Today's library is radically different than the library of even ten years ago. No longer a place primarily for information discovery and quiet reflection, the physical library is now a center for discovery, data creation and manipulation - and a place that encourages creativity and facilitates collaboration.
The challenge for today's library is to respect and support traditional services while enhancing our services with new and powerful options. Crafting the appropriate balance of sometimes conflicting user desires requires careful resource evaluation, continuous service quality assessment and revisions, and even purposeful abandonment of some lesser tasks. (My recently published book provides a variety of tools and techniques to consider such difficult choices).
The physical library can serve as a social center for interdisciplinary activity, and an atheneum-type space to encourage and house novel conversations and collaborations. The modern library also serves as a blended service location, offering services from related organizations, such as a writing clinic for students and a faculty pedagogy support service. The library should be seen as a primary location for demonstrations of information tools, techniques, and visualization possibilities. It should offer venues such as classroom learning spaces adjacent to collection materials, auditorium spaces for group discussions, and should serve as a home for non-traditional student populations.
In terms of services and assistance, the library should demonstrate novel technologies to encourage creative data creation, handling, and information sharing. Personal knowledge management and organizational information sharing platforms and services can lead to new learning, research, and administrative support with demonstrable Return on Investment results. The library should be a leader in demonstrating the power of customization and personalization of services through promoting RSS feeds and timely self-help options at a distance. Virtual services should continue to be enhanced using personal interaction techniques such as remote shared screens and side-by-side online assistance.
The library should also be a key player in campus initiatives through the coordination of research and teaching support with other campus units. Areas in which the library should be able to present enhancements, solutions, and savings include the organization and stewardship of big data for various units, the re-purposing of unique local data within Institutional Repositories for pedagogical and records management purposes, and providing corporate intelligence and competitive advantage through utilizing the power of semantic linking, structured ontologies, and visualization techniques on administrative data.
All of these possibilities exist within an atmosphere of high inflation, with many other disruptive influences that must be proactively identified and addressed. Flexible and agile responses require an organization with appropriate stakeholder input, and the adoption of national and consortial best practices after performing environmental scans. A high-performing organization also requires the training and development of vested and involved employees, and a Service Quality Improvement program that emphasizes continual impact assessment, and demonstrates successful project management aligned with clear Mission and vision aspirations. A library leader must also supplement these resources with grants and development gifts for additional infrastructure support. Such satisfying and appropriate services should create important stakeholder advocacy and continuing collaboration.
David Stern
Updated: 2/4/2013