i’m not “anonymous”. (indeed, if you ever want to talk to me,
live and in person, call me any time you like at 310.980.9202.)

and i don’t work as a librarian. (i don’t work at all, i’m “retired”.)

but i can tell you how i think libraries should be run…

first and foremost, the world needs a global cyberlibrary.
it’s exactly what it sounds like — a website that contains
every edition of every book that has ever been published.

every edition. of every book. that has ever been published.

with a webpage for every page of every edition of every book.

here’s an example of one page of one such edition of a book:
> http://z-m-l.com/go/myant/myantp123.html

as you can see, that includes a page-scan and the digital text.
and, of course, each page is linked with its neighboring pages…

and the digital text of the full book is contained in another file.
> http://z-m-l.com/go/myant/myant.zml

that .zml file can create high-quality output in the form of .pdf
or .html files (which can be used to create other output formats).

what’s important: the cyberlibrary has every book in the world.

it also contains every journal — scientific, academic, literary, etc.
again, every page of every journal, linked with neighboring pages,
and of course with every issue linked with its neighboring issues,
just as these issues sit right next to each other on library shelves.

with all of this material available 24/7 to anyone in the world who
has an internet-connected machine. available at absolutely no cost.
(creators will be paid by society via various compensation schemes.)

libraries contain more than books, of course. extend the thinking to
music, movies, art, photographs, and tomorrow’s multimedia messes.

oh, and one more thing. don’t tell me why it cannot be done. just do it.

***

does this mean the end of _libraries_ — those _buildings_ that now stand
as beacons of hope in our neighborhoods and on our university campuses?

heck no.

we need those buildings — those _community_sharing-centers_ — as much
as we ever did, and probably a whole lot more, once we come to realize it…

first, just because every book will be available online does _not_ mean that
people won’t want to have paper-books. a paper-book can be very “handy”.
(that’s not a pun; it’s recognition of the haptic qualities of the paper-book.)

so the most important piece of machinery in the library building will be the
print-on-demand machine. (i don’t call it the “espresso machine” because
that brand is _much_ too expensive, no offense meant towards mr. epstein.)

likewise, the library will be the place which owns other “communal machinery”
that’s too expensive for people to own individually, but still needed by them.
(note that, at present, even computers and printers find widespread usage.)

individual libraries will also be active contributors to the global cyberlibrary,
digitizing assets unique to their location (e.g., local maps, blueprints, etc.).

when you create something, your conduit for placing it into the cyberlibrary
will be your local library, who will ensure it is input and catalogued correctly.
(for text, this will be easy, of course; but a piece of sculpture, for instance,
would need to be scanned in 3 dimensions, and get other special handling.)

libraries will also provide space for doing research, holding meetings, etc.

***

none of this is “revolutionary”. none of this is even remotely surprising.
it’s just common sense. nothing more, nothing less. and yes, of course,
when you start talking about “every book ever published in the world”,
the scale seems _huge_… but really, it’s the only way to go about this…
if you’re thinking on any kind of scale _smaller_ than this, you’re wrong.

if you don’t have enough vision for this — no matter what your age is –
you don’t have enough vision _period_, and you must get out of the way.

***

so i’m looking for librarians who’ll start preparing society for this reality…
who’ll agitate to bring it about, and stop all of the foot-dragging going on.

-bowerbird

that’s ironic, peter, because i felt exactly the same way when i read
the schedule for the “books in browsers” meeting you are sponsoring.

> http://reading20.posterous.com/ia-books-in-browsers-2010-agenda

most of the people in that circle chat up each other every day on twitter, and
have probably already had a handful of face-to-face meetings so far this year.
times must be flush if you can write off all the expenses for so many meetings!

-bowerbird

Rather than generating an “Us vs. Them” battle within our profession based on who’s old and unwilling to change the status quo and the young “get out of our way” generation, perhaps we’d be better off figuring out how we can all increase our presence and influence within higher education at large, because up to now academic librarianship and what we have to contribute has too often been ignored when the decisions about the future of higher education are being made. And if we’re not at that table, then our petty squabbles about who’s creating change and who isn’t aren’t going to matter much.

ARL is a different kind of group – more like the Big10 or other sports conference based on institution … but ALA, ACRL, LITA, PLA, AASL, our state associations, etc. – these are OUR ASSOCIATIONS as individuals. Anyone can join and “play” in this league. As members we have a voice and a much more powerful one than some may realize. As an over-quoted but still valuable saying goes – one can “be the change you want to see.”

I’m most familiar with ACRL so let me focus there for a second. Any member of ACRL can bring an action item to the Board. From such member-initiated action items came the Information Literacy Immersion Program, the Scholarly Communications initiative, and many other transformative efforts. But, these didn’t come to be because someone had an idea and hoped others would carry it out. They came to be because the people with the idea were passionate, dedicated, and found the resources (through ACRL and sometimes through grants securing with ACRL) to make the difference they saw was needed. After garnering the resources, they made it happen through hard work, long-term commitment, and building a community around the project. Personally I’d argue that Immersion and the SC initiative are indeed transforming academic libraries but that’s a lengthy essay for another time; however, I think the evidence is there and compelling.

I suspect we can find parallel stories in ALA, AASL, PLA, etc. If you are an ACRL member and think ACRL is the home for your passion, I’ll be happy to talk with you about process, procedure, accountability, oversight, etc. And, yes there is some of all of this – it is how we steward our collective resources responsibly and are accountable to the membership. If there is an ACRL group already working in this area, I’ll introduce you to the people who are making things happen. If not in ACRL by your own thought or because there isn’t a right home for it, I’ll do my best to connect you with the right people in the other organizations.

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
ljanicke at illinois dot edu

P.S. And, though I am ACRL President, I also need to be clear and up-front that the President doesn’t make the decisions about what ACRL supports, etc. alone. The ACRL Board works as a group and my vote is equal to everyone else’s on the Board. So, this post is an offer of my personal assistance, informed by my experiences and knowledge. Nothing in my post should be seen as committing ACRL as an organization – to do so would violate the collegiality of our professional association and that I am of course not willing to do!

You oldsters are in positions of power. If you’re going to reform and re-form librarianship, shut up and do it already. You haven’t and you aren’t, therefore librarianship is quite justified in the assumption that you won’t.

Younger librarians (including, as Peter says, the young at heart) cannot do what needs doing because they are being actively squelched by the sort of librarian one finds at Taiga. I comment anonymously because I am one of those squelched librarians, and I wish desperately it would stop. I see my profession withering, the profession I chose and love, and I want nothing more than to help rescue it, but I am actively silenced and prevented from doing what I think is necessary.

By older librarians.

Not a few of them, incidentally are the “pay your dues!” types, like Cambridge Librarian above.

Make it stop, older librarians. When you stop squelching dissent and failure, when you stop starving innovation, when you make good things happen (instead of useless inward-focused penny-ante ALA nonsense like Emerging Leaders), then you can tell Peter how valuable you are. Until then, I concur with Peter: “get out of the goddamn way.”

One of the remarks that I made in comments is:

“One of the things that I heard from some younger folks at a two-years ago Smithsonian 2.0 event was the desire to have the “cool old” people around – that there might some of us with experience, enthusiasm, and insight around to guide, instruct, and share those gearing up to re construct their institutions.”

As I said in that comment, it is very much about [all of] the young at heart.

But to StevenB, while I am not at all counting out more senior people as a group, you’re not understanding what I am writing. It’s not about library A/ULs learning from younger people. They’ve had a chance to do that, and they’ve bungled it. By and large, upper management in libraries has been tone deaf to the world around them. My focus is on younger people (including the “cool old”) speaking *for themselves*, not speaking *to* others.

You cite 2CUL as an example in innovation, and it is – but merely in resource rationalization. It’s innovation in the retreat of libraries from budgetary disaster. Look at this Cornell quote from the initial PR: “We are pleased to partner with Columbia to continue to provide excellent service with fewer resources while increasing productivity and minimizing redundant operations.” Borders Books is issuing press releases like that, too. 2CUL? Sure, do that, but realize all there is to do that’s positive and assertive.

What we’re capable of doing now is building real innovation – like throwing out archaic library software systems (as bowerbird observes, these are pathetic) and re-doubling our efforts to replace them with community- sourced alternatives that re-conceptualize what data we need to hold and how it should be organized; reconstructing our back end systems to focus on exposing data for access, re-use, and user enhancement; building large scale platforms that are simple, easy to use, and user (not admin) facing; demanding a definition of digital content ownership and use that elevates libraries in the face of continued encroachment on the right to make available information to the broadest number of people; disseminating the production of scholarly information by building and supporting tools like Anthologize; putting the library aggressively into the community instead of insisting the community come to the library (QR codes to the streets!); and remembering that putting tools in the hands of people everywhere, all around the planet, that permit them to educate themselves and each other is the highest calling all of us must answer.

That’s the future of libraries for the young at heart.

well, um, yeah, that’s good, i guess… but…

it’s not just that the upper echelon of librarianism is calcified.
that is, probably, to be expected.

what is worse is that they have wasted literally _millions_ and
_millions_ of dollars on systems that — literally — do not work.
(and i sincerely doubt the younger folk woulda done any better.)

oops.

moreover, they signed contracts that gave away your lifeblood
– the contents of the books that taxpayers bought and paid
good money to store on shelves for decades and decades –
to google, without even ensuring a right to _mount_ the scans.
they were cheated like a bunch of country hicks at the circus…
(and i sincerely doubt the younger folk woulda done any better.)

oops.

meanwhile, funds are being cut left and right, to the very bone,
to the extent that it is becoming increasingly difficult to predict
any kind of future other than one where libraries can only afford
to rent access to the google corpus, and nothing (nothing!) more.

by the time the youngsters take over the libraries, there will be
nothing left… oh well… i doubt they woulda done any better…

oops.

-bowerbird

I really like this article about the working conditions that new professionals want. (Short answer: an adhocracy.)

Some of my younger peers wanted to go right into traditional librarianship, caring for stacks of books and sitting at a reference desk. Some of my older peers wanted to blow up the current model of librarianship and reform it to fit our rapidly changing society and information landscape.

One thing that has become clear as I enter my fifth year of being a librarian is that age does not dictate the nature of one’s ideas. To assume so is the same as assuming that all those first year college students are tech wizards, or that someone with gray hair is a geezer who should be pushed aside.

This is lazy thinking. It’s ageism. And it’s destructive to young librarians and more seasoned ones.

Even at 40, which isn’t all that old, I’ve already had to read about how I’m somehow too old, too entrenched, to innovate or bring much-needed change to librarianship. And frankly, I’m sick of it.

Perhaps it’s more about being a new librarian than a young librarian. But even that will have its exceptions and is still a generalization.

‘librarians beyond their 20′s and early 30′s face a rather grim demographic reality in terms of advancement opportunities’ (quoted from anonymous, above).

Older professionals possess skills that can only be acquired through experience, e.g., management skills, and skills necessary to implement new ideas (strategic planning, project management, etc). I have seldom if ever encountered a good manager who was still in their 20s (I would include myself in that!), though there may be exceptions.

I am certainly all for encouraging younger professionals, and the ideas that they bring, and to give them real opportunities to contribute to developments in the profession. This is very important. They still, however, need time to develop as professionals, so please don’t overlook the value of more experienced practitioners!

I’ll surely take a look at LISNPN and pass this on, on IFLA’s New Professionals Special Interest Groups’s (NPSIG) blog for instance to generate some international interest.

And doesn’t the new generation already organize events where they gather to share ideas for change – unconferences – where there are few senior leaders present. Or at more traditional conferences where there are now unconferences within the conference – or special gatherings for the new generation – such as the new members roundtable.

I agree that we have much to learn from the younger generation of librarians, and we do need to create more opportunities for them to take the lead in creating change. I wrote pretty much that exact thing a number of years ago at http://bit.ly/anKVtB . But don’t count out senior leaders either. Many of those I know still have plenty of potential to create “kick-ass” change. There’s plenty of room in the wagon.

I also understand that travel funds are a big reason people do not gather, which is why someone like Mellon, Sloan, Microsoft (!), or (gasp) ALA would need to sponsor travel. I grok that. Fortunately, there are great online tools to at least get started. Eventually, as was the case for C4L, if a venue is generated, the cause will be vital enough in the short term for people to spend their own money, unfair as that is.

I’m not naming association names either but… I think a promotion process that highly prizes committee participation in just one association and its spinoffs does not serve the librarians working towards promotion or their institutions very well. So there is a lot to rethink and perhaps undo, a LOT of inertia. It may not be quite as simple as talking and listening to up and coming library workers of all kinds.

About Taiga and new blood – I have just one thing to say: money. Higher ups have more discretionary travel funds than new blood. I am not an AUL or an AD or any other title, but I keep getting invited to Taiga. I don’t have the money. I simply can’t go. That’s just a fact, not a complaint – given the yawns and cynicism, I might be just fine with not going.

Sorry to post anonymously but this is hot-button stuff. Perhaps that’s another symptom of another set of problems in the profession.