ALA Conference 2009: Top Provocative Tech Trends
ALA 2009: Panelists weigh in with observations and predictions, including whether libraries have the ability to force broad-scale change
Josh Hadro -- Library Journal, 7/14/2009
- New format: panelists weigh in on provocative statements from moderator
- Mobile devices exploding in popularity, but still just tool like any other
- Can libraries force the marketplace toward open data and content?
This year's LITA Top Tech Trends took a page from the 2.0 playbook, selecting initial topics for the panel to discuss based on an online poll sent out to Twitter and posted on the LITA blog.
There, LITA members and others expressed a clear preference for information on mobile computing, virtual and cloud storage, and open access to data, code, and content (though the poll's 187 respondents proved to be significantly less than the hundreds of people gathered in the Grand Ballroom of the InterContinental Hotel to watch the panel).
The panel:
- John Blyberg, assistant director of innovation and user experience, Darien Library, CT
- Geert van den Boogaard, innovation advisor and acquisition/funding manager, DOK, Delft, Netherlands.
- Karen A. Coombs, head of web services, University of Houston Libraries, TX
- Clifford Lynch, director of the Coalition for Networked Informaton (CNI)
- Eric Lease Morgan, head of digital access and information architecture department, University of Notre Dame Libraries
- Roy Tennant, senior program officer, OCLC Programs and Research
- Joan Frye Williams, information technology consultant
Coombs, however, was unable to attend due to illness. This made all the more apparent the five-to-one ratio of male panelists to female, a noticeable departure from the even balance of the last Top Tech Trends panel at the ALA Midwinter Meeting.
This panel's program also listed Marshall Breeding, Sarah Houghton-Jan, and Karen Schneider as virtual participants. However, their role was significantly less visible given that their participation took place entirely on the live commentary back-channel feed of various social media.
For video of the session, see the recorded stream at the end of this article.
Mobile provocation
To facilitate the discussion, moderator Maurice York, head of information technology at North Carolina State University and LITA Tech Trends chair, took a new tack. Before ceding the floor to the panelists for their individual lists, York first offered up two "pointed statements about the future" regarding subjects decided by the poll results.
The first provocative statement: mobile devices will "outstrip desktop and laptop computers as the dominant computing platform" within five years, a paradigm shift in parallel with an industry-wide shift toward cloud computing. (See Karen Schneider's post for for the text of the statements and see LJ's coverage of mobile devices discussed at another panel.)
In response, Blyberg provocatively stated that "mobiles have already outstripped desktop usage." To prove his point, he informally polled the audience. While a few more may have brought smartphones than laptops to the session, the other panelists were not quite convinced of his point.
Five years is too soon, contended Tennant, who pointed out that a large minority of people in the room raised their hand for neither smartphone nor laptop. Williams was similarly reticent, observing that the underlying information need must inform usage, and that public library users and academic library users have differing needs.
Boogarad, a guest panelist from the Netherlands and a member of the Shanachies (among the 2009 class of Movers & Shakers), asked why it is so difficult to get library content onto mobile devices. A library truly supporting mobile enterprises, he said, should have download stations where patrons could access the library's content in a manner as similar as possible to the easy and streamlined experience they have at home.
Morgan reminded everyone in the room that the maxim of "use the right tool for the right job" applies as much to mobile devices as it does to anything else. Therefore, he said, we ought to consider accommodating mobile devices just as we would every other tool at a library's disposal.
In the clouds
On the subject of cloud computing, Morgan pointed libraries to their self-defined responsibility to preservation. "If it's in the cloud, you're not preserving it—somebody else is preserving it," he said, echoing comments made at the 2008 panel by Trendster alum Meredith Farkas.
In a similar vein, Lynch pointed out that the broader tech industry that increasingly relies on cloud computing and storage for critical business operations, and has yet to see a real large-scale failure.
However, he implied that this is more or less inevitable, and warned that it would lead to a major recalibration of large-scale initiatives, both in libraries and in other industries.
Open the gates
The second provocative statement on "Open Everything" began: "In five years, further consolidation and upheaval will turn the library software market on its head," and ended with dig at megapublisher Elsevier: "With their new-found unity, libraries will band together to force Elsevier to open its article content and drop prices."
Morgan kicked off the discussion by wondering whether libary organizations will gain sufficient critical mass to (as the statement predicts) "own, develop, share, and manage all of their own systems and data."
"I don't think we have enough chutzpah to do that," he said, adding that libraries are generally compelled to provide services to their patrons at any cost. This in turn undermines the capacity of many libraries to negotiate effectively in the marketplace.
Vendor issues
In another provocative statement, Blyberg predicted that vendors clinging to software licensing as a business model will either fail or be bought by companies dedicated to more progressive models, such as software development and support and Software as a Service (SaaS). These two are not synonymous, but they do complement each other well, he said.
On the topic of shifting vendor focus, Williams pointed out what she said she has noticed as a distinct swing in verbiage toward a focus directly on end users, citing EBSCO Publishing's appearance on National Public Radio as an example (something that has has been noticed before).
Finally, Lynch tied York's provocative statement to scholarly communications, saying that, even as models for the future trend toward openness, a tremendous historical mass of literature will remain. That body of content "still embodies both the values and the practices and the rights and economic constraints of the past," he said, and will become increasingly problematic for research libraries operating in a new information environment.
Top tech trends list
The other portion of the session included the panelists' personal top tech trend nominations, ranging from the megaindexes being compiled for discovery products from Serials Solutions, EBSCO Publishing, OCLC and others to smaller technology endeavors like QR codes (see the latest issue of netConnect for an article on how libraries can use QR codes to connect with their communities).
For a listing of the trends mentioned by the panelists, see David Lee King's bulleted summary, as well as posts on the PLA Blog and Surf's Up.
Three of the panelists' have provided write-ups of their trends on their personal blogs or on the LITA Blog:
Marshall Breeding
Karen Schneider
Eric Lease Morgan
For both sections of the video, see the 2009 Top Tech Trends page on Ustream.
Click here for more ALA 2009 Conference News coverage from Library Journal and School Library Journal.
