A Library WOT and SWOT: What’s Out There and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
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Is obsessed with the library search box
Everything we’ve talked about today is irrelevant 20 years in the future

Last week, Bill Gates said reading will go completely only
Mike: wrong
Newspapers are in decline, not libraries

Not saying that technology is the answer, because need to know the question
the question is what do people want and how can we give it to them? Users, plus nonusers

showed the “Web Is Us” video

When you’re talking about policy, the linking people is the next thing
rethinking: copyright, ethics, governance, privacy, etc.
ALA has to change, we have to change
We look at the world through information-colored glasses” – now the rest of the world is starting to do that, too!

Library as:
- THE information institutions in our communities and organizations
- services
- collections (in the real world and in the virtual world)
- personal digital devices (is where the collections need to be)
- access (why aren’t we tying into Gates work on world health?)
- place (the library is the signature building in Seattle); library as place on digital devices, because I trust “library” and it meets my needs
- services: anywhere, anytime, any form – a parallel information universe; if it’s an information universe, libraries had better be part of it if not running it
- search: why didn’t we think of the single search box?! WorldCat is a step in the right direction, but it’s still too many clicks to full-text; and we pay and tolerate our vendors doing this to us

Recommendations:
- we need to all stay up-to-date
- need to be open and accepting of technology (cough, cough, Wikipedia)
- think about real world and virtual world
- need to team up to provide better access, resources, and services
- take a new approach to vendors
- don’t wait, get in the game!
- have fun!

The really important collection in a school library is the periodical database
students judge periodicals and newspapers lower in credibility than websites and databases (books still come out on top)
the vendors are our face to the public
ipods are favorite among teens
teens know social networking is dangerous so they don’t do “open SN”

Implications – LIS education:
- there is no crisis in library education, schools are thriving
- need ALA to promote the library schools, to take pride in what they are doing, not trashing them
- are close to and aware of various constituencies, including libraries themselves and LIS students
- curricula are responsive and generally up-to-date. Are trying to balance theory and practice, providing knowledge, and skills for today and tomorrow. Are teaching policy.
- as with libraries, are using the technologies to deliver to real world and provide education in virtual worlds

Respondent panel: Howard Besser, Mary Ghikas, Janice Tsai

Howard:
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those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it. We’ve been through all of this before.
- we’ve already had the debate about whether libraries should carry paperbacks in the 1960s-70s.
- already debated who we should serve – latchkey kids, unemployed, nonusers
- already debated should we go outside of the library to jails, hospitals

None of this is new, although it does present itself in a different way and they’re not outside of our experience

Being on the leading edge
- digital imaging, folksonomies, posting about massive resources on the internet before there was a web browser, recommender systems
- all of these things were responding to situations before they were apparent, but they took an enormous amount of energy. They weren’t the kind of thing that just anyone can do.
- yes, someone has to be trying all of these new things, but if you’re running a conventional library with a conventional budget and you have to cut the budget to keep basic services, you can’t afford to be on the bleeding edge. Have to build something sustainable. Can learn a lot from experiments but probably can’t sustain them.
We have to know what business we’re in. google thought it was in the search business, but now they know they’re in the advertising business
- diversity of information, protection of privacy, etc.
LIS education
- we are missing critical things like treating concepts separate from skills. Separate how to organize and catalog information from cataloging using LC
- to understand technological development
- to understand what is going on in the world in a contemporary way and to teach our students about that (how to read headlines/news stories in the context of libraries), critical thinking

Janice:
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issue of information
her focus is privacy on the internet
dichotomy because as people, we want to know about everyone else, but we don’t want everyone else to know about me
have to figure out what kind of trade-off we’re willing to make
as librarians we need to embrace Wikipedia, but as educators, we need to be wary of it

in terms of LIS education, they should emphasize nontraditional careers
cost of library school versus entry salaries when you’re done
current legislation and policy is driving people to library school
new librarians need to have an understanding of technology at the local and state level, as well
need to be able to monitor more local legislation

Mary:
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Coming from a different direction
2 institutions have shaped how she looks at the world – libraries and associations
shaped her views in the same ways
- both are inherently optimistic
- both are about persistence in the face of radical change
- both are about contextualization and the socialization of knowledge
- both are about aggregating knowledge and people
- open up the possibility of discovering something we didn’t know we wanted to discover

There are discussions we are having and this is a good start
for the first time in her career, she is concerned that both of these great institutions that she cares about are in danger of losing their next generations

we’re not really talking to each other about changes that challenge ways some of us have grown to think and believe over the years, our preferred litmus test values (we need to be able to talk without a litmus test for participation in the discussion)

Thinks that there are a number of areas we need to have conversations about curricula, practice, and between the two groups (pushing practices in LIS education into the field)
need more and better conversations about what we do and don’t adopt, on what basis do we make those decisions, what are the consequences, how do we respond to those consequences?
move to a very active policy
need to talk about user-centered design for libraries and associations, multicultural world
how do we recognize agency in the institution
need to think harder than we do about our role as librarians in sensemaking – how do we fulfill an interpretive role, in making sense of policy, technological changes, etc.

Mike: the norm has moved in a more positive way (the joy of experimentation) in terms of LIS education. Agrees with Mary we need a joint conversation based on respect
The policy piece is very important, look for it when looking for faculty

Aaron: what does a library do? You can’t give them everything even of what you offering? Who is doing what libraries used to do? That’s an important question.
Mike: you open it up to the community. It’s very contextual and you can’t do it all. We all say we don’t have the time or money to do everything, so let’s find others who are doing some of these things and work *with* them. Bring in the users

Dottie: ALA has been a real source of conversation, criticism, and discussion over the years so what can we realistically expect from our organization over the next few years?
Mary: my first response is where do you want it to go? It ultimately goes where its members take it, either by deliberation or by absence of deliberation.
Dottie: are you saying that those who are complaining are complaining about their colleagues?
Mary: if you want to change it, get in there and change it. There is no substitute for engagement. We don’t spend much time actually talking to each other, doing actual dialogue with actual listening. How do we take this conversation today and drive it through a very large, very segmented organization? How do you engage in a discussion where we may have a conflict about values in an atmosphere of mutual respect without a litmus test for participation? We need to figure out how to do a better job of this
Janice: also need to figure out how to engage new library students. A lot of folks can’t or don’t want to go to conference – how can ALA engage these folks? Emerging Leaders program involves people who are already involved.
Howard: students used to attend conference, but now Howard finds money wherever to send all his students to professional meetings that shows librarians have a history, a culture, etc. if you’re signing up for this master’s degree, you’re a part of that and you need to be a part of it
Mike: in Washington, they take advantage of the student rate to join and have a great relationship with the Washington Library Association now (which is recent) because they sat down with them to discuss working together. But let’s turn this around another way – what about virtual space? Thinking about how we can all work together in virtual space.
Mary: agrees about the virtual world, but it’s resource-intensive. Mentioned the ALA Members Ning site (http://alamembers.ning.com/) and how folks friend her there; it’s a great way to meet new people with whom she/we can have a conversation. How do you then re-examine all of the things you’re doing and offload some stuff elsewhere?
Nancy: the whole topic is really participation and what is it. In many ways, ALA gives too many ways to participate and it’s overwhelming.
Aaron: cross-talk between people doing the same thing should be one group
Nancy: so we don’t bridge communities? Or it’s not active participation?
David L.: sometimes organizations define themselves by boundaries; need to open them up and make them permeable. Are we equally comfortable turning these tools that we use with patrons on ourselves?

Sherrie: thank you to everyone. We’re better informed now at a higher level.

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