Tuesday 17 November 2015

Looking for the future of Libraries?

Western Sydney Institute of TAFE, Graduate event (10 Nov 2015).

Speaker: Mylee Joseph from State Library of New South Wales




Don’t look at what libraries are doing now to see what they should be doing in the future?

See what the users are doing now to see what libraries should be doing in the future. Look at how people are looking for information and the tools they use to find it.

Library websites should be mobile friendly - as Google Analytics now gives preference to sites that are mobile friendly. Current trends show that smartphones are outselling pcs by 5-1. Some predict that to go to 10-1.

When you think search engines consider that YouTube is the second most popular one after Google.

Social media - how can it help advocacy?
Know where your audience/users are? Who are they (demographics etc.)
Use platform where they are - e.g. Tumblr growing – favourite of teens, Facebook steady – with a mainly older user group

Libraries have to ‘redefine successes’ - should not be confined to getting feet in the door. Be happy to put content out in the world to be discovered, shared, and used. Success can be measure by how much your material is shared.

Focus on creating content that is easy to share. Do not worry about the actual sharing, as this will get done by others for your library.
Only 1% create the content - others push it out - they are the influencers.
Influencers spread content; they are the key to success.

Experiment – even things that may appear failures may take off over time or lead to other more successful programs. Consider your programs as being in perpetual beta, roll them out and improve as feedback comes in.

§  social metadata

§  curators – everyone’s a curator

§  experts are outside the library – people with particular passions will find you content if you share it on the Web

§  digital makers – the adapters and creators of digital content

§  open access and commons – Make your content open access / creative commons feeing it up for reuse an adaption

§  crowdsourcing – Opening programs up for help

Smartphones were originally the toys of the wealthy - now becoming some peoples only way the to access information and government services. With many low socioeconomic families not having an internet connection at home relying on their smart phones and free Wi-Fi. Libraries providing free Wi-Fi access to the internet helps to reduce the digital divide.

Libraries have to consider what copyright they apply to their content. OA or CC makes it more useable.
If people can discover your content and play with it without having to come into the library, this may not be a bad thing (goes back to redefining success)
People who discover, play and reuse/remix your content may come in through your door one day!

Googallisation leads to discoverability – Through the Google Cultural Institute Goggle, and many of the world’s cultural institutions have collaborated to provide access to their collection via the web.  https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/u/0/home
This is an excellent site - explore collections and venues! You can also create your own. Play and have fun.

For those interested in metadata check out the British Library’s collection metadata strategy

Try new technology
The library staff buy the latest technology and play with it and lend it out to their patrons. In this video, Arapahhoe Library staff talk about google glass. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaU6ZT2yJvM

If you don’t have the budget consider looking around for other who may have already tried the technology

For fun try the Smithsonian page for creating animated gifs - they used Photoshop but in the comments read how someone did it without. 
Something to play with!!!

Setting content free leads to many interesting uses
State Library of Vic has over 200,000 copyright free images that have been made available to the public and they encourage everyone to use/remix. Check out #remixvic on Instagram to see what others have done.


We are continuing to see information is being discovered, accessed, used and shared in different ways.
New ways of looking for information
§  Mobile technology
§  Social Signals
§  Googallisation
§  Visual interfaces - (facial recognition technology) http://invisibleaustralians.org/faces/ 
i.e. matching images in a search rather than the more familiar and popular matches to text
(Missing the last one)
§  Search new and different facets such as by colour on Flicker   

New ways of sharing information
§  social metadata
§  curators
§  experts are outside the library
§  digital makers
§  open access and commons
§  crowdsourcing

We are looking at major issues with the preservation of digital born content. Digital content is more fragile than print content. Lots of work need to be done in this area. Libraries needs to consider how they are going to preserve their digitally created content.

Some organisations have started including Associated Press (AP) which has produced an online archive of news footage and stories.

An area where Libraries and heritage groups can add value is though taking digital photos of their local area and preserve them for future.
Parramatta Heritage Centre
In particular their project which captured the demolition of David Jones Building a local Parramatta landmark. http://arc.parracity.nsw.gov.au/blog/2014/06/03/the-demolition-of-the-david-jones-building-parramatta-time-lapse-video/


Authors: Annie Pinto, Saba Mainer, Rosanne Motha Victoria with addition and adaption by Tracey McDonald

"Library date due slip" by Labratmatt - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Library_date_due_slip.jpg#/media/File:Library_date_due_slip.jpg

Shared under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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