Changes & trends in the broad arena of digital libraries during the past decade: Reflections from the conference Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) 2000-2009

Changes & trends in the broad arena of digital libraries during the past decade: Reflections from the conference Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) 2000-2009

Tefko Saracevic, PhDSchool of Communication & InformationRutgers UniversityNew Brunswick, New Jersey USAhttp://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~tefko

Tefko Saracevic 1

Tefko Saracevic 2

Old Queens where Rutgers University started as Queens Collegein 1766

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How thinking about trends is established

From: Robert B. Cialdini (1993). Influence: the psychology of persuasion

The big picture

In the first decade of the new century digital libraries exhibited a continuing, even accelerating growth and changes in many dimensionsThe phenomenon is globalMany changes and advances are evolutionary, some even revolutionaryAmong others:

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The big picture - Among others:

New players, stakeholders, fields, and institutions joined the realm of digital librariesPosition of digital libraries in the networked environment as exhibited by their reach, access and diversity expanded significantly

Research community grew and research diversifiedCurricula and professional competencies changed to accommodate a variety of organizational, service and technological needs

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The big picture - Among others (cont.)

Economic investments in and expenditures for digital libraries increased significantlyNumerous social, managerial, legal, and ethical issues and effects became more pronounced

Manifold issues about the evident impact of digital libraries on scholarship, education, society, and culture are being raised and explored

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Ten years of LIDA 2000-2009

Purpose: to address the changing and challenging environment for libraries and information systems in the digital worldEach year a different and ‘hot’ theme was addressed, divided in two parts: the first part covering research and development

and the second part addressing advances in

applications and practice

Most of the topics from “the big picture” were addressed - variety of viewpoints

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LIDA themes2000:Positioning libraries on the

Internet.Using Internet in libraries2001:The Internet: ethics and legal

issues.Information services - practice

and research 2002:Integrating information seeking

and information retrieval (IR).Information services in digital

environments - practice and research.

2003:WWW and information retrieval.WWW and libraries2004:Human information behavior and

digital libraries.Competences for digital libraries2005:What can digital libraries do that

traditional libraries cannot? Or do in addition? Achievements and prospects.

Building a small digital library and digital library network

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Themes …

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2006:Cultural, social and institutional

effects and place of digital libraries

Building a digital library for children and young adults

2007:Users and use of digital

libraries.Economics and digital libraries2008:Education and training in digital

libraries.Reference in digital

environments

2009:Reflections: changes brought

by and in digital libraries in the last decade.

Heritage & digital libraries - digitization, preservation, access

2010:?????????

LIDA Guests of Honor

2004

Eugene Garfield2005

Robert Hayes2006

Jack Meadows2007

Christine Borgman

2008

Peter Ingwersen

2009

Michael Buckland

2010

shall we vote?

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LIDA themes reflected …

Development: building digital libraries ; d-lib research (LIDA 2005/II; 2006/II)

Practice: diversity, growth, digital libraries & the networked environment (LIDA 2000/parts I; 2003/I & II)

Services: variety of services provided (LIDA 2001/II; 2002/II; 2005/I;

2008/II)

Users & use: using digital libraries; human information behavior& information seeking in digital libraries (LIDA 2000/II; 2002/I; 2004/I;

2007/I)

Professional: education for digital librarians, competencies needed; ethical concerns (LIDA 2001/I; 2004/II; 2008/I)

Social: digital libraries and social, cultural, and institutional effects (LIDA 2006/I; 2007/II; 2009/II)

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Here, for review of trends grouped in nine overreaching effects

D-libs are affected by trends in: proliferation of digital

information changes in needs for

& role of d-information increased diversity &

competition new or improved

services search for measuring,

justification cooperative activities

Plus they are affected by changes in their: immediate

institutional or community environment

users & use technology

developments policy, legal, and

political contexts

Graphically:General trends & mutual effects

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Graphically: Plus changes in environments

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© 2008 Tefko Saracevic 15

Effects on d-libs of

D-information is growing exponentially everything about digital information follows

Moore’s law (which is not about information but computer hardware: capacity of chips doubles every two years)

Information explosion is continuing unabated now including the web

Publishing & distribution migrated to digitalMany implications for d-libs in every aspect: selection, acquisition/licensing,

organization, access provision, rights management, preservation ….

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… effects of proliferation (cont.)

As budgets of libraries are not increasing, higher & higher proportions are going for digital resources & services necessitating cuts for others & changes in professional deployment of

librarians somebody has to run and manage these

things

Collections are increasingly digital

Example: Rutgers University Libraries – electronic subscriptions

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Many libraries are increasing own digitization & playing an active role in proliferation digitization of heritage (old stuff) & outputs

of own institutions (new stuff) is increasing born digital from libraries is going up as well

Many libraries are joining & even leading in preservation of digital records & with it libraries are becoming an important

social & cultural player in information society

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In turn these trends are creating needs for properly educated and trained digital librarians curricula, distant education, workshops …

are adjusting to those needs & will adjust even more

professional life-long learning becomes imperative

professionally: a constant need to change & increase professional competencies this is a 100% sure trend

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Digital information is also distributed (role of the internet) and accessed & used in a number of differing ways (role of the web) plus creation became relatively easy & sharable

All continue to affect what information is needed and how it is used the study of these needs & uses are proliferating

in many fields & commercially important for finding ways & means to satisfy

changing needs & uses

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… effects of changing use, needs (cont.)

D-libs are being accessed & used by users that are never setting a foot in the library physically, only virtually – access by fingers not feet inspiring studies (or guessing) of needs and

access ways of these virtual users users studies of digital libraries & resources are

on the rise & more are under way involvement of librarians in such studies and in

interpretation & translation of findings should become a trend (but will it?)

to translate into appropriate responses


Many institutions, in addition to libraries, are into digital libraries museums, archives, historical societies,

professional organizations, academic fields, institutions, schools, governments, commercial enterprises … you name it

Diversity is growing users do not care libraries do – how to use this array? how to

distinguish themselves?

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Also: Competition in information economy

A number of players got involved in digital information taking advantage of technology many new ones (Google, Amazon…) many old

ones reconfigured (publishers e.g. Elsevier) stakes are enormous & increasing a major & rapidly growing industry

Competition is cutthroat national & global with strategic significance for all

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… effects of competition (cont.)

Libraries are finding themselves in unfamiliar territory – never had such competition positive trend: increasingly searching for and

defining a constructive (and winning) role in that environment

e.g. in commercial enterprises they are re-defining themselves into competitive intelligence services

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… effects of competition (cont.)

Negative contrast: gloomy pronouncements on increased irrelevance of libraries (or books, or print, or newspapers, or …)

percent of people reading any book or newspapers a year is falling – one trend

yet more books and a variety of magazines are made and sold per year then ever before – another trend

Talking about books (one of the mainstreams of libraries)

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Are books under siege?A lot of stuff is read now from the screen so far books not that much paper for books (i.e. analog) is still the king

However, will that change? with a lot of digitization – ever more books

are digital – effect of scale & variety with new digital reader technology – ever

more user friendly (e.g. Amazon’s Kindle) with new downloading & charging methods à

la iPod with new, wired, screen-oriented generation


Effects: New digital book & libraries Doomsday scenario: users will bypass libraries in getting books libraries will slowly get irrelevant as book holders

Rethinking doomsday scenario: libraries will adjust digital collections & services &

offer “circulation” of digital books in new ways – value is added

services are free to own patrons – others are not

Libraries will get a new and different life if they adjust

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Effects on d-libsof development of

On the web-based new services, capabilities, products related to d-information are mushrooming Even established ones are improving & evolving in new directions just think of paths taken by digitization of

books by Google & others

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… effects of new services (cont.)

Libraries are participating in a number of new web services e.g. Google book digitization involves many

libraries, even national ones … going up & up

library catalogs & circulations are becoming a part of search engines getting integrated into the online search

experiences

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… effects of new services (cont.)

Also developing own new services, e.g. e-reference: ask-a-librarian; chat reference searching: incorporation of cross-database

searching; filter options for refining searches; advanced searching by place, time, broad subject, & category; recommender services geared toward “Less Searching, More Finding.”

offering access to bibliography management software (e.g. RefWorks at many libraries )

providing webcasts of events in the library

Service: Searching

End user searching increased dramaticallyProfessional searching in many institutions declined, even disappearedReference transactions declined dramaticallyDigital resources for searching are a major & growing component & expenditure in librariesFrom searching move toward information literacy

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Service: Information literacyKnowledge how to find, evaluate and process informationInvolves tutorials for a field or for specific courses information guides for given fields, areas conduct if inf. literacy courses or modules

including in distance education orientation for students

D-libs moving into education

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But, major service: access

Networked, distributed access still major goal but ways & means changing also involves management of digital resources &

their access

Development of portals – never endingMega-portals e.g. Europeana- across countries & institutions American Memory – across heritage records, media

Increasingly, local libraries are also becoming portals for all kinds of local information

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Effects on d-libs ofincreased focus on

For commercial organizations measuring exchange value fairly straight forward: Return on investment (ROI), profits even willing to take long term gamble, losses

But indicators of use value new & in flux tracking online visits: clicks, what words, phrases

used most, (“bangs for the buck”), from where use came (addresses…); ranks in visits …

instead of subscriptions measure downloads use of tracking tools on the rise to justify value

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… effects of measuring (cont.)

Measuring & interpreting access & use in digital libraries is complex standards slowly developing

ROI & value in exchange not appropriate

Use measures are often equated with value in use – similarly as circulation measures statistics measures used as performance

measures e.g.: visits; fill rate; downloads; percent of population

(students, patrons) actually using; use level for titles

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… effects of measuring (cont.)

New measures of value are constantly sought some are user-centric

e.g. experiences; outcomes - what did the user get out of the service; impact; scorecards

some within broader economic theory considering libraries as social capital

some with arguments of value added by libraries to information & inf. objects

Pressure to justify is rising & rising yet actually finding ways to do so is not what would be loss in terminating a library?

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Connectivity coupled with cooperation becoming a major aspect of d-information benefit of feedback & contributions from a

community - “wisdom-of-the-crowds”

Besides blogs & Wikipedia many examples recent- aimed at scientist: 2collab bookmarks with folksonomy: del.icio.us

e.g. their entry for digital libraries study of cooperation in Cooperation Commons

(CoCo) of course there should be cooperation in study of

cooperation

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… effects of cooperation (cont.)

Libraries have a long history of cooperation – continues in d-libraries e.g. cataloging, consortia, OCLC, networks cooperation on the rise because of

necessity

But there is also library type cooperation aimed at general public all about books: cataloging your books,

recommendations … LibraryThing e.g. their entry for Librarians who LibraryThing

More like that will appear has commercial value as well

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Digital libraries & changes in their environments

Role of changes in immediate context institution or community users & use technology legal, policy, politics

Several large gravitational hubs of information infrastructure dominate

Google, Amazon, Yahoo…

Trends in these environments impact digital libraries a lot

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Educational institutions trend: searching for role in digital environment

e.g. online offerings, open course materials (MIT)

Public communities & governments trend: e-government, e-communication

Commercial organization trend: increased participation in digital anything

Libraries are trying to increase their participation in new or changing aspects of their institution, organization, community if not they face being irrelevant to new

directions



In many areas substantive changes public is more & more on the net for all kinds of

things

Open access movement continues to gain ground – but not without struggle significant support but also opposition rising

Social connections on the Web – big (for now) but also individualization - myXXXX

This keeps effecting d-libraries expectations & requirement of users changing

e.g. full texts required & expected

Changes in scholarship“Scholarly practices

across an astoundingly wide range of disciplines have become profoundly and irrevocably changed by the application of advanced information technology.”

Clifford Lynch (2008) in The Institutional Challengesof Cyberinfrastructure and E-Research

Academic & research institutions are adjusting & creating own infrastructure

In various ways libraries play a role in that infrastructure – still evolving incorporating growing

no. of databases, d-resources, web sources, access mechanisms, inf. literacy & assistance

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Effects on d-libs ofTechnologies have reconstructed or changed social structures including institutions – libraries as well & have a potential to do so further

In turn, social structures shape how we think about & use technology – digital libraries are a part of that as well Technologies change stuff & the changed stuff affects how we use & consider technology

derived somewhat from Giddens' structuration theory

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Effects on d-libs of technology (cont.)

Constant appearance of new technologies – hardware & software – is a constant trend D-libraries are totally technology dependent & their users are becoming so and will constantly keep chasing it

interaction with technology suppliers particularly of integrative & advanced software is becoming more sophisticated & knowledgeable on part of libraries

new access methods, hardware on the horizon libraries & iPods or some such & users will probably

expect that they can get to library that way

Technical problems

Substantial - larger & more complex than anticipated e.g.:

representing, storing & retrieving of library objects particularly if originally designed to be printed & then

digitized operationally managing large collections - issues of scale dealing with diverse & distributed collections

interoperability; federated searching assuring preservation & persistence incorporating rights management

Also affected research agendas & directions

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Research issuesstarting from technical, but expanding …

understanding objects in DL representing in many formats

metadata, automating representation conversion, digitization organizing large collections managing collections, scaling preservation, archiving interoperability, standardization accessing, using, searching

federated searching of distributed collections evaluation of digital libraries

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D-libs, as most public institutions, depend on policies, laws of their governments from economic sustenance, to research, to

intellectual freedom, to professional recognition …

Changes in policies = often changes in fortuneChanges in governments = often changes in policies

D-lib research policies

In the US, UK, European Union strong support for d-lib research starting in mid 1990’s – many projects Most such research was technology orientedCreated strong d-lib research communities world wide

But by 2009 d-lib research support ceased – no more

to some extend it shifted to other areas

It will have negative effect on d-lib research

larger projects cannot not be sustained without govermental support

move to institutional support

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Legally, politically …

New forms of intellectual property rights for emergent information architectures of the 21st century are needed & soughtSignificant asymmetries in access to information have socioeconomic consequences – remedies are soughtD-libraries (as libraries in general) will continue to try to affect these changes voicing through a number of channels

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ConclusionsBack to big picture

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Digital libraries contribution

Affected handling of information in societyPenetrated many fields & human activitiesStarted on developing an organized body of knowledge & professional competenciesApplied interdisciplinarityReaching late adolescence - toward maturityStressed HUMAN in human-computer interaction

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ChallengesAdjust to the growing & changing social & organizational role of inf. & related inf. infrastructurePlay a positive role in globalization of informationRespond to technological imperative in human termsJoin competition with quality – d-libraries are value addedJoin DIGITAL with LIBRARIES

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JunctureLibraries are at a critical juncture in their evolution – digital components are revolutionizing their rolesMany fields, groups ... moving into digital libraries

big competition entrance of powerful players fight for stakes

Need to keep progressing in its: research & development professional competencies educational efforts interdisciplinary relations

And demonstrating their value to society

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Conclusion for d-libs - A proper borrowing on how to act

“Think globally, act locally.” an environmentalist slogan coined by David Brower, founder of Friends

of the Earth

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Giuseppe Arcimboldo(1527-1593):

The Librariancirca 1570see his other pictures athttp://nanimots.canalblog.com/

How will a digital librarian look like?

My favorite LIDA picture (LIDA 2006, Mljet)

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This is how I looked when LIDA started (I wish)

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Documents

Changes & trends in the broad arena of digital libraries during the past decade: Reflections from the conference Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) 2000-2009