The future (of libraries, of library services)

OK, so we had videos (Betamax then VHS), and then moved to DVDs. What will be the next technology? "Streaming" is what I had been told. Certainly that is the way folks like Netflix and Hulu are moving. This may be a way for libraries to deal with the "streaming" issue, or may be an interim step. I am not sure which. Flix on Stix

Mita Williams (New Jack Librarian) from Canada has a long and thoughtful post about the future of libraries. She called it The future of libraries is what we create in the present. She closes with the following, pithy statements:

When I talk about the future I really mean this afternoon.
When I talk about the present I really mean this morning.

Eric Hellman has a post called Lots of Markets, Lots of Business Models. In it he talks about the structure of the book publishing industry and starts off with this interesting analogy:

The book industry is a lot like the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union consisted of fifteen ethnically divergent states (soviets) stitched together by a highly centralized government model. When that government model weakened, it turned out that there was little holding the soviets together. The Soviet Union no longer exists.

He goes on from there to talk about the shift in book publishing from print to digital and compares the book industry with the music and film industries. It offers some interesting thoughts.

Happy Birthday Mevil Dui

Stephen Abram reminded me with his posting that today is the birthday of Melvil Dui (as he preferred to spell it). He had a long and interesting career. Some is posted on the OCLC web site (they sell the Dewey Decimal publications).

I also found the New York Times obituary, as well as his entry in Wikipedia.

Links?

Cognitive authority. Is this the explanation for the reason that many young people today do not respect copyright and other "intellectual property" related issues? Rory Litwin points to an article which discusses this [Bad link removed 2022-02-17]. He does not totally agree with the author, but does note that it is an important observation which deserves more discussion.

Library management and "moving on up."

- ALA-APA's Library Worklife [Bad link removed 2022-02-17]

- In the Library with a Lead Pipe has a thoughtful post

- Meredith Farkas on becoming management

-Jenica Rodgers on [Bad link removed 2022-02-17] lessons learned as a manager and micromanagement

E-books, DRM, and Britain

- Andy Woodworth has a post on the current flap

- Closer to the source is a [Bad link removed 2022-02-17] post from the British Bookseller web site

- And there is a reply from a British public librarian

-[Bad link removed 2022-02-17] Thoughts from the LJ/SLJ virtual presentation by Emily Williams

- And Steven Harris on the same topic, cleverly titled "[Bad link removed 2022-02-17]I got your ebook manifesto right here!"

Meredith again (this time in American Libraries)[Bad link removed 2022-02-17] about the importance of reading the fine print of licenses.

There have been couple posts about anonymity on the web, in both blog posts and comments. Bobbi Newman has some interesting comments on pseudonyms.

And finally, one of my alma maters (my undergrad one) is now offering its alumni access to some of the Ebsco databases in a two year trial. I wonder how far this will spread? Is it because this is a private institution with a significant endowment? My other two alma maters are both state schools. It will be interesting to watch.

And adding two more items on anonymity:

First from In the Library with a Lead Pipe a long and thoughtful post about pseudonymity and anonymity. [It is interesting to read this while listening to a biography of Benjamin Franklin who wrote a great deal using both!]

Second is a [Bad link removed 2022-02-17]snarky take from Salon.com which reflects what is happening on some news web sites with comments.

Norman Horrocks

Norman Horrocks died in mid October.

I am still devastated about Norman's death.

How often do you find me speechless, never mind that Janet Swan Hill is also speechless?

Norman was, in every sense of the word, a gentleman. He was a man who was incredibly gentle and nice. While I cannot claim to know him incredibly well, I never saw him say a really cross word, and never, even when chastising me, did he not have a gentle look of kindness in his eyes.

I am not sure that I can pinpoint when I first met Norman, but I heard of him at the beginning of my career as a librarian. Perhaps because Michael Gorman taught my "Intro to Librarianship" course and it was around the time that Norman when to Scarecrow Press.

I do know, that when I first was being oriented to ALA Council (back in the mid 1990s), my predecessor as the Connecticut Library Association Chapter Councilor talked about him.

Early on, I made my presence known on ALA Council. (I was the one who used the phrase "core values" on the floor of Council in a debate about a resolution on outsourcing in Hawai'i which resulted in two task forces, and finally a policy.)

Norman was most kind in offering comments about wording and the process suggested.

Jessamyn West (one of my Web/Library 2.0 heroes) posted a great reflection on the man.

Copyright (yes, more), outsourcing, and other links

Here are two more posts on the copyright/licensing/Netflix issue as covered by librarians on the web. First up is Kent Anderson who blogs at The Scholarly Kitchen which covers scholarly publishing. He notes that

While the purpose of the use may be nonprofit and educational, if the materials are entertaining movies, if they are watched or delivered in their entirety, and if the users no longer feel the need to rent or buy the movies, 3/4 of the criteria of fair use are unfulfilled. This creates huge exposure for universities, both from Netflix and from film companies.

Read the whole post which includes numerous links back to librarians on the issue.

Andy Woodworth, at Agnostic Maybe (a great title, I think), put his finger on the issue when he says "I believe that the actions of these libraries and librarians are a symptom of a larger issue for the profession: the coping (or non-coping) with the expansion of licensed content as part of the collection." He has a lot more to say, and there are some great comments.

The second topic burning up electrons among librarians is the issue of outsourcing. In this case the outsourcing of the management of public libraries. It is an issue which was hot in the late 1990s (pre-blogging), so I guess it is not a surprise to see it come up again.

On one of the discussion lists, Pat Schmann (ALA Past President and the Schuman in Neal-Scumann Publishing), sent a link to her article called: The selling of the public library: It's not just ‘outsourcing,’ it's privatization. The article appeared in Library Journal back in 1998. It is worth re-reading. (It is an eight[8] page PDF file.]

I picked up this post on the issue which is a long, and thoughtful post on the issue. There is much more in the PUBLIB archives.

I also ran across this post in another non-library blog.

Miscellaneous other links:

• I found this great blog post about how to check out a web page.
• Roy Tenant offers some thoughts on managing change. There are some insightful comments as well.