Legal Research

Asynchronous, Asymmetrical Threats to Libraries

I often talk about how libraries are going through a period of engagement with asynchronous, asymmetrical threats to our organizational models. These threats are coming from many directions: economic, political, technological, demographic, global, and more. Some of our colleagues prepare to defend our traditional models, while some prepare for a period of long adaptation, variety and evolution and, potentially, revolution.

Here are two great postings from Clay Shirky talking about the adaptive capacity of newspapers:

Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable

Why iTunes is not a workable model for the newspaper business

Printing The NYT Costs Twice As Much As Sending Every Subscriber A Free Kindle

I think it's increasingly clear that newspapers - as we have known them - will not survive the decade. Of course, actual 'news' is bigger than ever.

The same stories can be told about the auto sector. Indeed, we have classic stories of ice merchants who defined their businesses as ice delivery instead of refrigeration or food preservation. If IBM hadn't evolved from adding machines to computers, would they still be here? We see the Internet juggernaut sweeping though the economy - music, food, gossip, hobbies, book publishing, magazines, advice and recommendation networks, book reviews, movies, and more and engendering destruction and reinvention at the same time. If libraries are all about content, then when all, or just enough, of the books, articles and videos are online, what business are libraries in that will survive and emerge stronger?

When I hear our colleagues say that libraries should just 'copy' the NetFlix model, they are severely devaluating what I think libraries are really about at the core. We're not merely distribution and warehousing. I always answer that libraries are all about social glue - community, learning and interaction. That's our solid core. That's why we need a team of professionals and not just clerks, machines or robots. We need to improve the experience of questions and learning and neighborhoods. And we do, but we rarely measure that impact. We keep records of transactions as if we were a warehouse offering good and competent delivery.

As I've said before, the dinosaurs didn't go extinct because the environment changed, they went extinct because they couldn't adapt, fast enough.

Organizations are the same. None of us and no organization is owed a future - matter how wondrous its past. I believe that we adapt and create the positive future we want. Some are more fatalistic. The future just happens to them and they feel powerless to influence the outcomes.

I don't. Transformational libraries rule.

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on March 16, 2009 (boomark / email).