Future Strategies for Special Librarians
Stephen Abram, MLS International Conference on Asian Special Libraries Manila, Philippines April 11, 2013
Librarian Magic
Smelly Yellow Liquid
Or Sex
Appeal?
The Complex Value Proposition
SLA Alignment Research Highlights: • Relationships, Networks, Collaboration • Speed – Save Time • Packaging for Added Value Answers • Educate and Train
5
Grocery Stores
Cookbooks, Chefs . . .
Cookbooks, Chefs . . .
Meals
Remaining Relevant and Having a Positive Impact
Up Your Game • Know your local community demographics • Focus on needs assessment and social assessments • Outreach versus engagement and partnerships • Prioritize: Love all, Serve all, Save the World means nothing gets done
• Priorities are SMART: SpeciUic, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, & Time bound
• Look for partnerships that add value
Up Your Game • Mobile • Content • Merge with records management and archives • Sensemaking
What are the real issues?
• Craft versus Industrial Strength • Personal service only when there’s impact • Pilot, Project, Initiative versus Portfolio Strategy • Hand-‐knitted prototypes versus Production • e.g. Information Literacy and Fluency initiatives • Discovery versus Search versus Deep Search • eLearning units and program dissemination • Citation and information ethics • Content and repository archipelagos
• Strategic Analytics • Value & Impact Measures • Behaviours, Satisfaction • Economic and strategic alignment
Up Your Game • Start offering diplomas and certiUicates • The Non-‐credit Course • Look for internal partnerships that add value • Offer real educational opportunities not just adjacencies • What courses to you offer or recommend? (TED, Khan Academy, MOOCs, etc.)
• Play and connect yourself
Up Your Game • Learn how to reach and teach online • Teach how to learn online • Teach how to research online • Everyone in academic libraries should be focused on teaching/researching Uirst, then library
• Learn more systems than one! • Be obsessive about consultation, recommendations and advice • Social alignment rules and use the tools
Up Your Game • Align with Collections – But add virtual experiences • Start being Mobile in the extreme • Look for partnerships that add value • Focus on relationship management / liaisons • Ensure the program delivery person is embedded including librarians
• What are your top learning or research domains? Start there. • Don’t go it alone. Build scalability and sustainability. • Look for replicability – look for commonalities
The new bibliography and
collection development
Ask Us, KNOWLEDGE PORTALS
KNOWLEDGE, LEARNING,
INFORMATION & RESEARCH COMMONS
Up Your Game • Take the strong ‘library’ brand and add dimension of “Librarian” • Personal branding – Who are you and your team? Promote them. • Program branding • Take risks for attention (AIDA) • Embed your brand beyond the library walls and virtually • Go beyond the information brand to informing, creating, and social
Up Your Game • Grow collections investments in strategic areas • Develop hybrid strategies that are consistent and integrated for digital and print and programs
• Be obsessive about consultation, recommendations and advice • Integrate virtual and physical – hybridize • Social alignment rules
Up Your Game • OCLC Linked Data & APIs • DPLA Vault & APIs • 3D, learning object, LibGuides, audio, or streaming media repositories • Understand Pedagogy in the context of student experiences and
educational goals • Understand human development from teens to adult learning • Understand the projects • Makerspace… laboratories – onsite relevance • Consider partnerships to put librarians into real liaison • Consider coaches and tutoring partnerships
Up Your Game • Embedded team member • Embedded teacher • Embedded research coach • Embedded personal librarian • Reintermediation
Up Your Game • Dog, Star, Cow, Problem Child/? • Reduce investment in successes – This isn’t a typo • Increase investment in future successes – learn from failing • Look at TCO -‐ Do NOT value your own time at zero • Look at all costs incurred and not just hard costs • Review opportunity costs in soft costs
Being Open to Ambiguity
Be the Change We Want to See
Stephen Abram, MLS, FSLA Consultant, Dysart & Jones/Lighthouse Partners
Cel: 416-‐669-‐4855 [email protected] Stephen’s Lighthouse Blog
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