Tony HirstComputing and Communications,The Open University, UK

@psychemedia / blog.ouseful.info

Notes onthe Future

#ILI2015

W2 - Preparing for the Future: Technological Challenges and Beyond10.00 – 17.00Brian Kelly, Cetis, University of BoltonTony Hirst, Department of Communication and Systems, The Open University

Despite the uncertainties faced by librarians and information professionals, technology continues to develop at breakneck speed offering many new opportunities for the sector. At the same time, technological developments can be distracting and may result in wasted time and effort.

This workshop will help participants identify potentially relevant technological developments by learning about and making use of processes for spotting and prioritising signals which may indicate early use of technologies of future importance.

Having identified potentially important technological developments, organisations then need to decide how to respond. What will be the impact on existing technologies? What are the strategic implications and what are the implications for staff within the organisation?

This interactive workshop will provide opportunities to address the challenges in understanding the implications of technological developments and making appropriate organisational interventions.

“Know Thyself”γνῶθι σεαυτόν

“Famously Ryle imagined a visitor who has seen the colleges, departments, and libraries of a university but still wonders where the university is. The visitor fails to realize that the university consists of these organizational units. In this paper I ask what exactly the relation is between institutional entities such as universities and the entities they are composed of.”

"But where – or indeed, what

– is the Library?”

- with apologies to Gilbert Ryle

Public Library

School Library

Academic Library

Legal / Medical Library

Company Library

Gov’t Dept / Int’l

Agency Library

“So what is the Library?”

- with even more apologies to Gilbert Ryle

ACTIVITYWhat is a library?

What is the library for?

What makes the library the library?

Values

A place to learn new skills ortechniques

Curated resources/ collections / archive

Access Gateway to other resources

Physical space

Conceptual models

What is a library?

Access to information

What is a library for?

Is the library a place or an idea?

"But where is the University?"

Publisher

What makes the library the library?

Archive

Infoskills:looking things up by numbers…

USPTO 20150124107BS 5605 or BS 6371

ISBN 075381093X978-0753810934

823.7 SCO JOH

E06000046

Cros

s-In

dexi

ng &

Cr

oss-

Refe

renc

ing

DIY LINKED

DATA

NOTICING

“Perceive whatYou have heard”

Ακουσας νοει

We perceive the future in the context of the present and

the consequences of the past

planning for the future

planning the future

“Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.”

-- Winston Churchill

“In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.”

-- Dwight Eisenhower

If we’re planning for the future of the

library, then what is this library thing we’re

planning for?

Do your planning tools allow you to

accommodate the future?

Where are we now? Where do we want to be?

Strategic No clear strategy about where we want to be with A

Clear understanding of strategy around A

Impact We don’t know what impact Library Services has on B

Clear understanding of impact of the things we do relating to B

Integration Library controlled C is held in library silos and not available to other internal analysts or users

Library controlled C is available as needed throughout the organisation using standard tools

Skills Limited skills in dealing with D Core of library staff with trained in D. Capacity to do D.

Infrastructure Some legacy underlying infrastructure in place to support E, but services fragmented using non-standard interfaces. No organisation wide UI.

Interoperable, shared services associated with E using open standards. User interface available

Business as usual

Consideration of F not embedded into practice or business as usual. Not part of culture

Decisions and processes that take into account F are part of standard practice

Where are we now?

THE FUTURE

Where do we want to be?

Strategic No clear strategy about where we want to be with A

Clear understanding of strategy around A

Impact We don’t know what impact Library Services has on B

Clear understanding of impact of the things we do relating to B

Integration Library controlled C is held in library silos and not available to other internal analysts or users

Library controlled C is available as needed throughout the organisation using standard tools

Skills Limited skills in dealing with D

Core of library staff with trained in D. Capacity to do D.

Infrastructure

Some legacy underlying infrastructure in place to support E, but services fragmented using non-standard interfaces. No organisation wide UI.

Interoperable, shared services associated with E using open standards. User interface available

Business as usual

Consideration of F not embedded into practice or business as usual. Not part of culture

Decisions and processes that take into account F are part of standard practice

“Psy

chic

def

ence

s”

How does your organisation

frame itself for the future?

Core ideology- core values- core purpose

Envisioned future- long term goals- vivid description

“Companies that enjoy enduring success have core values and a core purpose that remain fixed while their business strategies and practices endlessly adapt to a changing world.”

James Collins & Jerry Porras Building your company visionHarvard Business Review, Sept-Oct 1996, pp. 65-77

A “vision framework”

“Core values are the essential and enduring tenets of an organization. A small set of timeless guiding principles, core values require no external justification; they have intrinsic value and importance to those inside the organization.”

Core ideology “the enduring character ofan organization - a consistent identity that transcends product or market life cycles, technological breakthroughs, management fads, and individual leaders.

“Core purpose, the second part of core ideology, is the organization's reason for being. An effective purpose reflects people's idealistic motivations for doing the company's work.”

“Whereas you might achieve a goal or complete a strategy, you cannot fulfill a purpose”

“Core ideology needs to he meaningful and inspirational only to people inside the organization; it need not be exciting to outsiders.”

“don't confuse core ideology with the concept of core competence. Core competence is a strategic concept that defines your organization's capabilities - what you are particularly good at – whereas core ideology captures what you stand for and why you exist.”

“One powerful method for getting at purpose is the five whys.

Start with the descriptive statement: We make X products or We deliver X services, and then ask, Why is that important? five times.

After a few whys, you'll find that you're getting down to the fundamental purpose of the organization.”

The “second primary component of the vision framework is envisioned future. It consists of two parts: a 10-to-30-year audacious goal plus vivid descriptions of what it will be like to achieve the goal”

“BHAGs (pronounced Companies need an audacious 10-to-30-year goal to progress toward an envisioned future. BEE-hags and shorthand for Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals”

Vivid Description. “In addition to vision-levelBHAGs, an envisioned future needs what we call vivid description - that is, a vibrant, engaging, and specific description of what it will be like to achieve the BHAG. Think of it as translating the vision from words into pictures, of creating an image that people can carry around in their heads. It is a question of painting a picture with your words. Picturepainting is essential for making the 10-to-30- year BHAG tangible in people's minds.”

“A BHAG is a clearly articulated goal. Gore purpose can never be completed, whereas the BHAG is reachable in 10 to 30 years.”

“Foresee thefuture”

Ορα το μελλον

What are the changes that will make a difference?

“This workshop will help participants identify potentially relevant technological developments …”

-Legislation-Market moves-(Technological innovation)

The big changes in technology may not be down just to “the technology”…

They are also OUTSIDE OF YOUR CONTROL…

Market Moves

What is about technology that changes…?

…and does it matter?

- Will the predominant service model, security model or user models change?

- Will the underlying business models change?

- Will the underlying technological platforms change?

- Will the actual applications change?“What will be the impact on existing technologies?

What are the strategic implications and what are the implications for staff within the organisation?”

What changes are relevant?- ones that make a service you currently provide

obsolete

- ones that can’t be integrated or accommodated within your current organisational structure

- ones that require you to start providing a particular sort of service or replacement service

- ones that will require skills or capacity you cannot currently provide

- ones that brings into scope that were previously out of scope

Stop doing something youcurrently do

Start doing something youcurrently don’t

Start doing something that’scompletely new to

everyone

STEP

CHANGES

Step gradually?For the London Olympics, Team GB Cycling

took the manufacturing idea of Kaizen –

incremental improvement – to the limit and

produced a step change via the ‘aggregation

of marginal gains’

“Act whenyou know”

Γνους πραττε

Noticing the future that’s unevenly distributed about you… NOTICING

“There must be a better way…”

TRIGGERS

“So does that mean I could…”

SIGNALS

What did you see for the first time today?

Could it affect your library?

NOTICING

Two more things to consider when noticing the future…

What if X becomescommoditised?

1.

What’s the adoption path…?

2.

“Have respectFor suppliants”

Ικετας αιδου

End user development

End user expectations

End-user adoption / BYOD

Listen to the User…?

“What is the Library for?”

Have you

tried the

library?

The Library plays an important role in the knowledge ecosystem…

…so what can learn by looking at failures in that

system?

“Educateyour sons”

Υιους παιδευε

Open Notebooks & Reproducible (“Replicable”)

ResearchJupyter

notebooksRStudio

Code

Out

put

Jupyter

notebooks

Code

Out

put

Jupyter

notebooks

Code

Out

put

Jupyter

notebooks

Data Futures

Jian Qin and John D'Ignazio, "Lessons learned from a two-year experience in science data literacy education" ( June 22, 2010). International Association of Scientific and Technological University Libraries, 31st Annual Conference. Paper 5.

http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/iatul2010/conf/day2/5

The Library as Training Unit

“Do not tire of learning”

Μανθανων μη καμνε

To what extent does technology adoption and/or changes to the information environment drive the need for skills development?

Information skill,digital skill,or data skill?

Boolean search

SQLRegular Expressions

Internal services requirements

External users

Provided services

External users

Internal skills requirements

Skills requirementsassociated with service delivery to users

Skills requirements associated with skills teaching / training

Data Curation (RDM)

Data Resourcing (subject/reference

librarian)

Data Reporting (internal

audit/analytics)

Data Sensemaking (“data

literacy”/infoskills)

“Be a seekerOf wisdom”

Φιλοσοφος γινου

Helping people “find” information in a generative sense – from data?If digital skills (digital literacy) - in the sense of skills that support the organisation and production of information using digital tools – are in scope for the library, then are data skills (data literacy) - in the sense of skills associated with organising and producing (and making sense of) information from data also in scope?

Trending now…

Increasing “open”ness

open to everyone

open access journal and open data discovery

open textbook and OER shelves

open (scholarly)

infrastructure

invisible library

supportopen digital

workbenches

What would an open access library look like?

sustainability

GIS

Carto DB

QGISOSGEO

Conversational Interfaces

From link-clicking to conversational UIs?

SLACK

SLACK

SLACK

SLACK

Seemless updates

When did you last update (as in, upgrade) your operating system?

When did you last update your browser?

When did you last upgrade your car?

What does it mean if you’ve always got the latest, most up to date version?

Stagedvs

continuous deployment

One off or ubiquitous?

NOTICING

Firmware inside?

Virtual Computing

Student’s computere.g. Windows

VirtualBox Application

Guest Operating System e.g. Linux

Course software I

Course software II

Student’s own browser

Personal folder

Download files from web

Access as web/browser application

VMWARE virtualbox

Docker

Kitematic

Identifying Yourself

Tap to pay -> tap to X

From fingerprint readers to facial ident…

“It’s Alive…”[Smart X]

What would it have taken

for this to have got here?

NOTICING

What would it take to

make it ubiquitous?

Soon-to-be-commodityComputing?

Image recognitionAutomatic language translation“Robot authors” - data2txt

OCRText Analysis –

Named Entity Recognition

“Know youropportunity”

Καιρον γνωθι

Ahead of the curve or behind

the game?

NOTICING

Sharing economy, meh…

…but ownership is being replaced by leasing and licensing

“As-if” ownership

“Gig economy” "Th[e] so-called gig economy - the trading of individual tasks and commissions (or “gigs”) online - is associated with the growth of self-employed, freelancers, and micro-entrepreneurs working either full or part time.

“The business model of much of the gig economy tends to transfer risk from the digital platform providers to individual consumers and workers.”

Public service trends –from service provision to service commissioning

Brought in scope through legislation

Having ceded ground in terms of discovery to ad hoc aggregation sources such as Google, will legislation reinvigorate discovery using primary sources or through more formalintermediaries?

“Five Laws of Library Science”, rochelle hartman (flickr: tinfoilraccoon)