NYPL's Chief Digital Officer Says Public is Better off When Libraries Are 'Risk Averse' About Tech (geekwire.com) 78
New York Public Library's Tony Ageh was recently in Seattle to talk about libraries' digital transformation. Ageh made the point that tech now permeates pretty much all of a library's operations, from ebooks and article databases, to systems for checking out materials and tracking fines. Still, don't look for your library to be on the bleeding edge of digital.
From a report: "What I previously imagined was a weakness I think is a strength, which is that libraries have been very reluctant to move too quickly and have allowed the marketplace and allowed other organizations to kind of prove things work before libraries have taken the plunge," said Ageh, who before joining NYPL oversaw internet and archive efforts at the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).
"I think that has actually inoculated us against waste or harmful behavior." That kind of fad-or-trend, wait-and-see behavior appears to generally suit libraries well. "Librarians are incredibly risk averse," he said. "I think they do care very much about patrons and about the impact that their work does, and so we're very unlikely to take a chance when we're dealing with public money and when we're dealing with patrons; we have a personal relationship with them."
"I think that has actually inoculated us against waste or harmful behavior." That kind of fad-or-trend, wait-and-see behavior appears to generally suit libraries well. "Librarians are incredibly risk averse," he said. "I think they do care very much about patrons and about the impact that their work does, and so we're very unlikely to take a chance when we're dealing with public money and when we're dealing with patrons; we have a personal relationship with them."
Good! (Score:3)
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Yep, there's definitely a couple of needles somewhere in that ocean of haystacks. Along with a couple of million shiny, skinny pointy objects that look like needles but blow up in your face when you try to thread them.
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I really like the Libby/Overdrive digital loan system. At first it didn't have anything I wanted to read, but that is changing fast as authors get more used to this kind of licensing.
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I general see the Library moving form a warehouse of used books, which it lends, to a service where it helps guide people to information it is looking for, as well with a community (state, local government, ...) funded service that will allow its members to get past a good set of paywalls (such as access to academic journals), this is where the true value is in.
Not the row after row of smelly old books, while I am sure some people are nostalgic to the idea of the physical book library. It value to society
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I was going to say that libraries are useless, but that is because I was thinking about warehouses of books.
But, your post leads me to think of the remake of "A Time Machine" that came out in the early 2000's. The "library" was a computer hologram that could dispense knowledge is the most appropriate way. Unlike a book warehouse, I would find such a place very useful.
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The brand-new library that I work at has things like 3D printers, a recording studio, laser cutters and sewing machines available.
https://my.christchurchcitylib... [christchur...raries.com]
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Well, libraries are doing interesting, sometimes high-tech, things. A bunch offer Kindle free books, or movies and video games (btw, libraries are also for recreation, not just education.) But there are other public services. For instance, most offer the ability to surf the internet, not just for news but also to access webmail, shop, etc. Catalogs of journals (electronic or otherwise). NYC has a library trial program of loaning of job interview clothes. In NH, they're running TOR exit nodes. Lots of
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Non-profits don't accept textbooks because in 6th months when the 12th edition comes out, it will be totally worthless. Moreover, the information in textbooks is extremely repetitive: adding a 5th intro to biology textbook adds no new information that isn't in the other four.
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so then why do they need to constantly release new editions?
Re: Our library doesn't accept textbook donations (Score:1)
It's mostly for publisher profit. Each edition usually has more or less the same information with some minor updates, and in the case of STEM subjects, an entirely new set of homework problems. The homework problems have some minor value in that the internet won't immediately be littered with all of the problem solutions for students to look up when completing their assignments.
Libraries Are 'Risk Averse' About Tech (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Libraries Are 'Risk Averse' About Tech (Score:5, Informative)
Showing your ignorance. The first Dewey category is 000: Computer Science
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I suspect the name is a clue: The Dewey Decimal system.
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If the programmers have any complaint, its about the Dewey 'system' itself. It's an ad hoc, illogical, non-memorable dire swamp of a 'system'.
Unfortunately for the coming generations, Mr. Dewey inveigled his way in early - heavily promoted his library equipment business - and foisted it on an unsuspecting public.
Were it not for all the equipment Mr. Dewey sold to go with it, and all of the people whose careers were ensnared by it, it would have been tossed out on its worthless ear long ago. (NOT to mention
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Actually, since it is 000, that means it is FALSE
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Libraries could drive digital storage research (Score:2)
What seems like would be cool to me, is if libraries were at the forefront of driving research into digital storage and longevity. Like helping understand how people could preserve digital memories, what would last... maybe even a program to help residents around a library store and maintain all digital files they owned.
That would be a nice evolution of what Libraries have been doing, managing large volumes of information, and give local branches more of a reason to exist in a world where even books are mo
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I imagine there are a few items p here
- libraries don’t have a large budget, so need to be smart about the spending.
- if libraries did do this, then people would likely complain this is not their role.
- librarians aren’t technologists, so would need an expert external entity who would likely inflate prices for their services.
- waiting for industry to do the big spend and then buy in when the tech it mature is more in line with a low budget and risk averse institut
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libraries donâ(TM)t have a large budget, so need to be smart about the spending.
Right, but that includes ways to grow that budget. Why should government institutions be limited to what government gives them?
If libraries did do this, then people would likely complain this is not their role.
Probably the number of people helped would be greater than the number that complained.
librarians arenâ(TM)t technologists
On this I disagree, they have to be by the nature of what they manage (which includes co
Netflix Analogy (Score:4, Interesting)
Stream-era Netflix is in a much worse position, and libraries should be hesitant to dive in when it might put them on the publishers' leash.
Philosophy (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a disagreement in philosophy here, and it seems Mr. Ageh has touched on both sides.
On the one hand, there's the idea that libraries should be open doors to all knowledge and experiences. Cutting-edge technology is crucial to this effort, because a significant portion of the modern human experience exists outside of what can be cataloged in books. Most libraries now hold audio or video collections, but only a few host video games (and the systems to play them). Sure, they offer public access to the Web, but the librarians aren't likely going to give you a guided tour of reddit's contributions to popular humor.
On the other hand, libraries are inextricably coupled with archives. By their nature, libraries have a duty to ensure that their collections are accessible in the future, and that means librarians have to consider the costs of adding a new technology to their collection. A book is simple - just place it on a shelf, and it will stay there... ...unless there are insect, environmental, indexing, or space problems that render the text inaccessible. A DVD full of ebooks avoids a few of those risks, but introduces a few new ones like formatting and equipment dependencies. For each new technology, there's a new set of requirements, and that means a new set of challenges for the already-overburdened library staff.
Librarians work toward the idealism of open access to everything for everyone, but unfortunately the reality of budget cuts and physical reality get in the way. Risk-averse decisions are really the only way to maximize the impact of the resources a library has.
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That's the real mental hump we need to get over. Stop thinking of libraries as a place where you can borrow books (and other software). St
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They're all software, and their physical form is a consequence of the technological limitations of past generations, not expedience.
Many information BOTH in the past and in the future is published/released in printed books only. The fact that electronic/alternate forms of media exist does not mean that past forms exist only due to technological limitation.
Of course new technology created new forms of media that libraries can begin to participate in as well ----- Well, at least until the environmental
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Besides, you wouldn't want your local Library jumping on the latest technical bandwagon before the underlying technology has been standardized.
Otherwise, you might end up with with a movie library filled with HD DVD's instead of BluRay's just because they happened to get a donation check from Microsoft that year.
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Media that either has no DRM or uses a DRM system that is fully offline(books, CDs, DVDs) and which is/was sold in some lendab
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Gutenberg's press (Score:2)
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Properly managed, digital media can also last for millenia. ZFS for example is built exactly for this purpose. The problem is that we have very few people that know what they're doing in tech and that happens with dead tree print too, most books have not and will never survive because their paper has been made too cheap, too acidic, not bound but glued etc. etc.
I like printed books. (Score:2)
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Well, you can modify the physical copies and recall them. To update them to the latest version of the truth. You need Ministry of Truth to manage it though.
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He has a point... (Score:2)
...especially when you consider that most public library budgets are extremely tight. If they are going to go digital, they need to do it right the first time. Wait for the bleeding edge stuff to work itself out. Wait for standards to be adopted. Then get involved.
Sigh (Score:3)
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Want to make a copy of something at the library? Just put JotNot on your iOS phone, and use it in place of a flatbed scanner to make library articles into PDFs that look just as good as if you used a flatbed.
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By contrast, all the public libraries that I have been working at in the last few years have all used pay-photocopiers that also function as flatbed scanners and networked laser printers.
https://my.christchurchcitylib... [christchur...raries.com]
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Individual stupidity occurs even in the smartest of organisations.
What utter and complete nonsense (Score:2)
This guy does NOT speak for libraries, which have been automated for a couple of generations now. They are more bleeding edge than risk averse. Indeed, it's still the case that for many people without means, the library is the only place they can gain access to the Internet at public access PCs. In the days before the Internet was as pervasive as it is today, our library served as an ISP for 35,000 citizens when there were few alternatives and everything was dial-up. Libraries began their automation efforts
Could've been worded better (Score:3)
Yes -- libraries are rightfully risk-adverse about certain tech-facing facets of their core activities -- specifically, those which pertain to copyright. The nightmare scenario for all libraries and archives is that they make something from their holdings freely available on the Internet when it's in fact not copyright-clear, and then years later someone shows up claiming millions of dollars in damages. Out of necessity, they *must* be conservative when it comes to anything dealing with copyright status.
As Ageh mentions, keeping libraries' donors happy is key, and NYPL and most similar institutions are incredibly under-funded by the gov't and literally live and die by their wealthy patrons. So the technology footprint needs to be aligned with the wants of the donor to a certain extent. Because these people are often older, sometimes they don't have a firm grasp of why the library would want to spend their money on "tech," so the money goes elsewhere. The big donors pretty much get what they want, and sometimes that's more than having a branch named after themselves.
Now, can libraries do cool stuff when it comes to tech? Absolutely, and they do, including NYPL (check out NYPL Labs [nypl.org]) and of course, the Library of Congress and their long-term digital strategy [loc.gov]. But all of these activities are subject to the two rules above.
So ... (Score:2)
"to systems for checking out materials and tracking fines. "
I guess the library cops were all sacked then?
Liibrary Digital Systems (Score:2)
Not just libraries (Score:2)
Local governments should also move slowly. The amount of money thrown away on hype is incredible. Just the number of blockchain things being developed right now is insane.
When too many people in management are incapable of analyzing true potential of new technologies, the rule should be to just wait three years or until the first hype cycle has passed.