Workshopping the future trends for scenario building

Dr, Wendy L. Schultz kindly shared her scenario building trends with me. They will be available on the OCLC website, along with her slide deck, after July 14.

The way it worked in the ALA workshop was that groups of five particpants were assigned three of the trends and had to forecast what the trends would mean to libraries in 2036. then we used the It was very wide-ranging, even only lookinf at three of the trends. If you look at the list, you will see many are beginning to impact us now. When you throw in the transformational and strateic questions, it isa verypowerful way to consider future scenarios.

Scenario Building Workshop
Trends

* Era of vigorous & active elders (average life span of 100 years)
* Expectation of Customization of all services and experiences continues to increase.
* Public attitudes about paying for service change – willing to pay
* Folksonomy becomes the norm – everyone is used to participating in the organization of information
* The Home Area Network is the center of all home activities and connects all devices and information that the resident needs
* Artificial Intelligence software is trained rather than written
* NetFlix model becomes the expectation of all infotainment services
* High Definition formats for media allow more picture resolution, increased viewer control, additional data/information and easier storage
* Copyright issues continue to prevent libraries from fully participating in ebook evolution
* RFID prices drop to affordable prices, enabling most libraries to integrate into their ILS systems
* Robots become more integrated into daily life. They are emotionally responsive and enable us to deal more easily with computing/networking. They are used as receptionist and home guides.
* Portable translation devices become the norm, enabling better global communication
* Self-service” moving to self-sufficiency
* Back lash to human machine interaction – groups demand human service
* Seamlessness of information, communication, work, and leisure
* Social networking continues all kinds of groups of people worldwide
* A move to open-source software
* Security, authentication and Digital Rights Management
* Proliferation of elearning that is customized for the learner
* Change in scholarly review and publication of materials
* Expected mass retirement of librarians does not happen, and new librarians cannot find jobs
* Time shifting is the norm – people expect get information and entertainment when and where they want it
* Intelligent agents are prevalent enabling users to engage with simple software to locate and organize any information they seek
* Life long learning changes the university college model of what a student is – seek to build life-long relationships with students
* Fabbing becomes mainstream. People now download patterns for devices and things, and they are replicated by a home fabbing machine. No need to go to the store
* Everyone is a content creator
* Technology continues to shrink in size and price
* Increased memory capacity enables almost everyone to carry the equivalent of 180,000 Libraries of Congress (exabyte)
* Personal coaches become the norm as people transform themselves over and over throughout a long life span
* Information is customized for the user and transmitted to them in public via voice, message, or simple images
* Gaming movement leads to changes in how educational experiences are designed and delivered
* Exclusivity, markets-of-one, extreme customization, “massclusivity”—the more access consumers have to quality the more they want exclusivity. Think brands introducing top-of-the-line products that cost way more than the rest of the line-- Mercedes-Benz, Puma, all first-class planes, iPods covered in diamonds—or super membership cards that allow access/rewards to things most cardholders can’t have
* The “experience economy”, the third place, “being places”: People will expect to be entertained, cosseted, educated and catered to by libraries
* Continuous consumption: All resources and services will run 24/7 on broadband, and on multiple devices. People expect instant information gratification.
* Seamlessness & Merging of public/private time: The barriers between resources and services will disappear. Databases won’t be separate from the library catalog won’t be separate from full-text
* The “internet of things” : RFID (or “arphid” as Bruce Sterling refers to it) will allow for all kinds of things to be tracked and to be searchable. Interlibrary loan will change fundamentally.
* Privacy & Presence: Libraries will have to accommodate a major shift in the boundaries and definition of privacy. People will be able to be always present to one another.
* Disintermediation & Disaggregation: Content has left the container. The notion of “book”, “article” will change as all content is born digital and so can interact with all other content. Human mediators between content and consumer will diminish in quantity and change roles. Micropublishing is a preference and mash-ups the norm.
* Collective documentary – plentiful, diverse, accessible but people are overwhelmed by choice and seek meaning, stories, and autheticity
* Unfunded “liabilities” – healthcare, education, social services…libraries?
* Distributed computing, data
* User generated metadata and taxonomies
* User generated content


Focus Questions

Transformational questions:

* What skills do staff members need to thrive in this scenario?
* What does the organization look like? How many staff? What kind of staff? What are imperative organizational behaviors?
* What services and programs does library provide?
* How is the library budget distributed in this world? (staffing, collections, technology, etc…)
* What is a collection?
* What is literacy?
* What does research look like?
* Is reference still alive? What does it look like?
* Is there a physical space? If so, what does it need to have?
* What is the role of the library in the community?
* What kind of technology do you need?




Strategic questions:

* How can libraries (physical and virtual) be redesigned to provide a seamless experience?
* How can libraries and information service providers enter users’ spaces instead of making them come to our spaces?
* How do we keep the benefits of metadata and classification while making them invisible?
* How can technology be leveraged to serve more people and deliver more services?
* What can be done to demonstrate (and increase) the economic value of libraries?
* How do libraries take advantage of new technologies and new architectures of participation to deliver new or additional services?
* What new opportunities exist for libraries to work together to build more open-source solutions?
* What services are required to support an informed citizenry, to create learning and creative opportunities?
* Given that there is likely to be little new money for asset management of digital material, how will libraries and allied organizations preserve, curate and provide access to digital collections?
* Should the interpersonal aspects of librarianship—service, instruction, collaboration—be retained in a Webby world? How?
* What is the purpose of the library in a networked, distributed environment?

Snapped shots of NOL

I can't believe how many times I forgot to take my camera with me in NOLA, or if I did take the camera, I forgot to take pixs. Then there were the plain old bad photos. Oh well, I do have other gifts.



This tanker was moving down the Mississippi at quite a clip. I tried to make up for the overexposure in iPhoto--another thing I try by the seat of my pants.



This is the A&P in the French quarter. I was charmed just to see an A&P again--the balconies were a bonus.



Cafe du Monde, in the French market, where we shared cafe au lait and beignets with my great comrade, Chris, from Philly.

Tourist excursion #2

Monday, 6/26/2006

My boyfriend has a close friend who is a New Orleans native and resident. He is also a pilot. He offered to take us up in a small plane for an aerial tour. His plane is still in Chicago since the storm, but he could borrow one. It seemed like an incredible opportunity for our last evening in N. O.

Our friend picked us up at 5:00—plenty of daylight left. We drove to the Lakeview Airport, seeing parts of St. John’s bayou. This area has been hit harder by Katrina than Uptown. Many more houses that are shells, or irreparable at a glance. The airport buildings have been destroyed. There are a variety of trailers in use. The plane our friend can borrow is a two-seater. I elect to stay on the ground, as I am tired from getting around the convention and attending the excellent sessions. There is a very nice quadruple-wide trailer (biggest I have ever seen), the Million Air Club, with heavy-duty AC and fabulous huge comfy chairs. They do not care at all that I am not a member or the guest of a member. I watch the planes take off and land for a while, then fall fast asleep in a comfy chair. Turns out the radio in the borrowed plane is not working, so the boys just spent an hour flying around the airport in a pattern, since they could not talk to the tower. Apparently, small planes are one more thing it is hard to keep in repair since Katrina.

Our friend took us to see his house. On the way, we see Lake Pontchartrain, and a very beautiful sunset. The first floor of the house flooded, about four-and-a half feet of water. All the walls had to be stripped to lathe and sheet-rocked. All the wiring had to be replaced. All of the appliances had to be trashed. It was still quite a work in progress, as our friend had just started his final year at Tulane Law School in August. He ended up doing distance ed in Arkansas part of the year, and was able to graduate in May. But you can tell the house was lovely, and will be again. The house still has no A/C. The swing on the front porch survived. We swung a little. The neighborhood is slowly coming back, but no restaurants yet. We head over to Uptown to get some dinner. On the way, we pass row after row of identical FEMA trailers. They look soul-less. Dinner in Uptown and another excellent meal—Thai this time. Our first non-Cajun meal, though we detect influences. We do not complain.

Tourist excursion #1

You may remember an earlier moment of was-that-self-pity? When I bemoaned my inability to see more of Katrina’s devastation. I wasn’t counting on the kindness of friends and relations.

I may not have mentioned to you that my cher frére , i.e., big bro, is a hydrologist with the EPA who has been mobilized to the Gulf for about five months off and on, starting last November. Now let me mention how very proud I am of the work he has been doing, which has included working over 100 hours per week, some 100,000 refrigerators (all that freon) and overseeing instant landfills. At least maybe some of them won’t be Superfund sites someday.

So part of my excitement about visiting to New Orleans was that I might see him. Might because his deployment is just about over. He knew it would be over by July 1, but didn’t have a firm date. My good luck continues: his deployment ended this Wednesday, 6/28. So, he tells me he wants to take us out to dinner. I plan that he can pick the restaurant, but we will pick up the check. Sunday afternoon, we finish up our sessions at the convention center. He tells me “they” will pick us up at out hotel, and to bring our bathing suits if we have them. I have already heard a little about the woman, B., he has met down there.

On Sunday, cher frere tells me that they have decided against going to a restaurant. B. is currently caretaking a mansion in the Uptown neighborhood. So we drive to Uptown, the residential neighborhood home to Loyola and Tulane Universities. B. and my brother tell me Uptown wasn’t hit that badly by Katrina. Then they show me how to read the spray-painted X symbols still on some houses. The quadrants give the date of examination of the house, the total number of dead at the house, and some other info, like gas and electric. We see one or two houses per block where the owners have not returned and/or not painted over the X. There are lots of blue roofs, debris piles, overgrown yards, boarded up businesses. There are signs: “We’re back”; “Not coming back”; “Back in August”; “Moved to Houston”. The signs are still the easiest way to communicate with your neighbors/friends.

We get to the mansion. I do mean mansion. The kind of place to which they sell tickets. Jaw dropping. Was once the governor’s mansion (long time ago). Gorgeous garden, pool, hot tub, huge porch, high ceilings, woodwork on woodwork, stained glass, antiques, art. I am afraid to sit in a chair. I forgot the camera! I am so sorry, as now you will never believe me.

Oh, cannot leave out Zoe and Miss Ross, two incredibly spoiled but still very sweet and adorable Shih Tzus (picture isn’t them but coloration is right).

So I got to bond with dogs. Cher frere had purchased a big mess (10 pounds?) of enormous shrimp off a Vietnamese-American owned boat on the Gulf. He and B. make an incredible meal. The four of us eat all the shrimp. We can’t possibly eat dessert. We need to sleep, so it’s back to the Holiday Inn for us.

Draft: From Poetry in the Branches to Branching Out

Sunday, 6/25/2006

Description: The ten-year old Poetry in the Branches program model that trains librarians in the how-to’s of poetry programming, collection development and display, has grown! Disover how the NEH-funded project, Branching Out: Poetry for the 21st Century, brings talks on classic and contemporary poetry by outstanding poet/scholars to five U.S. cities. Learn how to replicate this program in your library. Hear former poet laureate Robert Pinsky give his Branching Out talk on William Carlos Williams and Robert Frost.

Lots of handouts, including a Program Planing Overview that looks really useful.

Moderator, Marcia Howard from the ALA Public Programs Office. Joined by Tom Phelps from the NEH; Susan Larson from the New Orleans Times Picayune; Gerrie _____ from New Orleans Public, Lee Briccetti, Poets House; Alice Quinn, Poetry Society of America & The New Yorker; Robert Pinsky, 3-term Poet Laureate.

Marcia:

There is a “cultural readiness” for poetry now. For selection, librarians can look to the “Showcase” at the Poetry House website. NYPL’s initiative, the multi-element Poetry in the Branches, successful over 10 years. A model for national “Branching Out.” Elements are:
1) exposure
2) ongoing conversation

Related PSAs on public transit—Poetry in Motion.

The means of production has been democratized by technology. (Aha, my conference theme keeps emerging!)
Poetry is hot—hiphop, slams, open mikes, chap books.

Alice:

“creating a living education in poetry”
“A sentence is a sound itself.” –Robert Frost
Being attentive to the music in our own speech.

Poetry Sourcebook—yearly guide to using poetry in libraries. [Does SDCL own? No.]
1. Order one title a month from a living artist
2. www.poetshouse.org selection source—Directory of American Poets
3. Consortium (of small poetry publishers). Booth #3526. Good web site. Also Small Press Distributors.
4. Do displays. Add poetry to anything—face out—merchandise!
5. Ask readers to select a favorite poem. Copy it and have a place where it is displayed on a rotating basis.
6. Include staff—open meetings with a poem.
7. Include poetry in book discussion groups.
8. www.favoritepoemproject.org
9. Form memory circles for group recitations
10. Poetry readings. Poets’ own work + their favorites.

Gerrie:

Pretty much inherited Branching Out w/o knowing much about it—a former employee had applied for and received the grant.
Robert Pinsky did a program in the spring. Successful beyond wildest expectations. More programs scheduled for fall. Katrina hit. Moved program to Lake Charles in cooperation with that system. Then Rita. Moved next to Jefferson Parish. Still good turn-out. People really appreciated it seemingly more after the storms, and all the changes in hosts/venues/etc.

Robert:

Program brings together people in order to be a great nation. “Becoming a people.”
US still in progress—improvisational. Schools now carry almost the full burden of cultural learning, compared to 18th and 19th centuries. Public libraries are a major contributor.

Closeness is essential to civilization. Poetry=intimate and social activity.

Originally with Branching Out, Robert was supposed to write a paper and read it at a public library. Thought that was a terrible idea.

Pub libs=important counterweight to academia. Tom has to fight upstream for poetry funding against the academic flow.

Robert decided to look at Wm. Carlos Williams and Robert Frost in terms of the agricultural-industrial tension in their works. “Poetry is a machine made out of words & breath.”

Three Esses: Straight, smooth, and square. Blank verse—iambic pentameter without rhyme. Looks at “Directive” by Frost and “To Elsie” by Williams.

Recites them, pulling out lines, drawing out the sounds and rhythms. I had to stop taking notes. It was enthralling. Then, believe it or not, he is completely interrupted by a very loud fire alarm. We must evacuate to a stairwell. By the time it is over, it is time for the next session…how cruel.