Question 1:
Ideal Library: What if the library didn’t exist at all? What would the university look like? What if there weren’t anymore services? Proves that we are providing a valuable resource to our communities
Provide access—online but also access for our current users
Make sure that information is available in the future—it’s discipline specific to libraries and librarians, that we provide this archival function
We want to make sure that we still have a mechanism for accessing things 100 years from now and we should be building and creating and have in place format blind programs
Collection development for the future
Preserving the culture for the future
Unique and crucial because no one else is going to do it
This is another aspect of sustainability—can we have a good program with our collections? VHS tapes for retention, make them digital AND accessible, but we also have to be aware that we cant’ keep everything. Which is still part of our jobs as information experts
We need to invest in the infrastructure and the process
Resource sharing and collaborating with other institutions—and position ourselves to be PROACTIVE about it, not reactive
Build in the plan of reviewing these programs and initiatives to make sure we stay cutting edge—staying a step ahead of the technology instead of being reactive to it
What is our role as librarians to be in 2020? It’s clearly changing. Are we a roadblock to success? A road block for providing students access? How do our students see us?
Demand for help and context of information and what exactly research is—this is where we help those students
Mission statement tweak—there must be something in it about PRESERVING
Implementing technology and making sure that our users know how to and can effectively get that information
Why do we have computers and printers in the library? Or 3d scanners? Because we are providing access to the way to read and create information
Information and digital literacies are important
Innovation à supportive
What can we do to make it easier for our students?
Are we getting in the way? Can we be the mediator/facilitator of knowledge and creation?
Embed in the academic department à create those collaborations
Embedded teams, involve innovation
Challenges to these goals:
- Preservation and access—exposing these valuable resources to students, giving a global reach
- Future of discovery systems
- Challenge for the long termà fully leveraging our legal rights, as researchers, as librarians. We need to Implement the principles in Access and Fair Use, using Best Practices that have already been developed at other institutions. We make things discoverable, we shouldn’t rely on “cheap” outsourcing. We should also recognize that our professional knowledge is unique and that we do make things discoverable.
- Balancing how much time we spend on these efforts – we can’t be everything to everyone. What’s the signature thing that we do? That we build on? Can we identify this? Can we draw upon others? Can we give up a little control in some areas? Identify core services—staff are talented. Leverage what they can do. Can we adapt?
- Digital and information literacies—skills of the students—can we get them to where they need to be when they graduate?
- Keeping up with where the university is going and how we see ourselves? Challenge to be in front of it and be flexible – can this large organization even be flexible?
- Funding—more research $$$, partnering, commercializing our research, look at the Johns Hopkin’s Entrepreneurial library. Also stop spending money on content that a researcher already has given away access to. Why are we leasing this content and not owning it? Rethink this approach—this is not a long-term solution
What is 1 thing to fix in the next 5 years:
- Space, space management, rationalization and being able to articulate it to our staff students faculty and others…
- Embedded library—virtual and in-person, library presence, discoverablity, accessibility, preserving, as a priority, information management
- Breaking down the calcified infrastructure to let new things develop and take hold—building a flexible support structure to enable change
Major themes: Who are we as librarians? Why do we do what we do? What are we doing? How are we doing it?