Transitioning to the New: The Library as a Platform

1. The library as platform: exiting the old library system and transitioning to the new ELAG Copenhagen June 2016 Ken Chad Ken Chad Consulting Ltd Twitter @kenchad ken@kenchadconsulting.com Tel: +44 (0)7788 727 845 www.kenchadconsulting.com

2. First some context……. the wider context for exit…..

3. The user consumerization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumerization Consumerization is the reorientation of product and service designs around the individual end user. The emergence of the individual consumer as the primary driver of product and service design originated from and is most commonly seen as a major IT industry shift The primary impact of consumerization is that it is forcing businesses.. to rethink the way they procure and manage IT equipment and services.

4. Focus on the user Renovating the customer experience is a digital priority Digitalization and the digital business are catalysts of change that are affecting the human-machine relationship and driving better customer outcomes. http://www.gartner.com/doc/2864817?refval=&pcp=mpe

5. Focus on the user

6. Focus on the jobs customers are trying to get done I just want to get my assignment done on time ..and preferably get a good grade Flikr Texas A&M University-Commerce Marketing Communications Photography 14284-educational technology 3535.jpg

7. Focus on the jobs customers are trying to get done “One of the many things we did was watch videos of students trying to find information. A second year student needed to find peer reviewed articles but clearly had no idea what this meant. A fourth year student came upon an article on her topic from the Wall Street Journal and thought it could be useful in her paper because it sounded like it was on her topic and came from a credible source (not seeming to realize that a credible source is not the same as a scholarly source). I found it striking that neither of these students seemed to understand what scholarship looked like; what it meant for a thing to be a scholarly source.”

8. Competition Libraries are so valuable they attract voracious new competition with every technological advance http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/09/future-of-libraries/start-ups-take-library-jobs-reinventing-libraries/#_

9. Competition "One of the things we're trying to do is first to catalogue everything in the world you might want to know about.

10. Competition-academic libraries Search smarter Use Google Scholar to search for the full title of the paper you require. Can you see "[PDF]" on the right? Then you're in luck -- some learned and helpful soul has made a copy available elsewhere. Ask the author Many academics post copies of their work online. Search for titles with "site: [theirdomain]" and "filetype:pdf". Or just ask directly, by sending a brief, slightly fawning message to the author.

11. Competition-academic libraries Ask for help Certain internet-dwellers can do your highbrow dirty work for you. On Twitter, post the URL of a paper with #icanhazpdf. Delete the request afterwards, and remember not to thank the sender by name. Go incognito If a site offers a limited number of articles for free per month, try browsing via Chrome Incognito. Your cookies get dumped when you exit, so sites can't recognise that you've been there before.

12. Competition-public libraries

13. Competition-public libraries OCLC

14. The platform revolution “Platforms are eating the world…..” http://platformrevolution.com/

15. The platform revolution “Can a product or service become the basis for a platform business? Here’s the test: if the firm can use either information or community to add value…then there is potential for creating a viable platform” http://platformrevolution.com/

16. The platform revolution “Here are some of the types of businesses that are most likely to join the platform revolution in the years to come: Information-intensive industries. the more crucial information is as a value source, the closer the industry is to being transformed by platforms. Industries with non-scalable gatekeepers. Retailing and publishing are two examples of industries that traditionally have employed expensive, non-scalable human gatekeepers Highly fragmented industries. Market aggregation through a platform increases efficiencies and reduces search costs for businesses and individuals Industries characterized by extreme information asymmetries. Economic theory suggests that fair, efficient markets require that all participants have equal access to information about goods, services, prices, and other crucial variables. But in many traditional markets, one set of participants has far better access than others.” http://platformrevolution.com/

17. The platform revolution “In the end of course…. platform disruption …is not primarily a technological challenge. .innovators need to focus on the core interactions in the marketplace the hope to conquer” http://platformrevolution.com/

18. The library context……. the library context

19. “a shift from bureaucracy to enterprise..” It requires a shift from bureaucracy to enterprise, an adaptive organization that reviews and reshapes what it does in light of changing requirements”. “Historically, libraries enjoyed stability and a shared understanding of goals. This in turn favored a focus on managing and improving the means towards those goals - building the collection, providing reference service, creating efficiencies in technical processing, and so on. Much of this work is inherently bureaucratic. However, in an environment of change while overall mission and values may remain the same, new and shifting goals become the norm. ..... As goals shift in a changing environment, so does the need to think about how to marshall the means to meet them. This may need reorganization, new staff skills, changing priorities, reallocation of staff and resources, and so on. The enterprising librarian. Lorcan Dempsey. Blog 30 June 2012. http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/002201.html

20. Drivers for exits: interoperability [Andrew Pace (2004 now OCLC) “Many expect that new modules will communicate with old ones, products from different vendors will work together, and a suite of existing standards will make distributed systems seem transparently whole”. “Today interoperability in library automation is more myth than reality”. #rethinkLSP

21. Drivers for exits: Too strong a focus on print “LMS/ILS tail still wags the library platform dog. Print management is certainly important but most money is spent on electronic resources. A librarian reviewing the Kuali solution commented that while the community development model of OLE is a key selling point, the librarians helping to develop the software are not thinking radically and the outcome has been a traditional, conservative LMS/ILS.” #rethinkLSP

22. Drivers for exits : the cloud “Solutions are moving to The Cloud but aren’t yet really platforms. It is a platform-based ecosystem model that will be the “next generation” in library automation. The promise for libraries is a more flexible and cost effective solution and for users a much improved user experience.” #rethinkLSP

23. Drivers for exits: take advantage of the cloud “Cloud computing presents new opportunities to grow partnerships more easily and offer Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) tools, training and support to develop their applications using the SAP or ORACLE platforms. As discussed above, we haven’t yet seen the same kind of pace of development with library platforms.” #rethinkLSP

24. Drivers for exits: existing solutions are too closed “There have been some modest steps to encourage third party developments. Both the OCLC WorldShare and ExLibris Alma platforms have established developer networks but they remain small and unattractive to third party developers, so have gained little traction.” #rethinkLSP

25. Conclusion “No single vendor will be able to develop all the applications necessary to meet the technology requirements of a complex library – and librarians like to see choice in the market. A more open library technology ecosystem would eliminate the restrictions of a closed and monolithic suite of services from a single vendor.” #rethinkLSP

26. The library as platform: exiting the old library system and transitioning to the new ELAG Copenhagen June 2016 Ken Chad Ken Chad Consulting Ltd Twitter @kenchad ken@kenchadconsulting.com Tel: +44 (0)7788 727 845 www.kenchadconsulting.com