We’ve all been hearing rumbles out of the local and state government that their fiscal health is declining rapidly.  When 10% of the population is out of work, who wouldn’t have figured out that income tax collections would decline too?  Then the other shoe drops when they realize that their property tax base has declined as well.  So everyone (from governmental units to corporate ones) will be trying to reduce their budgets and turning an evil eye on whatever money you thought would be your budget for 2010.  It doesn’t matter if you are in a public, academic or special library.  We are universally considered nice but not necessary.  Librarians are going to have to be much more forceful in pointing out the essential nature of the services the library provides. 

What then are you to do?  I’ve boiled it down to five skills you will need to apply diligently over the next year.  Fortunately we all already have these skills, we use them all the time in other parts of our lives.

First:  Chat up your friends (Connect with your user base).  Make sure you are asking them what they need from you.  Use social media to leverage your time in this skill.  Let them know what reduced funding would mean to them on a personal basis.  They are coming to the library for a reason.  They will stand up for you if they know you need them.  

Second:  Check the couch for loose change (Evaluate your current services).  Enlist your users in this task.  Are your current services being used and are they wringing the most value out of the money you are spending on them?  This will not only give you vital information on what is and isn’t cost-effective, you will get ammunition for the discussion about your budget that is guaranteed to come up.

Third:  Go window shopping (Explore new technologies).  You will not only learn more about what is happening in the technology world, this has the potential to save you money, and perhaps find a whole new user group you didn’t even know you had.  According to the Pew Internet, only 50% of non white households have broadband internet access but their use of handheld mobile access has increased by 50% over the past year and is almost double the white population’s use.  Can your OPAC be viewed on a phone screen?

Fourth:  Volunteer at your church (Build coalitions with other organizations) so you can support each other through hard times and then share the good times that are destined to return in the future if you survive.  Your community is not just individual users, you most likely have institutional users as well.  Tap into the synergy of collaboration, start a local digital archive.

Fifth:  Toot your own horn (Network).  Use whatever media you can to let your whole community know that you are available for them.  If you can’t leave your library, no problem.  Blog, make a pod cast, or a you tube video.  Let the internet advertise for you (Macy’s does, why not you?). 

Consistent application of these five everyday skills may result in you not only surviving the coming year, but actually thriving.  Application of these skills into the foreseeable future will help to keep your library nimble, responsive and ever-changing.  (Oh by the way, that’s Library 2.0).

The Big Switch:  Rewiring the world, from Edison to Google by Nicholas Carr, first published 2008, is a nonfiction musing about the history of two technologies which have had great impact on the modern world.  Mr. Carr deftly compares the construction of the electrical power grid and the current move toward utility computing brought about by the advent of the Internet.

The first half of this riveting book tells the story of a transformation from small scale local power generation to the modern almost invisible grid of endless electrical flow we’re all accustomed to.  His descriptive phrases bring life to an area of technology that we take for granted today.

The second half of the book describes the parallels between the construction of the electrical power grid and the current movement towards utility (or cloud) computing that we are all witnessing right now. 

Mr. Carr paints a picture of where modern computing came from and where it is predicted to go based on an analysis of many influential computer gurus, academics, popular journalists and futurists’ writings.  He presents not only a synopsis of those writings but an analysis as well.  His view of the future of computing is neither too rosy nor completely apocalyptic.   

He points out that while the internet appears to be a technology of emancipation to its users, this could be a myth who’s propagation has the potential to do great harm.  He then builds a convincing argument that the internet actually puts the power to control people into the hands of the government and corporations.  Throughout the second half of the book, Mr. Carr builds a convincing case for all of his assertions. 

He wraps up his view of where we have been and where we are going by saying:”All change is generational change.  The full power and consequence of a new technology are unleashed only when those who have grown up with it become adults and begin to push their outdated parents to the margins.”

The people I work for are very forward-looking about the tools of their trade.  We are introducing Building Information Management (BIM) into our work processes.  BIM is actually an engineer’s version of collaboration.  A whole 3D model of the building and all of its components are collaboratively constructed among the all of the subcontractors.  You can see immediately if those ventilation pipes will fit, and whether the corners actually meet on a window ledge.  No fudging with BIM.  Every concept is nailed down.  This cuts down immensely on change orders and squishy subcontractor promises.  

This idea of collaboration has spread to our knowledge center (library).  We have just invested in a new SaaS platform hosted social library.  I am currently populating it with the information we have that is explicit (someone wrote it down) in our organization.  Then everyone in our ten offices around the country can look at what we have already written down and add comments, ratings and tags to personalize the information for their own use and thus add implicit information into the knowledge center.   

The type of information I am adding runs the gamut from physical book records, word documents and pdfs, to photos of buildings in progress, to dwf format drawings of details.  Recently I was approached to try to add in a collection of equipment and it’s location so job sites can “check out” the equipment rather than buying another one.  It’s all virtual, so that’s not a problem.  I make up a content type and figure out a bar coding system and off we go.    

By making the knowledge center a part of everyone’s search for information while they’re doing their job, I hope to add value to their work.  Web 2.0 makes this easy and hard at the same time.  It’s a whole new way of doing business, to share up front with all those involved.  It’s actually so radical it sends some staff running for their slide rules and pads of paper.

That is the opportunity of and, at the same time, the problem with web 2.0.  It appears so easy and yet it is conceptually so hard for some people to accept as part of their work flow.  I just keep on having conversations, showing demos, and chip away at it day by day.

  Astronomers from Princeton went to the “landing site” in New Jersey to confirm the sightings.  Much panic, fear and later anger and embarrassment resulted from this theatrical exploit. 

You would think that by 2009 the american public would be wise to panic and exploitive claims.  However these same practices are now flourishing on the new medium of choice, the internet.

There are many blogs and “information sites” to expound on any subject immaginable, from alien abductions and 2012 predictions to political rants of the right and left.   Your life is lived (complete with photos) as an open journal on Facebook and you can update all your followers with Twitter on your latest activities. 

However where is that data going, when you are finished with it?  It apparently lives forever on the internet.  People who have served their time and have had their records properly expunged are now being rejected for jobs due to information left in an old database.  If someone posts maliciously about you those comments live forever. 

The latest internet “leak” reported by the AP involves several members of congress.  Who knows if anything that was revealed to the public is true or accurate. What sort of standards should be set in regards to information on the internet?  When listening to MPR on my radio, I heard about a new type of protection called Vanish.  It makes your archived data self destruct after a preset amount of time.  Will a whole new market for self destructing data become commonplace?  Are there any useful privacy laws when it comes to the internet?

Me, I’m heading out into the internet for some facts.

Kane, G., & Fichman, R. (2009). The Shoemaker’s Children: Using Wikis for Information Systems Teaching, Research, and Publication. MIS Quarterly, 33(1), 1-17. http://search.ebscohost.com.pearl.stkate.edu

A very interesting look at how we’ve been so busy studying how others use wikis that we’ve forgotten to leverage them ourselves.  However, they recommend a cautious approach to implementing wikis in academia as a core process

Folksonomy article:

Trant, J. (2009). Studying Social Tagging and Folksonomy: A Review and Framework. JODI: Journal of Digital Information, 10(1), 4. http://search.ebscohost.com.pearl.stkate.edu

A very thorough literature review article on folksonomy and tagging behavior.

Based on those criteria, I believe that the New York Public Library(NYPL) is actively using Library 2.0. 

 How are they communicating with their users(besides a static web site)?  When you check out Facebook, they have many sites, one for adults and one for the younger set as well as other groups.    The site for adults is more fully fleshed out, the teen site is one dimensional but at least they have a presence.  In return library lovers have also set up several groups that feature the NYPL as a venue for interaction.

Ok so they’re on Facebook, so what?  They have a vibrant changing wall with not only informational posts going out from the library staff, but comments and actual interaction coming in from “fans” too.  There’s a two way conversation between the library users and the library staff.   As another way to reach users, NYPL has its own youtube channel that they leverage to give “behind the scenes looks” at life in the library.

What about user interactions being encouraged by the library?  On their website, you have several choices for communicating with the staff:  They have a contact page to end all contact pages, with addresses and phone numbers for everyone.  They also have a question page that lists several methods(online and off) to get in touch with them in several languages.   In their blogging area,(composed of lots of blogs) they have a book group going that leads readers through a book in several weeks by posting a weekly synopsis and questions for the readers, who then post comments. 

On one occasion, after trolling their site for a while, a question popped up on my screen asking me if I had time to answer one question.  Clicking on yes sent me to one of the most sophisticated survey sites I’ve ever seen.  I was shown a screen shot of several different versions of their website and asked questions about where I would look to find information on their site.  Each time I clicked on what I thought the answer was, the survey thanked me and posed another question.  I played with it for about 20 minutes and after a while it said it had no more questions for me and thanked me for all my help, and sent me back to the main website.

In regards to the third leg of interaction, they do have some content produced by library users available on their site.  Their wordsmiths  page for teens allows for users to create short stories and poetry and in the “Turn it up” area teens are allowed to create podcasts.  Granted this is the most difficult area for many libraries to allow free expression, so I am not surprized that this is mostly a “teen” phenomenon.

So overall, I think the staff at NYPL are committed to trying new things out and it seems to be part of their jobs to interact with the users in the 2.0 way.

Last summer I was lost on a back road looking for a specific nursery that I had heard was in the area.  I stopped, connected up to the internet on my phone found the web site for the nursery and got the correct directions.  That’s also constant connectivity. 

Last week on NPR I heard a story about a girl who was in two seperate accidents because she was texting while driving.  Then just two days ago, NPR  had more information about actual safety studies and the regulations several states are considering.  So you might be getting the drift that I don’t like all this constant connectivity. 

The interesting thing is that Americans are behind the curve in use of mobile technology.  Its much more prevalent overseas, perhaps due to the reduced cost of cell phone minutes overseas( I’m not quite sure how that happened).  Perhaps the missteps we Americans make with the innappropriate use of our mobile connectivity is more a sign of our unfamiliarity with this technology.

Libraries are rapidly moving into the mobile arena, especially those that interact with undergraduate student populations.  Those young people have high expectations of connectivity and the academic libraries are actually leveraging the mobile web quite effectively with audio tours and audio or podcast user instruction.

I think the example put forth by the academic libraries is the key to using the mobile web as a library tool.  To really look at where using mobile technology can leverage staff time and increase library use by populations not willing to walk up to the desk and talk to a live person.

Hastings, Robin.  “Collaboration 2.0″ .  Library Technology Reports, Vol. 44 No. 4  May/June 2009.

I have an entire page in my blog that will be devoted to citations and URL’s of interesting things I bump into, called “Links and Citations”.  Check that page for more references.

Cloud computing is a very logical extension from the desktop world into a place where the work/life world will become totally blurred.  Michael Stephens implies in his blog Taming the web,  that working from anywhere there is a broadband connection is becoming commonplace. 

Cloud computing is a deceptively fluffy name for what I believe is a sea change in how we use computers for accessing and sharing information.  Nicholas Carr put it best in his book, The Big Switch :  ”Computing is turning into a utility…Like the electric utilities before them, the new computing utilities are achieving economies of scale far beyond what most companies can achieve with their own systems.”

This translates into an acceleration of the divide between those who have broadband access and those who do not.  Libraries may very well become the lifeline for the non-connected.  We will still be a repository of the physical “stuff”:  books, CD’s, DVD’s, but our role as a gathering place and access to the “cloud” may be even more important.   

Finding relevant information in an increasingly chaotic online environment will be essential skills for us to master.

I don’t believe in using technology “because we can”.  I believe that the benefits and costs need to be seriously considered.  Before I adopt, I need to see the effects for many groups, usually over a length of time. 

There are costs involved in any technology.  Those costs are sometimes hard to capture because the linkages are not readily apparent.  Most people agree antibiotics are miracle drugs when you have a bacterial infection.  However, somebody figured out that feeding antibiotics to cows makes them produce more milk without needing more feed.  The cost for that use of technology is the creation of antibiotic resistant bacteria, which is paid for by people far removed from the dairy farm.  

So technology is just a dangerous tool.  It’s the particular use of a technology which will create a complex web of benefits and costs, sometimes for very different segments of the community.  Who decides which use of technology is appropriate? I can only apply my dollars and my vote.