When a writer goes looking for young Turks (my words, not Scott’s), you should expect the story to include some brash quotes (writers are supposed to have a chip of ice in their hearts, after all). On the other hand, we’re librarians, so how brash can we be?

Scott Carlson’s Young Librarians, Talkin’ ‘Bout Their Generation in The Chronicle this week did it better than most articles: rather than showing how hip or geeky we are, it asks us about the future. And it asks without overly romanticizing the shelves of paper-bound books that our users so identify with us or presupposing that Google will p0wn us.

The answers are good, definitely worth a look. Though I regret that the selected quote from my long-ish interview with Scott didn’t reflect on more of the good work and great people in libraries. Especially now, as code4lib2008 planning is kicking into gear, and with the number of projects on the table — Evergreen, Koha, Blacklight, and VuFind, just to name a few.

The future of libraries is a big, wide open question, but here are two things I’m certain of: Our very notions of the nature of information need to evolve, and we need to move quickly to build libraries that are as relevant to the next hundred years as our adored Carnegie libraries were to the last.

libraries, lib20, library 2.0, information architecture, interview, Chronicle of Higher Education, future

My Dutch skills are weak to non-existant, and without a Google translator for MacArena.be, I’m pretty much stuck with staring at the above video and contemplating the short description provided:

A movie about the technology which Apple has recently patented. It is not a movie made by Apple but by some researchers.

Fortunately, this is an area where video is much more illustrative than words.

I sometimes get accused of blue sky thinking when I speak of the role of technology in our lives, but while I go on about how access to huge volumes of instantly searchable information is changing us, this video shows a rather near future where we can manipulate it ways that seemed like science fiction just the other day.

Props to Alan Baker for pointing this out to me.

apple, future, hci, human computer interaction, information access, information manipulation, multi-touch, multitouch, near future, patent, touch, touch screen, touch sensitive, touchscreen, Alan Baker

So, the report was released Monday, and it’s actually titled Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources (2005), but the part I’m highlighting here is the results of the question that asked users to compare their experiences with search engines against their experiences with libraries.

Here’s the quesiton:

Satisfaction with the Librarian and the Search Engine — by Total Respondents

Based on the most recent search you conducted through [search engine used most recently],how satisfied were you in each of the following areas?
Base: Respondents who have used a search engine.

Based on your most recent experience seeking assistance from a librarian for help with a search or locating information,how satisfied were you in each of the following areas?
Base: Respondents who have used a librarian.

It appears on page 22 of part two.

Sadly, search engines beat libraries on all four points: volume, quality, speed, and overall experience. These numbers are alarming, and many will see this wrongly. The correct way to see this is how much value search engines can bring to the library experience.

compare, future, google, google economy, internet, libraries, library, library 2.0, library20, oclc, oclc report, perception, perceptions, Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources (2005), report, search engine, search engines, user behavior

I feel a little misrepresented by a post from Talis’ Richard Wallis claiming you don’t need technology for Library 2.0 – but it helps, but the company blog doesn’t allow embedded URLs, so I’m posting my comment here:

Richard, please don’t misunderstand me. Technology is the essential infrastructure for Library 2.0. My point was that technology alone doesn’t make a library. It would be better to read my post in the context of Meredith Farkas‘ and Jenny Levine’s recent posts crying out for more programmers in libraries.

Meredith and Jenny are right, libraries need more technology help, but people like John Blyberg and me (and there are quite a few of us) need their help to demand better products from vendors. I say that because I think we can agree on this point: programmers at the customer end of the equation can’t win in the long-run against vendors who continue to deliver poorly designed products.

So while I advocate for change within our libraries, my challenge to vendors is clear: deliver flexible, extensible products that leverage working standards, not just “library standards.” There are many examples outside the library space showing the success of such efforts, use those examples, build on them. And the true lesson of Web 2.0 for you is that the vendor who opens up their product wins against others who impose barriers to remixing.

library, libraries, ils, vendor, talis, web 2.0, web20, lib20, library 2.0, library20, future, vision, open systems

Rochelle worries that all this Library 2.0 talk is lost on her library. Ross tells us why he hates the Library 2.0 meme and Dan reminds us it’s not about buzzwords. But Michael is getting closest to a point that’s been troubling me for a while: Library 2.0 isn’t about software, it’s about libraries. It’s about the evolution of all of our services to meet the needs of our users.

Let me step back a bit.

Before the development of the camera, illustrative painting and portraiture was a trade on par with carpentry and masonry. But as photography became a reality, painters found themselves in a quandary. Many said that those early black and white photos were inferior to large and colorful portraits on canvas, but the photos were quicker, cheaper, and offered a scientific representation of reality that suited the times. And so painting, having lost its relevancy as a form of documentary reality, became art. As art, it exploded with new non-representational forms and styles (plot the timeline of the impressionists against a timeline of photography), and became collectable.

Our perspective prevents us from seeing the turmoil of those times, but let me try apply that lesson to libraries today.

We have two choices. We can continue to operate by the old rules and hope that we find wealthy patrons to support us as symbols of the wealth and refinement of our communities. But, if we look hard, I think we’ll find that we can apply the core values of librarianship to new current technologies and new service models, and rather than becoming a sort of art, we will be valued for serving the needs of our communities.

library, libraries, library 2.0, library20, art, challenge, photography, web 2.0, web20, future

I hadn’t seen Ryan Eby’s post at LibDev that connected ILSs with WordPress before I posted that library catalogs should be like WordPress here. It connects with a my comment on a post at Meredith Farkas’ Information Wants To Be Free. My comment there goes in two directions, but I’d like to focus on the technology side now.

Our vendors will inevitably bend to our demands and add small features here and there, but even after that, we’ll still be stuck paying enormous amounts of money for systems that remain fundamentally flawed. Technology marches on, and inevitably we’ll find some new way to use our catalog data. John Blyberg is talking about this in his ILS customer bill of rights post, and that’s what I was getting at when I say the catalog should be like WordPress.

Meredith asks for more programmers, but as a programmer, I’m asking for her help in demanding smart software design from our vendors.

tags: future of the opac, catalog data, coders wanted, future, future of libraries, future of library catalogs, future of the ils, libraries, library, library 2.0, library catalog, library catalogs, library technology, library20, opac, programmers wanted, smart software, software design