Next Generation Workflows for Next Generation Libraries

Thursday Feb 3 2011 9:05am

Next Generation Workflows for Next Generation Libraries

Karen Calhoun, VP WorldCat and Metadata Services, OCLC

Rick Anderson, Scholarly Resources and Collections, University of Utah

My star session for the conference -- most thought-provoking!

Rick started by comparing Sane and Insane things libraries [still] do today

Less Sane

InterLibrary Loan

Big Deals with database vendors

Reference / Bibliographic Instruction

More Sane

Patron Driven Acquisition

Ease of use

Wikipedia (as a model)
Feels we need new goals (see below) in the light of these

Things That Change Absolutely Everything Libraries Do

Google Books changes absolutely everything libraries do. Why (or how) try to compete?

• 130 million books
• good books, better than lots of libraries, because coming from Yale, Harvard etc.
• radical discoverability -- nothing could be easier
• radical availability -- almost everything a person could want

Hathi Trust not as comprehensive as Google Books, but better metadateven better radical discoverability

• 8 million books in 2010

Oxford University Press backlist is available only as Print On Demand

Espresso Book Machine - a way to make any book any patron wants available. The epitome of customer service

Impact: Circ per student has declined very significantly. Most studies show small decline in overall circ, but don't correct for increased enrollment. Actual decline is huge.

What Library Goals Should Be:

• every book published is easily and immediately findable
• any book ever published can be purchased for a patron immediately (or borrowed)
• every article is easily and immediately findable
• every article ever published can be purchased for a patron immediately
• every data set is easily and immediately findable
• every data set ever published can be purchased for a patron immediately

EBooks are a great solution -- 24 hour remote access, searchable, can use like databases.

Should post records of all ebooks on spec -- then buy what people want

Karen Calhoun

-- recommended Alexa.com as tool to audit your website $199 -- gives recommendations for improvement

- stressed that we MUST change our workflows: traditional cataloguing is not working, it is not making information accessible and discoverable. We are spending our time doing things that don't work for patrons any more.

* Capture bibliographic data as far upstream as possible

* Handle items and records only once

* Perform work where it makes the most sense. Save MLIS for tasks only they can do.