As I have always maintained, library professionals should be abreast of emerging information trends, and be ready and willing to adopt them. We can no longer assume to know better than our users, and instead of trying to educate them to understand our services, we should be educating ourselves to understand their needs.
And yet, a common complaint amongst progressive librarians is, "We want to do these things, but our bosses / directors / IT departments won't *let* us!". There are plenty of librarians who would love to bring their services not just onto the digital medium, but into an environment that the general public understand and are familiar with. What's the point in using an in-house digital repository that is unfathomable to the general user, when you'd be far more effective by storing them on, say, YouTube and Flickr. (And, on a quick aside, it's interesting that YouTube is very quickly becoming the preferred starting point for younger people, even before Google! Should we start running sessions, not on "Smart Googling" but "Smart YouTubing"?)
So, how do we effect change, when the powers-that-be aren't necessarily pro-active in adopting emerging trends?
A colleague of mine recently attended Information Online 2009, and the presentation that seemed to impress him most (from the number of times he kept talking about it in the fortnight after returning) was the Keynote from Mal Booth, formerly of the Australian War Memorial, and now at UTS.
In particular, there were two major points that struck a chord:
"(Users) want the stuff.
They expect it to be
online.
Now.
Preferably for free."
and
"It is sometimes easier to seek forgiveness than gain permission."
On the first point, I think it's self-evident when you look at usage patterns. Google has by far become the preferred search engine, not because of any authoritative merits, but because it is quick, easy, and effective in producing results that are "good enough". Certainly, the National Library of Australia has been focusing its efforts more on being searchable via Google, rather than trying to market its own catalogues and repositories. Similarly, many Australian cultural institutions have been putting much of their image collections onto Flickr.
On a vaguely similar note, look at the usage of the wireless service at the State Library of Victoria. A few years ago, when it was first introduced, you needed to show legal ID and fill out a form to be a registered library user, and then wait for it to be processed until you could go online with your mobile device. However, nowadays, they've changed this policy so that membership is no longer necessary. Usage stats have (presumably, by the number of people I see there nowadays) gone through the roof, and users no longer have that barrier to their services. They can just walk into the building and be online immediately, with no fuss.
And in terms of our users, we don't want to create barriers to our services, such as unusable OPACs, ugly repositories, congested websites. And most public users don't care about metadata, and yet we spend so much time agonising over it! (I'm not saying these things aren't important - it's just that we shouldn't use it as an excuse for holding back when we could be giving people access to these collections) If they can just go onto Google or Flickr, and immediately find rare maps and archived video footage and photographs, then that's all they need.
But, of course, how does one initiate these kind of changes?
You could propose a radical project to your boss, with the hope that they've been suitably dazzled by buzz-words such as "clicks and mortar" and "UGC"...
However, in troubled times, being a visionary isn't as cracked up as it used to be, and I imagine that most directors are more likely to go with the safe and boring option, rather than take a risk on something that's a futuristic dream.
Or you could say, "screw it - let's do this thing". After all, anybody can have an online presence, and official endorsements are overrated when it comes to most content. What matters is the kind of following you generate, and the community that builds around it. Once the ball is rolling, and results happen, then you're in a position to sell the project to your boss. As quoted above, It's sometimes easier to seek forgiveness than gain permission.
I might, however, take this step one step further, and say that, of course, accountability may not always be key, but evidence to support your actions is still important. There's a difference between ignorantly jumping on a bandwagon, just because you read it on a blog somewhere, and actually seeing a need in a community that's being blatantly neglected.
And don't confuse dissension for insolence. If your vision doesn't fit into the organisation's core goals, then perhaps you're working for the wrong people. And if you find that you're suddenly on your own with your opinion, don't discount the possibility that you might be wrong. That's okay too.
But don't stop dreaming. This industry needs dreamers who can question the conventional way that libraries work, push boundaries of library services, and take risks in following our users rather than trying to get them to follow us.
