Ken Chad discusses how public libraries can compete with commercial online services in the digital age. He notes that technology has enabled services like Google and Amazon to provide free or low-cost library-like services directly to users without physical branches or librarians. However, libraries have unique assets like trusted staff expertise, community spaces, and user data that can be leveraged to tailor innovative new services. Chad argues libraries should position themselves at the heart of cultural and technology debates to promote cooperative knowledge-sharing models over proprietary approaches.

1. how can public libraries compete? Digital Futures Leicestershire Libraries Staff Conference June 2008 Ken Chad Director Ken Chad Consulting Ltd [email_address] Te: +44 (0)7788 727 845 www.kenchadconsulting.com kenchad consulting

2. compete with what? kenchad consulting

3. let’s try to see the wood before we look at the trees kenchad consulting

4. Something big is going on.. and (as in so many times in the past) technology is a major driving force for change….. kenchad consulting

5. ‘ For more than 150 years, modern complex democracies have depended in large measure on an industrial information economy…….In the past decade and a half we have begun to see a radical change in the organisation of information production. Enabled by technological change , we are beginning to see a series of economic, social and cultural adaptations that make possible a radical transformation of how we make the information environment….’ Yochai Benkler a Professor of Law at Yale Law School kenchad consulting

6. ‘ ..organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful..’ Google’s mission statement the library function is big business kenchad consulting

8. removing barriers ‘ .. technology is unleashing a capacity for speaking that before was suppressed by economic constraint . Now people can speak in lots of ways they never before could have, because the economic opportunity was denied to them’ Mother Jones Magazine (website) Interview with Lawrence Lessig: Stanford Law School Professor, Creative Commons Chair June 29, 2007 http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2007/07/lawrence_lessig.html kenchad consulting

10. as well as new services there are new business models kenchad consulting

11. ‘ Open access is a practical, efficient and sustainable model to unlock the potential of the web for disseminating the results of publicly funded research’ kenchad consulting

12. ‘ Convinced that changes in the industry and the spread of digital piracy have made it ever more difficult to make money from selling records, the Crimea plan to turn the economics on their head by giving away downloads of their self-financed second album, Secret of the Witching Hour’. Owen Gibson, media correspondent Monday April 30, 2007 kenchad consulting Davey MacManus of the Crimea. Photograph: Gareth Davies/Getty

13. you decide what to pay….

14. technology has enabled web based global providers to deliver free or low cost ‘library’ services direct to users without the need for library buildings or (in the main) librarians kenchad consulting

15. so what’s the competition? kenchad consulting

17. This too..

18. So commercial = chargeable and public sector = free? Really? kenchad consulting

20. libraries are inefficient and expensive in providing resources kenchad consulting

21. libraries are inefficient and expensive in providing resources kenchad consulting

23. libraries are inefficient and expensive in providing resources

25. In 2005 Library staff at the University of Wales in Bangor were threatened with job cuts, the university consultation paper making the case for the cuts stated: ‘Librarians do not deliver “value for money” when compared to the internet.’

26. libraries aren’t being singled out…… kenchad consulting

27. ‘ in the past month I’ve bought 15-20 books. They’ve cost what would you say? £150? £180? Actually, it’s somewhere in in the region of £12’ kenchad consulting

28. ‘ Until recent years most charity shops were "low-key" shops, let often at a peppercorn rent in order to keep the premises occupied : this is no longer true. Many charity shops are now professionally refitted and wish to be sited on the main street in town centres : charity shops are seen as a "risk-free" tenant by landlords, much the same as estate agents or building societies, and are now often paying premium rents’. "Oxfam specialist bookshops will be a shock to people expecting the clichéd image of dark, dusty second-hand bookshops selling scruffy paperbacks," said [Murray] Winters. "The shops are bright, light and well-designed, and offer a vast array of books, including many specialist, rare, antique and unusual titles. Many books on offer are no longer available from mainstream book retailers. Customers appreciate that diversity of choice." http://www.inprint.co.uk/thebookguide/shops/oxfam.shtml competition on the high street kenchad consulting

29. high street bookshops could soon be killed off ? kenchad consulting

30. ‘ I, along with almost everybody I know, stopped buying in bookshops years ago. Why bother? Online, Amazon and AbeBooks have everything I need; in fact, they have everything anybody could ever need, and AbeBooks, especially, is absurdly cheap’. kenchad consulting

31. let’s compare……. public libraries vs. commercial ‘library’ services kenchad consulting

32. search: the library (OPAC) experience

34. search: the Google Book Search experience

35. Does your OPAC do this?

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43. The ‘default’ Google link to library holding is via OCLC WorldCat

44. kenchad consulting why isn’t your library on this list?

45. The OCLC WorldCat ‘platform’ links through to the local OPAC Other ways of linking (e.g. through Talis) are available but OCLC remains the Google default

46. let’s try another search…… kenchad consulting

48. The book is not in the library catalogue and no alternatives are offered. There is a ‘place request’ option but this presents a another set of ‘barrier’ Why is it made so hard?

49. What does this mean? Where do I go from here? Here’s an example from another library catalogue

50. compared to this…

51. The same search on Amazon

52. One click to fulfilment….

53. Also … genuinely helpful suggestions

54. Other helpful information too…..

59. 25 items found on Amazon, lowest price 3.94 + 2.75 p&p Kamen, Henry ‘Spain’s Road to Empire’ 1 item found on Leicestershire Library Catalogue, 2 copies/1 available at OADBY SO So from Loughborough that’s a 30 mile round trip at £0.53.6 per mile….and what does that ‘SO’ mean anyway? fulfilment alternatives

60. engaging people with books..a key public library mission.. what does the competition look like?

67. how is the library domain responding? kenchad consulting

68. a national aggregation: search across the whole of Wales – ‘Cat Cymru’ why not the whole of the UK?

70. borrowing suggestions Huddersfield Uni had details of over 2,000,000 checkouts spanning 10 years stored in the library management system and gathering virtual dust

71. ratings and comments Huddersfield: Dave Pattern again..

72. ‘ chat’ with an expert…California State University

74. AquaBrowser from Media Labs showing a ‘tag cloud’

75. Boston College (US) using (ExLibris) Primo

76. adding user content to WorldCat

77. but..barriers? you have to log in, register and adhere to these content guidelines

78. are you interested???

79. thinking about business models… kenchad consulting

85. A few concluding remarks kenchad consulting

88. ‘ It is the feasibility of producing information, knowledge and culture through social, rather than market and proprietary relations - through cooperative peer production- that creates the opportunities for greater autonomous action, a more critical culture, a more discursively engaged and better informed republic, and perhaps a more equitable global community’ Yochai Benkler a Professor of Law at Yale Law School kenchad consulting

89. Thank You… kenchad consulting

90. www.kenchadconsulting.com

91. how can public libraries compete? Digital Futures Leicestershire Libraries Staff Conference June 2008 Ken Chad Director Ken Chad Consulting Ltd [email_address] Te: +44 (0)7788 727 845 www.kenchadconsulting.com kenchad consulting