveys
• Observing recent developments
Not covered in talk (ideas for reinterpreting the present
and providing fresh insights):
• The History Of The Web Backwards, UK Web
Focus blog, 19 Nov 2007
• Reversible, Reverse History and Side-by-Side
Storytelling, OUseful blog, 22 March 2010
25
Tools

26. The Future Is Already Here!
Hands up if you have:
Used a mobile device for work-related purposes in bed
Options: Yes, No, Rarely or I’m indecisive!
26
“20% of the iPad users spent time with their iPad in bed” 2010
Informal survey
(Twitter & blog post),
March 2012
“The future is already
here - it's just not very
evenly distributed”
What are the implications
of this new ‘platform’?
Tools

27. What Did You Notice Recently?
“What did you notice for the first time today (recently)?”
• Can be important for trend spotting
• May signify that something is becoming mainstream
that you hadn’t appreciated before (WiFi on bus, …)
27
Amazon locker (Feb 2013)
Video on underground
(Dec 2008)
Tools
Thanks to
Tony Hirst

28. Action Brief Statement
Next Steps
Having identified future developments of relevance to
the organisation, you will now need to convince senior
management of the potential.
From the Hyperlinked Library MOOC
Planning template from assignment 2:
Action Brief Statement:
Convince ______ that by _______ they will ________
which will ________ because _______.
28Acknowledgements to Michael Stephens and Kyle Jones
NextSteps
This tool was used in a number of Planning for Future workshops
(with voting and prizes)

29. Risks
The Need to Explicitly Address Risks
From “Risks and Opportunities Framework for
Exploiting the Social Web” by Kelly & Oppenheim:
• Summarise risks
• Summary risks of not adopting
technology
• Summarise strategies for minimising
(or accepting) risks
• Evidence base
• Document biases and prejudices
29
Can you innovate without taking risks?
NextSteps

30. Do it For Yourself
Do it for yourself!
• Slides, exercises, etc. for half-day workshop
available under a Creative Commons licence
30
Workshop held at SAOIM 2014 (South Africa) & ELAG 2014 (Bath) conferences. See:
• http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/saoim-2014-lets-predict-the-future-workshop/
• http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/elag-2014-preparing-for-the-future-workshop/
As described
Institutional planning

31. Warning From The Past
Tim Berners-Lee didn’t
let evidence of the
popularity of Gopher
hinder development of
the Web
31

32. The Serenity Prayer
• The Serenity Prayer
32Serenity Prayer

33. Scenario Planning for Addressing the
Unexpected
33
Commercialisation
Devolved ownership
The niche librarian
Everyone’s an IT
expert
Possible scenarios
for libraries and the
Cloud
Steady as she goes
Outline challenges and opportunities for libraries
based on an expanded version of these scenarios)
Everyone’s a
librarian

34. Conclusions
We have:
• Seen examples of technology trends, drivers &
challenges as agreed by NMC Library panel
• Learnt about the NMC’s Delphi processes
• Contributed our perspectives
• Voted on the ideas provided
• Heard about follow-up approaches
Next steps:
• Read the NMC Horizon Report and use it to
inform planning processes
• Implement an institutional event to help prepare
your organisation for the future (run it annually?)
• Invite an independent consult to facilitate  34

35. 35
Continue the Discussion
Give your thoughts on a blog
post about this session:
https://ukwebfocus.wordpress
.com/2015/02/25/

36. Questions?
Any questions, comments, …?
36

37. This presentation, “Identifying and Preparing for Technological
Developments”, by Brian Kelly, Cetis is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence
Note the licence covers most of the text in this presentation. Quotations
may have other licence conditions.
Images may also have other licence conditions. Where possible links are
provided to the source of images so that licence conditions can be found.
37
Slides and further information available at:
https://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/jibs-2015/
Licence and Additional Resources