On Friday I had the pleasure and honor of attending a symposium about libraries as part of the inaugural festivities welcoming Temple University’s new president, Neil Theobald.

The event, put together by Joe Lucia, the Dean of Temple U. Library, featured an amazing set of library folks. It was awesome to have some time to hang out with such an accomplished group of people who not only share values, but share values that are so core to our culture.

I liveblogged the talks, with my usual unreliable haphazardness and cavalier attitude toward accuracy and comprehension. Here are the links, in chronological order (which of course is the reverse of blogological order):

1. James Neal: 26 truths about libraries

2. Siobhan Reardon: Renewing Philadelphia’s public libraries

3. Nancy Kranich: Engaging the academic community

4. Rachel Frick: Innovation outward

5. Anne Kenney: Cornell’s hiphop collection

6. Bryn Geffert: Libraries as publishers

7. Charles Watkinson: Univ. press partnerships

8. Craig Dykers: Architecting libraries

I led off the session with a talk about why the networking of knowledge and ideas, especially in college communities, should encourage libraries to develop themselves as platforms in addition to being portals.

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At Temple University’s symposium in honor of the inauguration of the University’s new president, on Oct. 18, 2013.

Craig Dyker‘s company — Snøhetta — is a transdisciplinary group of architects of various sorts. (Snohetta is where Valhalla is.) They have offices in NYC and Oslo.

He points out that half of the people who come to the charging bull statute in NYC (next to his office) pose at the front and half come to the back. We are irrational creatures, he says. And tactile things are very much a part o who we are. (He has us shake hands with our neighbors.)

“There seems to be a liberal attitude couples with professional angst” among librarians. He’s been told that librarians have the most tattoos and skin piercings. There are many sites for librarians with tattoos. “Librarians won’t go away because we have this deep rooted fetish for libraians. It’s a fetish.” [TMI, Craig, TMI.] He’s not sure where it comes from except librarians are interesting people and you have intimate conversations with them.

If you ask people to describe a library, you get different answers. “As soon as you design for the state of the art, the art changes.” As architects, Snøhetta designs for versatility versus flexibility.

Their first library job: designing the new library in Alexandria, Egypt. He shows the building, which looks beautiful. It’s completely accessible. There’s a 4 acre plaza open to the public. “Libraries don’t stop at the door.” The police and the military wanted a wall around the plaza with guard towers. “We fought for six years” to build it without one.

During the uprisings, the students at the university and other citizens formed a human chain around the library to protect it — people on both sides of the argument. The plaza became a place for prayer and open debate.

Books and computers are just lumps until people interact with them. Libraries have always been about these interactions. This affected the design of the Hunt Library at NCSU. The existing library was foreboding, scary. The inside looked like a bank. The librarian decided to replace the furniture, but through a screw up, there wer 6 months when it had no furniture. So they bought 300 $10 bean bags…and library attendance tripled.

Then they decided to build a new library, on the engineering campus. Snohetta wanted to tie it to its place, which has rivers, weaving. They wanted natural light and fresh air, for the sake of the users but also the people who work there. There’s a balcony at the top where people congregate for fresh air and the view. Gardens are fed by rainwater from the roof. The building looks like it’s looking somewhere.

Books are fetched by a “robot,” whih people enjoy watching.

They want people to take the stairs, so they painted them yellow and put an inviting “Ask Me” sevice at the top. They put the elevators in a dark, less convenient place.

There are lots of types of chairs, but the swivel ones are very popular; bodily movement is really important, Craig stresses.

[He gives a guided tour which I can’t capture. You need the photos.]

“Libraries are as much about making as about taking,” so there are 3D printers, etc.

Einstein said that our technology has exceeded our humanity. Craig loves tech, but if tech manages his life, he becomes inhuman. Nothing we’ve invented in the past 30 years isn’t an elaboration of something before there were computers.

Library furniture and equipment looks like it’s for dental offices, so they put glass on top of regular tables, etc. “If you write on something you feel like you own the place.”

The NCSU library is designed for walking. But, you need a place to walk to. So, they had an arresting mural created.

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At Temple University’s symposium in honor of the inauguration of the University’s new president, on Oct. 18, 2013.

Charles Watkinson is Director, Purdue Univ. Press. He says he wishes everyone were like Bryn [see prior post]. But univ. presses generally only receive 15% of their income from the university. So, Bryn’s model isn’t generally applicable.

His toddlers watch Dinosaur Train. “I know you perceive university presses as dinosaurs” but as in the show, some dinosaurs are different from others.

John Thompson in Books in the Digital Age talks about “publishing fields.” He says it’s complex but not without order. We’re seeing the emergence of several different mission-driven publishers: university presses, scholarly societies, library presses. He will talk about univ and library presses. (He points to Envisioning Emancipation as a univ. press at its best.) He goes through some of the similarities and differences between the two presses.

He takes as a case study the Purdue U Press and Purdue Scholarly Publishing Services as an example of how these types of presses can be complementary. (He mentions Anne Kenney’s partnering of Cornell Library with DukePurdue U Press on Project Euclid.)

The aim, Charles says, is to meet the full spectrum of needs, ranging from pre-print to published books. He points to the differences in brand styles of the two and how they can be merged.

So, “What can we do together that we couldn’t do apart?”

“We can serve campus needs better.” He points to the Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research, which combines library skills (instruction, assessment, institutional outreach) with publisher skills (solicitation for content, project management, editing, design).

Also, together they can support disciplines. E.g., Habri Central Library skills: bibliographic research, taxonomy, metadata, licensing, preservation. Publisher skills: financial management, acquisition of original content, marketing.

Also, solve issues in the system. E.g., the underlying data behind tech reports, e.g., JTRP. Library skills: digitization, metadata, online hosting, linked data, preservation. Publisher skills: peer review administration, process redesign, project management.

Questions for these merged entities: What disciplines can best be served together? How to build credibility? How to turn projects into programs? What is the future role of earned revenues? Will all products be Open Access? What is the sustainability plan for OA?

Maybe libraries should turn to university presses for advice and help with engagement since “that’s what university presses do.”

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At Temple University’s symposium in honor of the inauguration of the University’s new president, on Oct. 18, 2013.

Anne Kenney is University Librarian at Cornell.

For the past six years, Cornell has been building a hiphop collection. It began as the private archive of Johan Kugelberg, who recognize the cultural importance of popular music. He went in search of recordings, posters, flyers, etc. Cornell acquired the collection 2007. Cornell acquired Joe Conzo’s photographs.

But you don’t usually think about hiphop in beautiful, rural upstate NY. “So the rest of the story is about engagement.” Cornell needed to show the community that it’s a responsible steward. So, they held an inaugural conference in Oct. 2008, which included music, talks about hiphop founders, roundtables, etc. Academics also came. It began a two year period of intensive engagement. Anne shows some great photos of the interactions.

Seeing their photos on the same shelves as the Gettysburg Address was (as Joe Conzo said) “priceless.” Many of the artists themselves have gone out to spread word about the collection.

She shows some classroom use of the materials, in multiple disciplines. The artists have been spreading word. Cornell is proud of the integration of the artists into the academic environment. E.g., Afrika Bambaataa is a 3-year visiting scholar. She points about many more events and classes, some in partnership with other institutions and cities. E.g., the Class of 1945 requested a workshop.

She ends by talking about engaging the public in crowd-archiving. A gallery in SOHO was turned over to cataloging the 40,000 record collection of Afrika Bambaataa.

Anne says: “The future of most large research libraries lies…with unique and special materials” (Rick Anderson, “Can’t buy Us Love” 2013).

See Preserving HipHop.

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At Temple University’s symposium in honor of the inauguration of the University’s new president, on Oct. 18, 2013.

Nancy Kranich at Rutgers School of Info and Library Science (and she’s a former president of the American Library Association) begins by quoting Alfred Lord Whitehead:

“The task of a University is the creation of the future so far as rational thought, and civilized modes of appreciation, can affect the issue.” What does that mean for libraries?

We need to think about how the library can be a co-creator of the future. We lack a collective narrative. People don’t have any idea what librarians are really about. Wendy Lougee says that we are transitioning from focusing on the products of scholarships to support the processes of scholarship. There’s a paradigm shift underway:

• Product > Process.
• Scarcity > Abundance.
• Outside in > Inside out.
• Push > Pull.
• Just in case > Just in time.

Librarians have an “edifice complex,” she says; they don’t get outside the building enough. We’re not having the same conversation in the library that we’re having outside the library. E.g., we spend forever on deciding on which Web discovery system to use, but no one uses our Web site. We need to get over this gap. “How do we get people from different disciplines and locations to work with one another…” (citing John Seely Brown.) For this we need a compelling narrative.

Libraries use the word “engage” all the time. We have to engage with particular communities, not just one size fits all. But we don’t know how to. We need to listen. Convene conversations, as they have at Rutgers. Identify shared aspirations. These conversations give the library more authority, and also makes it more accountable.

It’s important to start these conversations with aspirations rather than with problems. If you start at problems, the conversation generally doesn’t get past them.

As an example of the lack of a narrative, Nancy shows a graphic produced by Rutgers that shows undergrad education as a pathway through the campus. No library is in the graphic. So, the library started having kitchen table conversations across the community about their aspirations for under grad education. Themes emerged:

1. Build informal relationships
2. Teach critical thinking
3. Embbrace diversity and inclusion to engage across differences
4. Engage when and where students convene

These conversations lead to public knowledge. Then they instituted monthly discussions, which lead to “pockets of change” that ripple out.

Turning outward toward the community has been difficult, but an “amazing experience.” They are much more inclusive in public discourse.

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At Temple University’s symposium in honor of the inauguration of the University’s new president, on Oct. 18, 2013.

Siobhan A. Reardon is president and director of the Free Library of Philadelphia. [So awesome!] She came in 5 years ago when the system was facing serious financial cutbacks. She brought in a consulting group to help the library come up with a strategic plan. The consultants took the Library through an extensive and well-structured process. [Siobhan gives us a lot of info; the following is at best an outline.]

They looked at four scenarios for where the economy and the state of tech access might be, from booms in both to busts in each. Since we don’t know what the future will be, how do you create an organization that can shift from one scenario to another?

Key success factors include not only operational effiiciency and marketing, but also the possibility of offering a premium service for a fee. Also, partnerships, virtual presence, facility design, and specialized talent.

Vision: Building an enlightened community devoted to lifelong literacy. Mission: advance literacy, guide learning, and inspire curiosity.

This works out to a dozen operational goals, which include focusing on providing especially strong support for: children under 5, new Americans, jobseekers, and small businesses.

Key takeaways from the study: Every project needs an owner.

• Marketing has to be amplified.
• Staff training is imperative.
• The library must have a robust virtual aspect.
• Each of the 48 neighborhood libraries have to be focused on its community.

They have a set of new potential programs. One is fine-free cards for children. (The library takes in $800,000/year in fines, so this will affect its bottom line.) The most progress has been in reaching jobseekers. They’ve also focused on users with special needs (which includes people with emotional issues and the homeless).

They then went through an organizational restructuring. After studying 14 other libraries, they realized that the Philadelphia Library is not sufficiently focused on customer engagement. Also, they’ve clustered libraries geographically, with shared staff and shared specializations.

Siobhan shows the layout of a re-designed library. Books are on the perimeter, with social space in the middle. Plus quiet rooms. Plus a cafe. She points out that libraries traditionally don’t like food near books, but people take books home and read them while drinking coffee and eating donuts. “Go figure,” she says.

She quickly cycles through photos of other libraries, each of which address some problem or opportunity. Beautiful.

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