A video impression of the day

Innovation right from the start: Library school model in the Netherlands

Rob Bruijnzeels, Dutch Public Library Association/VOB

In the Netherlands, a lot of library people are baby boomers, who will leave in the next four years. Back in the seventies, you went to the library school, went to work at a library and stayed there for the rest of your live. The education was traditional for catalog building. But the world around the library, and the library itself changed.
The design of the library is no longer a matter of improvement or modernization, but of innovation and change.
Libraries 2040, what will public libraries be like in 2040? This project, still running, includes architects, students, philosophers, and game designers.
He shows a picture of the public library of Seattle by Rem Koolhaas. A lot of people behind screens, the book separate and only one man reading. Why are the books still there? Libraries are still build like stacks with a roof, a built catalog.
The library of the 100 talents, a library concept where kids really can work with a collection. Where they can discover their own ideas and opinions and share them.
Lesson learned so far: it is a bridge between the tradition and innovation of public libraries. But we need new libraries. Libraries are a place where people are invited to explore.

The Library School project asked twelve people, not only young people, to think and work for a year on what a library school should be. In the end it is a program for people already working public libraries. Not for managers, because there are already programs for that. The librarian of the future is positioned between culture, technology and society.

Marlies Bitter-Rijpkema, Open University, CELSTEC

Learning is something you do your whole life long. People learn in different way now,people are connected, using laptops, telephones, not only books and lectures. This means that context in which we operate as librarians is fundamentally changing. Library school learning is not only book studying, but also networked collaborative learning. We participate therefore we are. Web2.0 isn’t a thing, but a state of mind. Librarians want to build bridges: between concepts and daily practise, between islands of knowledge, between people and their networks and how do we draw the decision makers into the libraries. The Library School wants to bridge this, to link today’s libraries to the libraries of the future.
The Library School learning consists of workshops, lectures, a (virtual) network and workplaces. This community has a communal focus and a goal, and is directly related to your work and learning. It is also integrated with the learner’s personal network. The Library School becomes par of your life, and ideally you stay part of it for the rest of your life.
The Library School is formal, informal and non-formal learning all at once. Formal learning is a course, informal learning is going to a conference and sharing information, non-formal learning are activities that help you learn.
There are different learning styles, so to help you in your learning, you need to know your own learning style, but also be able to utilize a different learning style.
The Library School wants to support librarians like scaffolding. It will not be a handbook on how to innovate, but it will set a mindset to become aware of change and innovation and be able to work with.
The Library School has an introduction year, a specialization year and a mastery year. Every year looks at library and society, library and culture, organizing for change and professional learning in the digital era. Everything you do comes back to these themes. The year is split up in periods of eight weeks. Every eight weeks you meet up and exchange ideas. Every year also has a curator, who will look at things from a specific perspective.
We collectively work on building new librarianship, but the guidance is also focussed on the background of the student.
After every year you get a certificate.

Quick questions:
Q1: Can people from other countries join?
A1: Yes, if they travel.
Q2: There should be an international, and internationally accredited course, incorporating e-learning so those who cannot travel can also take it.
A2: Off course we want this, but accreditation is one thing, but making it relevant for everybody is another problem.

Catch me if you can: The challenges of becoming a truly mobile, real-time librarian

Dierk Eichel, Student at the Department of Information Science at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam

The Global Semantic Web Librarian
Semantic web makes the information better to understand for computers. This is one of the main topics for the W3C. Linked Open Data (the semantic web done right according to some people) is seen as a way to make the semantic web happen. Open data is linked together to build a cloud, a linked open data cloud. It now mainly contains “entertainment” websites (wikipedia, BBC) but libraries are soon joining in.
We are treated to an image of the semantic web layer cake (a literal layer cake, which was unfortunately already eaten).
Libraries have to participate in this layer cake, and work on proof and trust.

Communities of practice are people that work and learn together. They share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly (Etienne Wenger). This contains a domain (the concern)’ practise and a community.

Within the community there are people who lead, people who learn, people who lurk, and people who link a community to a different community.

More information: the IFLA IT section has a semantic web working group. Also session 149 Libraries and the Semantic web on Sunday.

Diana Müller, University Library Marburg
Internationalization and mobility without Bologna?

The Bologna process aims to internationalize academic education. Therefore it influences also the existing LIS education.
In Germany there are two ways to reach higher library service, through an administrative career path in librarianship which is disengaged from the Bologna service. This path includes traineeships in academic libraries and a post-graduate program at the Berlin School of Library and Information Science. The program is completed through examination which does not lead to a masters degree, but to a title of academic librarian.
The second is the academic masters program in LIS. However, for the higher positions in the library world, mostly people from the administrative path are chosen.

You are the future: Library associations and new librarians

Some notes from the presentation.

Dr. Petra Hauke, Berlin School of Library and Information Science
Michaela Jobb, Hertie School of Governance, LIS Master student

Mobile new LIS generation – How to internationalize incoming carreers

Information and communication are the two pillars of libraries.
New librarians should visit international conferences, be part of international networks and seek internships far away. When they come home they have gathered new knowledge they can use at home.

In Germany BI-international which is a Federal Association of German Library and Information Associations which helps young professionals to exchange, knowledge and ideas. They offer financial support and facilitate German visits abroad and visits to Germany.

BOBCATSSS is an annual symposium completely organized by LIS students from Easterna nd Western European Universities under the auspice of EUCLID, targeted at LIS students, LIS teachers and (young) professionals. BOBCATSSS 2011 in Szombathely, Hungary, January 31 – February 2.

IFLA LIS Student Paper Award to encourage students to submit papers and participate in IFLA activities. The prize includes a trip to the IFLA conference (registration fee, airfare and hotel), publication in the IFLA journal and 1 year membership. Papers will be reviewed on relationship to the submitted section, relevant discussion of current issues etc. Soon 2011 call for papers, see http://www.ifla.org/en/set. Official ceremony for the award will be this week, Thursday 12 Augustus, 9:30-10:45 in the Congressen Hall.

IFLA – “Adopt a student!” to bring together LIS bachelor and master students and LIS/IFLA professionals by funding one year membership to the IFLA, registration fee for one section and encouragement to participate in sections and the IFLA. There are now 69 sponsors, and 55 students. The network is also on Linked In. A poster session about this will be presented on 12 – 13 August 12:00-14:00 in the exhibition hall.

Welcome Reception with IFLA president Ellen Tise.

Question from the audience, are there plans to support students after graduation, the young professionals, because there seems to be much help for students, but not for young professionals.
A: The adopt a student program has just started, so we will see how it goes. It also depends on what the sponsors want to do. We mainly bring people together and then they decide what happens.
Remark from audience: The focus of the program is not general mentoring, but mentoring on how to get involved in the IFLA, not how to be a young professional. And these are two very different things.
A: This can be the start, but there is no limit where the adoption will end.

The opening keynote by The Schanachies

My notes from the Schanachies talk. This is not the entire talk, but some things that stood out to me. I apologize if it doesn’t make perfect sense.

The Schanachies tell us about the history, how they came to be. They started out taking trips to interview and ambush people with camera’s and about the future of libraries and what they make of library. They took an USA road trip with a camper van. Quite amazingly they raised $50.000 in one week for this trip.
The first stop of the trip is the New York Public library, where they meet Paul Holdengräber. He said the universe is made of stories, not atoms. When he worked in LA he tried to make the museum needs to become less of a mausoleum to dead masters but more open. For that reason he was asked to come to the NY public library.
Many trips followed, Jamaica, Australia, etc. They will share some of the best practices they have gathered on their trips with us.
Recently they started as a vodcast, This Week in Libraries, where they interview people from all over the world. Tomorrows episode will come from Goteborg with an interview with the president of IFLA.

New skills for librarians. Education is very important. They went to Dominican University in Chicago to talk about the library of the future. They mentioned that when you create a positive experience now, they will remember this in the future.
About teen spaces in a library, they should not be planned next to children’s spaces because their noise is very different. Teens come to go online, hang out, check out books, game. The teen librarian organizes craft things for girls, gaming tournaments, talks to the kids, orders books. She sometimes feel like a social worker or a babysitter, and it can be very hard. She listens and tries to refer them to help. Programming for teens is hard, but they may get more from the program.
Despite eBooks and internet the social aspect of the library will always stay important.

Libraries can level the playing field and offer opportunities to try out new technology, not only computers but also gaming for example. Because not everybody has a computer and not everybody will ever have a computer. And libraries can offer the newest technologies to those people so they can ‘keep up’ with the rest of the world.

Asking questions (sorry, I did not get all the names)
Rob Bruijnzeels tells about the situation in the Netherlands, where there is no real library school. School now just repackage old stuff, not for the new librarian especially not for public libraries. Old librarians were catalogers. New librarians deal with context, and the process is much more important than the end product.
Noreina from Puerto Rico says that our skills will depend on the new technologies that appear every day, and as a librarian you need to know about these to help the users. In Puerto Rico they use a lot of the new web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook, Twitter etc to connect to the users. The users use Facebook and Twitter a lot more than that they come to the library website.
From Denmark thinks that there is not an ideal librarian. Not all librarians should be the same, there should be very different people to make things more interesting.
From Nigeria. Librarians must learn to use new tools, and have access to them. In Nigeria they are building many new libraries and they are getting access to the Internet. The problem is that the bandwidth is low, so video is difficult, but they can blog.
From Norway. The problem is technology is developing so fast, we cannot compete. The answer could be to focus on generic skills to be able to handle change. You have to adapt to and have a passion for life-long-learning.
From Namibia, a reference librarian. We expect users to come to us with questions, but actually we have to teach them how to find information on their own.

Book tip: Rework, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, also available as a 2.5 hour audiobook. A message from the book is to not focus on change, but on the core values that will never change. Dependability, speed, service, etc.

Christchurch, New Zealand, in a learning center attached to the South Library in Christchurch. They are viewing an after school program. It started out as a book club, but they wanted to combine technology with it, by using Shelfari, a sort of Facebook for books. Now they can share their books and opinions with each other. They have to update their shelves weekly, and do book club assignments.

They end their talk by showing a video about the Surface table they have developed for DOK in Delft. This table enables users of the library to view photographs from the city archives interesting to them, by placing their library card (fitted with an RFID tag) on the table. It used the address of the user to show them pictures from their street. They can also search the archive using maps and use a ring as a magnifier.

The talk ends with a video of the trip to Salt Lake City, one of the most beautiful libraries in the world according to the Schanachies. The library of the future will be more interactive to let people do more with the community, and the library will be the center of this community as a neutral playing ground to talk about ideas.

Question and discussions will be asked during lunch and drinks.

Welcome to Borås!

An early and grey morning in Borås but the Global Librarian conference has just started!