OCLC to Library Community: Time To Think Differently

In OCLC's last "environmental scan," conducted in 2000, Google was not mentioned. In Pattern Recognition: The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan, Google, Amazon, and other self-service, web-based consumer sites are major players shaping the "infosphere" in which libraries function. Ranganathan's old rule "For every reader, his or her book" has been reinterpreted as "for every reader, huge amounts of free-floating content, anywhere, anytime."

The intersection of the orderly world of libraries and the "free-associating, unrestricted, and disorderly" web is dubbed "the twilight zone." To discern implications for libraries, OCLC interviewed 100 librarians, vendors, archivists, and others.

In contrast with previous scans, OCLC is making this report widely available out of "a responsibility to provide research that most libraries can't do alone," said Cathy De Rosa, OCLC's VP for corporate marketing (see www.oclc.org).

The result is divided into five sections, or "landscapes": social, economic, technology, research and learning, and library. The emerging social landscape includes self-service and seamlessness. Libraries face more economic contractions. Technology trends include bringing structure to unstructured data, a move to open source software, and emphasis on security, authentication, and digital rights management. Research and learning trends include e-learning, lifelong learning, and open access. The library landscape involves new roles for staff, balancing traditional and nontraditional content, and ensuring preservation.

Context has begun to trump content. Both Google and Amazon provide context by searching through text and presenting results pages of hits. Library systems connect a user to an object, typically a book. "Yet librarians know better than anyone how to create context," De Rosa said. Portals are an example of libraries assembling disparate resources in a subject area.

Amazon's Search Inside feature exemplifies microcontent, which is gaining popularity. Three or four vendors, according to De Rosa, are already "figuring out how to make microcontent [commercially] viable."

Libraries lag in implementing collaborative technologies—increasingly embedded in consumer devices and software—such as web logs and whiteboards. Collaborative technologies also enable librarians to "lurk online along with the user," De Rosa said. Libraries have implemented chat software but largely ignore the widely adopted instant messaging.

Collaborative technologies present two problems for libraries. Now more than ever, librarians do not want systems that retain and manipulate patron usage information, no matter the benefits. Still, said De Rosa, librarians can't ignore the public's expectations: "Librarians have an incredible understanding of human search requirements, and our tools need to reflect that."

Also, libraries lack the capital to develop new technologies. With no or slow growth, libraries can take on new services only if old ones are abandoned or altered—exactly what the report suggests. Budget constraints, according to one participant, will force needed shifts.

While the gulf between users' online experiences and what libraries offer may be stark, De Rosa remains optimistic. She believes that the library community can create something as profoundly important as the model of cooperative cataloging that was created in the 1970s.

OCLC initiatives could provide microcontent, virtual reference on a larger scale, services for e-learning and lifelong learning, and the sorts of social software that encourage collaboration.

At times Pattern Recognition makes clear OCLC's interest in meeting self-service consumers on the web. OCLC's experiment, begun last year, to expose metadata from WorldCat to Google is part of this initiative.

Is OCLC committed to bringing libraries along? "Over the years, OCLC has come to be seen more as a vendor than as a cooperative. But at the heart, OCLC wants to increase access to information," De Rosa said. "We are thinking on behalf of the library community and seeking opportunities for the library community."

The document acknowledges that, for a decade, there's been more talk than action in the library community. One proposal is a "hackfest," an agendaless conference that identifies a set of problems and lets loose a variety of people—from techies to consumers—to figure out how the library community can move "closer to information consumers at the level of their need."