1. Chaotic Transitions
How today’s trends will affect
tomorrow’s information environment
Marshall Keys, Ph.D.
MDA Consulting
POB 534 Nantucket MA 02554
marshallkeys@mindspring.com

2. Environmental scanning for libraries
and information organizations
And what do I see out there?

3. Some common issues
Globalization Ubiquitous Technology
Personalization Intellectual Property
Demographic changes Community

4. Cutting to the chase
Where I would conclude if you
were librarians, almost

5. Libraries have new populations
to serve
Some of whom don’t know about what they
do
Some of whom can’t access what they do
Some of whom don’t care about what they
do

6. Libraries haven’t got any money
• All kinds of things are appearing on the
horizon that will cost money,
• And vendors cannot, will not, and should
not provide products or services at
unsustainable prices or they will go out of
business.
• “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

7. Libraries have a huge investment
in the status quo
Libraries have huge investments – human
and financial – in technologies that are not
at the cutting edge
Libraries are rule-bound organizations in a
society with little respect for limits
Libraries are professionally committed to
levels of privacy that nobody else cares
about

8. Libraries are committed to places,
not to missions
• Blockbuster vs Netflix
• Borders vs Amazon
• Building libraries as civic monuments
• Central libraries vs everybody else:
Walgreens, CVS, Starbucks, and Bank of
America
• Upper West Side

9. Libraries are committed to a medium,
not a message
Libraries remain identified with print when
the world can
– view DVD’s in their cars
– carry their music and video collections in their
pockets
– Search databases and view videos on their
cell phones
Does the American Medical Association
have a “Center for the Stethoscope” as
libraries have a “Center for the Book”?

10. Our content providers
are caught between
• Complete disregard of any concept of
intellectual property among the young
• Growing reluctance of content creators to
work within the established model (PLOS,
preprint servers, blogs)
• Reluctance of major customers to accept
the dominant business model

11. Why is this happening,
what does it mean to you, and
what can be done about it?

12. A bit of theory: chaotic transitions
Theodore Modis
Predictions, 1992

13. Chaotic transitions for
libraries and publishers
• No dominant technological model
– What are the tools that people will use to
access knowledge?
• No dominant business model
– How will content be distributed and paid for?
• No dominant intellectual model
– What is a library in 2006? What will it be in
2016? What will scholarly publishing be in
2016?

14. Why these issues matter
“Successful organizations share “a powerful
understanding of what rapid social and
economic change mean for consumers’
needs and wants.”
Nancy Koehn, Brand New, 2002

15. Assumptions and questions
• The future of libraries/publishers depends on
their ability to meet the emerging needs of users.
• Who will those users be?
• What are their emerging needs?
• How will these needs differ from traditional
needs?
• How can libraries/publishers respond to them?
• Ten year horizon

16. Changing users:
“What’s a cassette?”
Young woman to young man on
the MBTA subway, Boston,
January, 2002

17. Buzznet

18. The blog mentality
• What I think is important
• What I think is important to other people
• Things are important because I think they are
important: the “whatever” corollary:
• If I don’t think it’s important, it isn’t important
• “Esse est percipi”:
• 51% of Bloggers are between 13 and 19, 90%
under 30
• Privacy is unimportant; community is important
• Bloggers are your users, your users-to-be, and
the next generation of professional leaders!

19. Michael Gorman on the Web
Graphic: Photograph of "I don't always think
ALA President people's opinions are
Michael Gorman worth reading," he
says. "They should
not be published. I
really like the filtering
that publishers do.
You don't publish
maundering.“
“What's the Difference Gorman vs.
Stripling?” by John N. Berry III –
LJ 3/15/2004

20. And Blaise Cronin,
Library School Dean
• Graphic: Photograph “Blogging is CB radio on
of Blaise Cronin, steroids. It’s all the rage.
The Web has become the
Indiana University
universal soapbox. No
voice need be unheard;
no whine denied oxygen.
It’s the fusion of vanity
publishing and the bully
pulpit. Every idea, no
matter how trite or crazy
can see the light of digital
day.”

21. Graphic: New Yorker cartoon of
daughter addressing father
“You don’t get it, Daddy, because they’re not targeting you!”

22. Not just Old Geezers:
“Back in the 1980’s,” says Emily Nussbaum,
“When I attended high school, there were
• No cellphones • No JPEG’s
• No answering • No digital cameras
machines • No file sharing
• No “texting” software
• No MP3’s • No Web”
“My so-called Blog”, Emily
Nussbaum, NYT Magazine
Jan 11, 2004

23. Emerging users, dominant themes
• Community
• Portability
• Personalization

24. Community

25. Community: our sort

26. Every parent’s worst fear
60,000,000 users worldwide

27. Suddenly looks benign

28. Community: Where!

29. Community: written

30. Community: visual

31. Community: indiscreet

32. Community: multimedia

33. Community: universal theme

34. Technology: ubiquitous
• Graphic: young • Graphic: young
African American with bearded man (soul
mobile phone patch?) kissing IPod

35. Ubiquitous technology: TV
Download it and take it with you everywhere

36. Ubiquitous technology: TV
Sony Slingbox
Connect your cable to the net, and it follows you
everywhere!

37. Ubiquitous technology: TV

38. Personalization: Pimp My Ride

39. Personalization: HGTV

40. Personalized technology

41. Personalized technology

42. Personalization + portable technology

43. Ridiculous personalized technology

44. “Branded ubiquity”
• Every one of those items represents an
attempt to make money by responding to
and reinforcing a trend.
• The stakes: who will control the
interaction between gadgets?
• What will libraries/publishers do to
respond to those trends?
• Richard Siklos, “Linking a device to a gadget that is wired to a gizmo,” NYT
01/08/06

45. A deeper look
Parsing the telephone

46. Buzznet depends on personal and
personalized communication

47. The phone up close: personalization
• Download ring tones that sound like the real
thing ($5 billion in 2005)
• Personalize your phone by saving your own
pictures as Wallpaper
• Jazz up your phone with full color pictures and
Wallpaper
• Interchangeable faceplates let you personalize
your phone to suit your style
• Marketing message: You are unique even
though you are just like everyone else

48. The phone up close:
information appliance
• Send and receive e-mail
• Send quick notes to your friends using text
messaging
• Send and receive AOL Instant Messages
• Look up your horoscope or local
information on movies, the music scene or
whatever!
• Marketing message: You are no longer
tied to old stuff like computers

49. The phone up close:
the phone ‘n’ more
• Use your phone as a modem
• Take pictures with the camera and send
them to any e-mail address or T-mobile
phone
• Marketing message: you are connected to
your friends through multimedia
• Nowhere does the advertisement mention
using the phone to talk to people!

50. Trends: camera phones
US camera phone sales
2005: 47% of all
mobile phones
2 for 1 sale in Rich
Square, NC (pop 931)
Graphic: Snapshot of young Why? “Darryl’s first
African American family
picture with his new
camera phone”

51. Geoffrey Moore’s Model
Technology adoption
(Crossing the Chasm, 1991)

52. Metcalfe’s Law
N(N-1)
The value of a communication system grows
as the approximate square of the number
of participants
Robert Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet

53. And leads to
A world of
ubiquitous, multi-media communication

54. Old: “Everything is on the internet”
New: “Everything is on the phone”

55. Old: Slingbox
New: Slingplayer Mobile!

56. Old: internet ready reference
Old “auction” business model

57. New: telephone ready reference!
New: fixed price business model

58. And now in the USA: for 49 cents!

59. The predictions business
"Video won't be able to hold on to
any market it captures after the
first six months. People will soon
get tired of staring at a plywood
box every night."
- Daryl F. Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, commenting
on television in 1946

60. What does it mean to libraries?
• Users for whom the phone is a/the
primary information appliance
– Phone interface to local systems and web
based information resources
– Reference through text messaging
– Bandwidth and graphical interface issues
• Users who are willing to pay for
information – delivered the way they
want it!

61. What does it mean to publishers?
New models of acquiring information
OLD
• Formal resources
• Authority
• Solitary activity
NEW
• Peer to peer
• Social networks
• Being in touch all the time
everywhere

62. What does it mean
to the information industry?
“In Japan, bookstores complain of ''digital
shoplifting'';
instead of buying magazines, readers snap
pictures of stories and bulk-forward them to
friends:
‘It's like a Napster thing -- anything you see in the
environment becomes something you can easily
capture and share.’”
Thompson; see also “Cell phone cams spreading mischief”, Yuri Kageyama, Associated
Press, July 10, 2003

63. Chaotic transitions in
intellectual property
‘It's like a Napster thing
-- anything you see in
the environment
becomes something
you can easily
capture and share.’

64. Industry responds with lawsuits
Hackers respond by shutting down RIAA
website!

65. Courts consistently
held against copyright holders
• “Canadian court prevents suits against music
sharers”
• “US court: Software can't commit piracy”
• Until the US Supreme Court!

66. Kids and the law
• Graphic: girl lighting • Graphic: young man
pipe on beach with 10” spliff
• Graphic: College • Graphic: two girls
student smoking partially dressed with
“blunt” (hollowed cigar large marijuana seed
filled with marijuana) head

67. Industry responds with High Tech
• “RIAA uses digital fingerprints and
metadata" tags embedded within many
MP3 music files.” Boston Globe, Aug 28,
2003
• Publishers respond with DOI
• MPAA responds with “broadcast flags”
Boston Globe, 8/28/9003

68. Users respond with Low Tech:
“Music CD Swappers Turn to Snail Mail”
“It may be a crime to swap digital music over
the Internet, but there's no law against
doing it through the Postal Service.
That's the theory behind La La Media Inc.,
an Internet start-up that encourages music
lovers to trade tunes by mail.”
• If it works for Netflix . . . .
• Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe May 5, 2006

69. But it’s moot: Earth Station 5

70. ES5’s competitive advantage

71. If not Jenin, then Vanuatu,
home to Kazaa

72. But the cat is out of the bag, and
the medium is the message

73. And not for the first time
• Graphic: Article on • Graphic: Synthetic
“cento” from NY Cubism. Picasso,
Times Book Review “The Guitar,” 1913

74. But now copyright holders
are the bad guys!
• Graphic: article from Financial Times
“Copyright is stifling creativity in America”

75. And the people to work around
“Fair use and aggressive offers by
documentary film makers”
Elaine Dutka, NYT, Business, May 28, 2006, p.28

76. A parenthetical digression:
copyright for scholarly publishing
• What is the real danger at the consumer level?
• Is there enough danger to remain identified with
the bad guys?
• The Federal Research Public Access Act of
2006
– If you can’t convince Senators Lieberman and Cornyn
about the value of the present model, try explaining it
to Representative Bubba Bilbo
• What are the interests of the creators of
content?
• With ownership comes responsibility:
– The obligation to preserve
– The obligation to publish

77. Chaotic transitions in
the content business
Elsevier stock price (US ADR’s) over the last ten years

78. Chaotic transition in business models

79. And the 800 Pound Gorilla!

80. Chaotic technology: new stuff
coming down the road
New ways to find information
for new user expectations

81. Ubiquity:
any time, any where, any way
Joseph Turow’s students at Penn see little
difference between television and the Internet.
They watch ''The O.C.'' on their laptops, at home
on TiVo and by swapping the show (perhaps
illegally) through file-sharing.
The coming generation is accustomed to the idea
of watching or listening to anything on any
device that's nearby.
Jon Gertner, “Our Ratings, Ourselves” NYT 04/10/2005

82. Evolving information technology:
the search for portability
• Wireless networks are the current state
of the art in library technology
• Ubiquitous (“Ultra-mobile”) computing is
the next

83. An idea whose time had not come

84. New ways 2002
• Ovid in Hand
• Innovative’s AirPac

85. New ways 2006:
Microsoft Origami
“Ultra-mobile computing”

86. The tyranny of computing models
• Input All unified in a
• Storage single device:
• Processor
desktop,
• Display
• Output laptop,
PDA
whatever!

87. Distributed computing: input
Laptops add at least four pounds to a backpack. So
students take notes on hand-held computers with foldout
keyboards. At Yale Divinity School, Kristen Dunn uses a
Palm VX and a foldout keyboard. ''It was the best money
I ever spent in preparing for school.''
“Existential Essentials” by Melanie D.G. Kaplan, NYT, 8/1/04
“Saves you from lugging around a laptop” Melissa White,
MLA, October 2004

88. Distributed computing: input
• Siemens VKB
• Get rid of the
blankety-blank stylus!

89. Distributed computing: storage

90. Distributed computing: storage

91. Distributed computing: processing

92. Distributed computing: processing
Linux for iPod

93. The issue: size vs rich content
Graphic: Cartoon “Amazing! A man with a 36” TV screen
insists on a 3” PDA”
• Rich graphical interfaces versus miniaturization
• Bandwidth versus portability

94. Distributed computing: display

95. Distributed computing: display
Sony Ericsson projection picture phone:
why carry a screen?

96. Changing technology
New ways to find information

97. Old ways: portals

98. New ways: personalized portals
At RIT . . . about half the students have created
personalized versions of the [university’s] Web site.
“Students . . . don't go looking to find information. They
want information brought to them.” Shifted Librarian Feb 12, 2004

99. Old ways: search engines

100. New ways: personalized
search engines

101. Community: search engine
with social networking
Community, not privacy is the message!

102. Community: social bookmarks
Community, not privacy!

103. Community: social cataloging

104. Community: social cataloging

105. The problem with peer-to-peer
• What if all your friends are stupid,
uninformed, or have lousy taste in media?
• Suspicions about Google and its algorithm
• GIGO?

106. But the trend is clear: people want
personalized information access
• Having it their way vs doing it our
way
• “Lean Consumption” Harvard Business
Review March, 2005
– “using technology to reduce time and hassle
for customers and get them what they want
when they want it.”

107. Personalized information access:
Amazon does it!
• What I looked at before
• What other people looking at the same
topic have looked at
• What they think about what they looked at
• What else I might like to look at based on
what I looked at this time
• But what about privacy? What about
ALA?

108. And what about privacy?
• Graphic: Menwith • No expectation of
Hill, Yorkshire, NSA privacy because they
listening station do not believe that it
exists in an electronic
environment
• Graphic: hand with
• If I view it or send it,
surgically inserted
they will see it
RFID
• I don’t care
• Bounded rationality

109. Tomorrow’s users and privacy
• Graphic: photograph • Graphic: photograph
of girls behaving of girls behaving
badly by flashing at badly, drinking in
fraternity party, underwear in
posted by friends residence hall, posted
by friends
Bounded rationality

110. Evolving technology
New ways to display information

111. Old Ways: local systems

112. Old ways: hit lists

113. New ways: knowledge maps

114. Knowledge map:
Grokker and Anacubis

115. “But wait, there’s more!”
Emerging technology
• Graphic: photograph of a bunch of boys sitting
around playing computer games
Life beyond browsers

116. Beyond browsers
“In 1999 [virtual stores] made no sense. They didn't fit with
using the Internet through a Web browser. The browser
was a two-dimensional medium. It still is.
But the world of gamers is generally 3-D. All of a sudden, a
3-D store doesn't seem like science fiction if the medium
isn't the browser and the hardware isn't a PC.”
• “2004: Beyond the Browser?” Jack Aaronson January 8, 2004
www.clickz.com/experts/crm/crm_strat/article.php/3296541

117. Beyond the browser meets
community toy: PlayStation 2
To be everyone’s pal, show
up at American University
with a Sony PlayStation
2, pop in a game, open
your door and voila! ''It's
the one thing that made
my social life significantly
easier,'' says Steven
White. ''Crazy Taxi was
the game to have, or any
sports game, things
multiple people can play.”
“Existential Essentials” by Melanie
D.G. Kaplan, NYT, 8/1/04

118. From toy to tool: Linux for XBox

119. From toy to tool: PS2 supercomputer
National Center for Supercomputer Applications, the folks
who brought you MOSAIC, father of Netscape,
grandfather of Internet Explorer

120. Ultramobile tool:
Portable Play Station
Don’t tell Bill, but it looks an awful lot like Origami!

121. The predictions business
"Who the hell wants to hear actors
talk?"
- Harry M. Warner, Warner Bros Pictures, 1927

122. But what does the library look
like if
the medium isn’t a browser and
the hardware isn’t a PC?

123. Well, at Appalachian State University,
they are finding out!

125. Platform

126. Simulations

127. What must libraries/publishers do
to serve a world in which
• Users expect information to be delivered to
them?
• Users expect technology and interfaces to be
highly personalized?
• Users care more about convenience and
community than privacy?
• Users have a new metaphor for computing?

128. The new user: a wealth of information
creates a poverty of attention
• Graphic: photo of Charles Lax
Charles Lax is at a conference near LA, but he isn’t all here.
Out of one ear, he listens to a presentation while he surfs
on a wireless laptop, occasionally checking his Blackberry
for e-mail.
He flew from Boston and paid $2,000 to attend. But he can’t
unwire himself long enough to give the presenters his
complete focus.
If he did, he would face a fate worse than lack of productivity:
he would become bored.
“The Lure of Data,” Matt Richtel, NYT, July 7, 2003

129. Time to retire?

130. Some people get it
“In creating the iPod, Steve
Jobs has shifted the
emphasis of Apple from
what made it famous –
hip, even lovable
computers – to what he
hopes will keep it relevant
and profitable in the
future: products for a
digital way of life.”
“Oh, Yeah, he also sells computers,” John
Markoff, NYT, April 25, 2004

131. “Products for a digital way of life”
• Convergent devices: music, then text,
then video
• All functions in one appliance
• Personalized
• Portable
• Changing (if not advancing) rapidly
• Right smack in the middle of a chaotic
transition!

132. Some companies get it: BBC
• Find, Share, Play
strategy
• "BBC iPlayer to offer
catch-up television up
to 7 days after
broadcast
• Download any
programme from 8
BBC channels
• Watch it on your PC,
TV set or download to
your mobile phone to
watch it when you
want.“ Lorcan Dempsey’s Blog
April 30, 2006

133. Some librarians get it: Susan Kent
• “The future for
libraries is
personalizing service
on a customer
interest basis.”
• “The future focus of
technology in libraries
will be promoting and
delivering content-rich
programming.”

134. Some faculty get it:
Paul Hagner, EDUCAUSE
"It's not our world any more;
those who grew up on the
Internet accept
continuous change and
turmoil in the technology
they use, and they expect
their teachers to keep
up.”
”Colleges plan for 'digital natives’”, Gary
Robertson, Richmond Times Dispatch,
5/10/06

135. The future
• The past: print-centric
• The present: web-centric
• The future: ?-centric
– Customer focus, not organizational focus
– Not library technology but user technology
– What they have, not what we have
– What they want, not what we want to give them
• We worry about getting computers to the poor
when we could port the information to their
phones

136. Don’t tell me about your grass seed,
when I want to know about my
lawn!
Focus on the need of the user, not
the features of your product!

137. A library accessible to user technology
• Graphic: photo of boy • Desk top computer,
kissing IPod again Laptop, PDA,
Telephone, iPod,
even game station
• Marketing message:
“Any where, any time,
any way you want,
your library is there”

138. A library that uses technology
to offer rich program content:
• Circulation is an outdated measure of service.
• Users who do not come to the library are not a
failure:
– “Treat all students like distance education students”
Ann Marie Casey, Central Michigan University
• Academic Message: Research from the dorm is
the norm!
• Public Message: Research from the car or
wherever you are!

139. Users have the technology;
BUT we need to adapt to it
“Designing library services for the PDA”
Jessica Mussell, Royal Roads University
http://ocls.cmich.edu/conference/presentat
ions/jmussell_pda_pres.ppt#10
A study of possibilities and problems of
distributing information to distance
education students via PDA’s

140. Findings
• Lack of content
outside STM
• E Books the favored
application
• Poor interfaces
• Only Google Mobile
looked good
• pdf and image files
clogged wireless
networks

141. Do publishers get it?

142. User preferences: students
• "I go to the library once or twice a week to
study. If I'm doing research, I sit at home
and get on my computer. I go to Google.“
• "The journal was hard to read, and it was
hard to find. . . plus they put four journals
in one binding and it was really heavy and
inconvenient.“
– “Students check out the Web instead of library” Mary Jane Smetanka, Minneapolis Star Tribune May
7, 2004

143. User preferences: faculty
Faculty survey, University of California
Researchers preferred electronic
information to paper by 16 to 1 when given
a choice
• 75% must have electronic information
• 50% must have paper
• They don’t want to come to the library
either!
• Reported at ALA Toronto in 2003

144. Notes toward a definition of scholarly
products for a digital way of life
• Portable
– Always with me
– Optimized for portability
– designed for small screens
• Personalized
– Multiple platforms; runs on what I brung
– Multiple formats: ‘Dr Blank’s’ Sierra Nevada
Adventure
– RSS so it finds me
– Links to my past activities
– Links to similar materials (“Other people who…”)

145. Notes toward a definition of scholarly
products for a digital way of life
• Promotes community
– Connection to other users (community of practice)
– Prefer levels of access (newbies, not privacy, the
issue)
• Has critical management features
– Facilitates personal file copies
– Cut and paste
– Tagged for retrieval beyond keyword
– Don’t want to go through a proxy server
– No pdf ever

146. Notes toward a definition of scholarly
products for a digital way of life
• Facilitates discovery
– Standard search engines as well as indexes and
catalogs
• Accessible at a reasonable price
• Available direct to user as well as through library
or membership
– New income stream, marginally priced
• cf broadcasters selling shows for IPOD
– Purchase decision will depend on quality of
abstracting or on quick views

147. Technological revolutions
• In the first stage of a technological
revolution, we automate the old
processes.
• In the second stage, we do things
differently: Google and the advertising
model
• In the third stage, we do different things:
simulation, multimedia, community based?
• What’s next for you?