Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MA in Digital Asset Management, King’s College London, 2012 Bridging the Gap: Library digital collections, innovation and the user Matthew Brack Supervisors: Simon Tanner and Sheila Anderson The total length of the dissertation (text and footnotes) is 10,999 words. Candidate’s signature: Note: This dissertation is an unrevised examination copy for consultation only, and may not be quoted or cited without the permission of the Chairman of the Board of Examiners for the MA in Digital Asset Management Contents 1 2 3 4 5 Introduction 4 Literature Review 7 Methodology 14 Analysis 19 Conclusion 46 References 50 Acknowledgments 57 2 Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar… – Antonio Machado, Proverbios y cantares (XXIX) [Traveller, there is no way, the way is made by walking…] 3 1: Introduction This study focuses on digital collections created by research libraries in the UK, their users, and the ground where they interact. A ‘digital collection’ refers here to digital content a research library has created for its users, rather than e‐books, e‐journals or other content produced by third parties. The term ‘digital library’ has been avoided as much as possible because it carries, by definition, certain implications, specifically the demarcation of analogue and digital formats (Blandford 2006). For the library as purveyor of information, collections in digital format easily fall within their core mission; to differentiate between collection formats is to obscure their core function as information objects. In this sense, there is nothing ‘new’ in digital. This is not the ‘information age’, it is an age of information; one of many, the latest stage in the evolution of information development (Darnton 2011). The culture within libraries continues to be stereotyped, perhaps unfairly, as one of control – control of information, and control of the environment in which users can access that information. Digital collections offered by libraries are not free from this association, born as they are from the analogue models of library information science. Just as advocates of digital collections might question the continuing role of analogue collections in libraries, it seems important to also ask of them: to what extent do users really want digital collections? If they do, does the current offering meet their needs, and how will those needs change in the future? In many respects, every library digital collection faces a gap between content and user that needs to be bridged. That gap is simply that nothing can guarantee the actual use of a resource once it is created. Libraries may try to mitigate that risk through user surveys, collection curation and the like, but the gap remains until users can be engaged in a sustainable manner. In addressing the question of how to bridge that gap, this study operates on the basis that the barriers to development of library digital collections and consequent user engagement are cultural, rather than technical. Here it differs from previous research in the extent to which it values candid views above technical facts or considerations. This is important because no amount of funding, or any technical 4 solution, can overcome such barriers. The study also takes a holistic approach, surveying both those creating digital content for libraries and potential users of their collections as a first layer of enquiry. This study also takes a high‐level vantage point: libraries are not the only sector experiencing acute pressures from changing macro‐environmental factors. A blog widely circulated within the library sector last year commented: “We need librarians more than we ever did… For the right librarian, this is the chance of a lifetime” (Godin 2011). This sentiment was immediately echoed by Jonathan Weber, editor of Internet‐native news outlet The Bay Native, commenting on news media today: “I have always been of the view that it’s a crisis for the traditional institutions, but that’s different from there being a crisis for the profession. In a lot of ways it’s a time of a lot of opportunities in journalism” (The Economist 2011). It is likely that the solutions libraries require will lie outside of the sector, the same source as much of the pressure exerted on the library institution today. This study introduces a second layer of enquiry by seeking the views of digital‐content experts from the periphery of the library sector to comment on and advance the information gained from an initial survey of library digital professionals and users. The need for asking big, honest questions about the role of digital collections is constant, as the changes faced by libraries now are more rapid and acute than ever. The shifting emphasis from ownership to access with respect to library resources of all types suggests that the size of local, physical collections is less relevant now to a library’s research function and accreditation (Bazillion and Braun 2001: vii). A modern library mission statement like that of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB) in the Netherlands now reads: “The KB is the national library of the Netherlands: we bring people and information together” (KB 2010). Information is no longer confined to books or printed text, and many libraries have chosen to follow this reappraisal of their institutional mandate, in principle no different to the philosophy that informed the earliest library collections. Elsewhere, the Urban Mediaspace Aarhus1 in Denmark contains components of the traditional library, but in integrating physical collections with digital collections, and modern concepts of education and social space, it is not 1 http://www.urbanmediaspace.dk/en 5 actually referred to by that name. To be clear, this so‐called ‘library of tomorrow’ is not being called a ‘library’ at all. This study begins examining the extent to which library digital collections are meeting user needs by surveying the literature concerning the development and impact of library digital collections to date before presenting findings from both survey and interview. Finally, several paths forward are presented for libraries wishing to address a new generation of users with digital collections. 6 2: Literature Review 2.1 Introduction The following chapter surveys the literature concerning this study’s research question: the extent to which library digital collections are meeting the needs of users. The first section summarises the current political, economic, social and technological macro‐environmental pressures that libraries face to illustrate the urgency with which libraries must engage a new generation of users and other stakeholders; the second examines evidence suggesting these needs may not have been met; the third examines how libraries have been engaging with the change prompted by evidence cited in the previous sections. 2.2 The re­evaluation of libraries in the twenty­first century Until the advent of mass digital information in the late twentieth century, the quality of a library could be judged by the depth and breadth of its physical holdings. This is no longer the case, with traditional collections now forming only one aspect of service delivery (Sapp and Gilmour 2003). A diversification of information formats has seen a distinct shift from the notion of the library as principal information provider to the library as just one other source of information, suddenly competing with the likes of internet search engines, independent information resources and community spaces for continued relevance in the current information environment (Brophy 2007: 4‐5). Many of the factors that influence the direction of libraries are now generated from outside of the library sector. 2.2.1 Political pressures The UK is witnessing “the greatest budgetary crisis in the culture sector since government funding began in 1940” (Serota 2010). With cuts of 25% to 30% already in place, some are seeing the opportunity to call for a total removal of state funding: the Institute of Economic Affairs has proposed that closing down the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) would save £1.6 billion (2012). In 2010, the DCMS announced that it was removing all funding for the 7 Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), axing one of the culture sector’s main strategic players (BBC 2010). Discretionary spend has supported the 2012 Olympics (£9.3bn) with surviving culture sector bodies such as English Heritage and Arts Council England taking 50‐per‐cent cuts (DCMS 2010). According to a recent Europe‐
wide survey on the future for art and culture in Europe, there is limited public support for cultural subsidies in the UK (SICA 2010). The DCMS was itself dubbed ‘Ministry of Fun’ by its own inaugural Secretary of State (Elstein 2012). Other political issues affect the future of digital collections in libraries more indirectly. Despite Prime Minister David Cameron’s expressed desire “to make Britain the most connected, the most wired up, the most digitally‐advanced country there can be” (Prime Minister’s Office 2010), UK digital infrastructure development has been slow due to lack of investment (Garside 2012). The latest plans for UK national superfast broadband launched in 2010 made no mention of cultural concerns (BIS 2010). The UK is investing less than European counterparts in knowledge creation infrastructure and below the OECD average (Narula 2011). 2.2.2 Economic pressures In Europe, the culture sector tends to look towards government or the EU for policy orientation and funding opportunities (Mercer 2011). Most public sector institutions cannot square the circle of return of investment (ROI), remain particularly heavily hit by the economic downturn (Bonet and Donato 2011), and are subject to tight budgets and restrictive funding cycles (Uzelac 2011). Faced with a choice of having to cut jobs, resources or services, respondents to the UCL Centre for Information Behaviour (CIBER) 2009 libraries survey opted to cut resources (41%) or services (34.8%) to avoid cutting staff (24.2%). Libraries now face the choice between further investment in physical library acquisitions and infrastructure, or streamlining their resources in favour of digital collections. 8 2.2.3 Social pressures By the 1980s, literary criticism had acknowledged the cultural relevance of texts written within the digital medium (Lyotard 1984; McKenzie 1986: 1, 13). It is accepted that the discussion concerning the all‐pervasive change that digital technology has brought about in society can be traced back to Daniel Bell’s The Coming of the Post­industrial Society (1976), describing the transition from the production of goods to provision of services in an economy, with knowledge becoming a valued form of capital. From the 1980s, the American Library Association began to speak of ‘information literacy’ across multiple media formats, defining this as the ability to “recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate and use effectively the needed information” (ALA 1989: 1). The term ‘digital native’ is now used to describe those who have completely normalised the use of digital technology and integrated it fully into their daily lives (Green and Hannon, 2007: 10). According to Michael Levine, executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center: "Really young children look at a real book and think that it is electronic. They try to swipe it and think it is broken when nothing happens" (Wakefield 2012). Newer generations of researchers in developed countries may increasingly be dependent on digital research methods. 2.2.4 Technological pressures From 1994, the Web became the means by which most libraries gained access to digitised information resources (Bazillion and Braun 2001: 1) and by the end of the decade commercial publishers were moving into electronic publishing (Thorin and Sorkin 1997: 167). In conjunction, higher education institutions began to explore the ‘virtual classroom’ through online teaching and learning (Graziadei et al. 1997). During the 1990s, the Web was seen as a tidal wave of information that would sweep away traditional library practice (Lesk 1999: 10). By the turn of the millennium, it was felt that we were seeing the beginning of the end of five centuries of paper information. As Web search engines began to proliferate in the late 1990s, and Google in particular began to dominate with its more sophisticated ‘PageRank’ algorithm, user expectations of material presented in the online space began to change, resulting in a “regrettable 9 tendency” for users to “rely entirely on Web search engines for information” (Bawden and Vilar 2006: 346). For the user, all information presented online must compete for attention within that space, leading to both competition and confusion between commercial information providers and offerings by libraries (Bandara 2010). Subsequently, the impact of portable devices on the information landscape has been profound, beginning with the release of the Apple iPhone in January 2007, followed by Amazon’s Kindle e‐reader that November. By early 2011 it was announced that Amazon's sales of e‐books for Kindle in the US surpassed their sales in paper copies during the last quarter of 2010 (BBC 2011). What attracts consumers in the online space has changed again in recent years, with a move away from the ‘open’ Web towards value‐added, copyright‐
protected apps (Anderson and Rainie 2012: 2‐3). Consumers have emphatically opted for the latter: the App Store sold its 25 billionth product earlier this year (Apple 2012), with Apple alone selling over 52 million portable Internet‐enabled devices in their first fiscal quarter of 2012 (Kumparak 2012). 2.3 Innovation in libraries As libraries entered the digital space in earnest during the 1990s, their culture was defined as one expecting a user who “must engage with the rationality of the library directly and must submit to its version of the order of things” to access information (Radford 1998: 620), as librarians tried to subsume digital material within traditional print‐based cataloguing practices (Manoff 2000: 869). Over ten years later, libraries are still grappling with these issues, confronting pressures that demand a polar shift in their approach to users. Digital content provided by libraries is not a new idea: most consider the original digital library to be Project Gutenberg,2 founded 40 years ago in 1971 (Hazan 2010: 65). Chrystie Hill, Community Relations Director at OCLC, has pointed out that “providing access to digital content isn’t really innovative … it’s just keeping up.” Hill went on to identify “the skills required to participate in a digital age as a worker or citizen” involving “generating content and critiquing it, not just consuming it…” and that the future of libraries is “meeting our users 2 http://www.gutenberg.org/ 10 exactly where they are, wherever they are…” (2011). The implications are a changing library space and the roles within it, raising questions about the extent that libraries will be able to manage that change themselves. A key component of managing change is the ability to innovate, and a barrier to innovation in libraries is the inherent risk involved. As an investment, it tends to hold more risk because it will often carry wide impact for an organisation, usually involving some form of collaboration with external parties, and is less easy to predict using conventional financial indicators (Cutler 2008: 32). Yet this may now be necessary: the US Association of Research Libraries now recommends that “very few research libraries should have more than half of their infrastructure devoted to physical collections at this point” (Walters and Skinner 2011: 57). A basic phenomenon has been observed in the business sector that the outcome for those companies that take a risk and fail and those who do not take a risk are the same, leading to the conclusion that innovation and risk are necessary for growth (Esposito 2011). A recent McKinsey report found that “companies with a strong Web presence grew more than twice as quickly as those with a minimal presence, or none” (Roxburgh 2011: 60). Digital technologies have ensured that libraries now operate in a commercial environment, already evidenced by the encroachment by Google, and others, into what would traditionally be library information provision. Digital taps directly into consumer behaviour and has removed the traditional barriers that existed between different industries: in a recent description of the pressures facing high street retail in the UK, the following statement could just as easily have referred to libraries: “Businesses have got old‐fashioned structures and are not looking to have very flexible, very versatile business structures as a way to operate … a lot of them really have online as a secondary channel to the consumer as opposed to really thinking about it first...” (Brack 2012a). Yet one of the great advantages of online technologies is the ease with which traditional boundaries to innovation can also be crossed: much has been made of the New York Public Library’s ability to innovate online, where “the logic of delivering what users want leads inexorably to trying to give them the best digital experiences in the world” (Madrigal 2011). 11 2.4 The gap between library digital provision and the user The future of any library digital collection depends on its users (Kani‐Zabihi et al. 2006: 396). As digital libraries were beginning in earnest, a fundamental difference between digital library users and those creating such collections was observed, where researchers viewed digital libraries as content collected on behalf of user communities, while librarians viewed digital libraries as institutions or services (Borgman 1999: 227). After looking for “a paradigm shift in our habits of the creation, distribution and use of information” since that time, G.G. Chowdury has concluded that, while user behaviour has changed to that degree, the behaviour of content providers has not, continuing to rely on traditional models (Chowdury and Chowdury 1999; Chowdury 2009: 208). Attempts to enhance search and discovery platforms in particular appear to have fallen short of the radical change required, so that “libraries have lost their place as primary information providers, surpassed by more agile … purveyors of digital information delivery services” (Coyle and Hillman 2007). A major incentive to conduct this study was the removal of all funding from the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) in July 2011 (Kolowich 2011). With an NSF annual budget of almost $7 billion, this was not a 'cuts' situation as faced in the UK, but a simple acknowledgement that the project had failed on the grounds of utility and sustainability. Even the project’s biggest advocates admitted that relatively few educators or researchers had heard of NSDL, that the site had limited search capabilities and could provide no evidence for improved student learning; the science profession itself was never engaged with the project (Mervis 2009: 55, 57). On par with this, the UK’s £50m Government‐backed NOF‐Digi programme during 2001‐2003 has in part been lost, with remaining content existing “effectively in a state of suspended animation, without investment or manpower to bring it to its intended audience” (Poole 2009). Other types of major initiative have had questionable outcomes. In the UK, recent research by the Oxford Internet Institute revealed a “persistent gap” between researchers and the creation of Web archives (Dougherty et al. 2011). Despite ten years of work on the UK Web Archive Project run by the British Library, the anticipated target audience has yet to be engaged and, as with other 12 born‐digital content, Web archives appear to be overlooked by potential core user groups (Brack 2012b). At the same time, the concept of libraries as persistent stewards of intellectual output is being pointedly challenged by the growing ubiquity of born‐digital material. Abby Smith Rumsey, director of the Scholarly Communication Institute at the University of Virginia, has accused research libraries of being “missing in action” in preserving the born‐digital historical record, despite its clear alignment with their mission (2011). 13 3: Methodology 3.1 Introduction Many user studies concerning library digital collections have been conducted in the past – 34.5% of the literature published between 1997 and 2007 concerned user studies (Chowdury 2009: 208). Much has happened since 2007, including the global financial crisis and the advent of Internet‐enabled portable devices, referred to as a ‘perfect storm’ affecting libraries (Nicholas et al. 2010). As well as offering updated user perspectives on digital collections provided by libraries, this study attempted to go further by comparing the views of users with those who are actually creating library digital content, along with those of experts on digital content in the culture sector. To address the research question, these respondent groups provided data on the current perceptions of digital collections in libraries, commentary on those perceptions and thoughts on the future of library digital collections and their relation to users. 3.2 Research considerations 3.2.1 Scope The primary aim for the research method was to address the question of how digital collections and their users relate, and the means by which relations could be improved. To make the study worthwhile, as many respondents as possible were recruited to take part. An online survey format was selected in order to reach the largest number of people to gauge current views of digital collections from potential users, actual users and those who had created digital content for libraries. Respondents were not limited to the UK, allowing for more responses and potential comparisons between UK and non‐UK respondents. This formed the first stage of data gathering, combining quantitative and qualitative questioning. The second stage was designed to reference and expand on the survey data through a series of short interviews with library digital professionals and commentators on digital content in the culture sector. To provide a link between the two stages, digital professionals responding to the online survey were invited 14 to take part in the interview stage (four of the resulting six interviewees in this category). The data obtained from the interviews was exclusively qualitative. 3.2.2 Designing and marketing the study Online marketing research informed the survey design. For example, most e‐
commerce sites have a very high shopping‐cart‐abandon rate, reaching 72% in 2011 (Nicholls 2012), the result of ‘friction’, or how much effort a consumer has to put into gaining the thing they wish to consume (Tanner 2012). Other studies have shown that a visitor decides whether or not to stay on a Website within only eight seconds of entry (SilverPOP 2007). The survey was therefore designed to be brief yet engaging. Both the survey and interview were advertised as taking very little time to complete: the survey as possible to complete in five minutes, and the interview in a maximum of twenty. Despite this brevity, opportunities were provided for additional qualitative data within the survey: most questions contained a box in which to enter free text. In this way, a brief framework of quantitative questioning expanded to become a rich qualitative data set. 3.3 Question design 3.3.1 Survey In almost all instances the survey questions were simple and direct, designed to provoke a subjective response to explore the emotive undercurrents that flow through these themes; they required no in‐depth technical understanding of the issues in question. These qualitative ‘tick box’ questions were also designed to engage the respondent, triggering written qualitative comments elaborating on their stated position. On passing the introductory page, the first question was designed to be answered by anyone, irrespective of previous experience or geographic location. Depending on their answer, corresponding to their level of experience of digital collections provided by libraries, they would then be directed down one of three paths. Library digital professionals who indicated that they had performed their work in the UK were the only group invited to participate in the second and final 15 interview stage of the research project. All three paths shared questions in common for comparative purposes. 3.3.2 Interviews While online survey questions differed according to experience with digital collections provided by libraries, there was sufficient shared knowledge between all interviewees for the same questions to be addressed to everyone. This also allowed for comparison between the interviewee groups. As with the survey, questions were direct and open to achieve views and opinions, rather than explore technicalities. Some questions invited commentary on data obtained from the survey, while other questions looked explicitly to the future. Examples of both survey and interview questions can be found in the analysis section. 3.4 Executing the study 3.4.1 Survey Professional survey software by Confirmit was used to build the survey in consultation with members of the Wellcome Trust’s Strategic Planning and Policy Unit (SPPU), made possible due to project sponsorship by Simon Chaplin, Head of Wellcome Library. Professional photography was also arranged through the Wellcome Trust for the introductory page (Figure 1). Figure 1 Introductory page 16 The survey was live between 2 July and 6 August 2012. There were 175 completed responses: 102 from library digital professionals and 73 from users. Respondents were able to access the survey via a link, which was first posted on the author’s personal research blog.3 This initial announcement was followed by postings on the author’s personal LinkedIn and Facebook pages, before a blog post for the Wellcome Library on 5 July with a link to the survey. This post was tweeted by @wellcomelibrary and re‐tweeted by @wellcomedigital and @wellcometrust. The post received 373 hits during the period of 5 July to 6 August. The author also posted to various mail lists including the IFLANET Digital Libraries Research list and JISCmail Digital Preservation and Archives‐
NRA lists. The Digital Preservation Coalition featured the survey as a news item on their Website on 1 August 2012 (DPC 2012). 3.4.2 Interviews Interviewees were recruited directly via email and twelve interviews were conducted with six library digital professionals and six experts on digital collections in the culture sector. Expert backgrounds included national and international digital collections policy, library and museum digital projects, digital preservation, commercial content provision, digital humanities and Web 2.0. Professional backgrounds included academic libraries, specialist libraries and archive collections. The interviews were semi‐structured, beginning with a scripted introduction to explain the content and purpose of the interview, before proceeding to eight scripted questions with prompts. Additional ad‐lib prompts or questions were also utilised during the interviews to fully exploit each interviewee’s area of expertise. Interviews were conducted from 1 August to 3 September 2012, informed by interim data obtained from the survey. Interviews were conducted in person and via telephone, recorded using the free iTalk app for iPhone by Griffin before being transferred to iTunes for transcription. 3 http://mattbrack.blogspot.co.uk 17 3.5 Analysing the results The combination of quantitative questioning to prompt qualitative reasoning created a rich data set: a quantitative ‘tick box’ system relies entirely on the respondent’s interpretation of the question, whereas a qualitative extension to that question can reveal their thought process. As such, quantitative and qualitative outputs could sometimes contradict each other within the same question. The interview was designed to exploit outputs from the survey, serving as a layer of interpretation to identify the meaning of that data. For the survey, quantitative data outputs were analysed using Excel and statistical summaries generated from the Confirmit software. Qualitative data were tagged and grouped for analysis. In most cases, quantitative and tagged data were analysed comparatively by geographic region or respondent background. The interviews were transcribed but not tagged as they were relatively few in number and the questions themselves were designed to encompass themes for analysis, based on data obtained from the survey. 3.6 Limitations The survey would have been more effective with a more random sample of users. For ethical reasons, a survey must state its content and purpose, ruling out the participation of those with no interest in its themes. Evidence for this was the majority response from library digital professionals (58.3%), also explained by the promotional channels used. Mitigating this problem by random sampling through face‐to‐face survey interviews in public was rejected as too time‐
consuming. An effort was made to reach those outside the library domain via non‐library mail lists and public social networking forums. There was no response limit per institution for library digital professionals, allowing one institution to submit multiple responses; with study emphasis on personal opinion over institutional policy any impact would be minimal. Regarding the interviews, a greater number may have been beneficial, especially if they had included individuals further removed from the library domain, such as those in business, economics or politics. This would have required an additional survey script, tailored to individuals lacking detailed knowledge of digital content concerns in the culture sector. 18 4: Analysis 4.1 The current relationship between digital and analogue library collections 4.1.1 Survey The number one priority is preserving our materials, the second is to make them available. This study found that digital remains a second format to analogue collections in many libraries. Where it is considered important, it derives its significance from analogue collections in almost every case. This position cannot be found stated explicitly by any institutional policy or individual, but rather manifests under the influence of traditional library models in various ways. To begin, respondents were asked to give their view on the role of digital collections now – should they support other library collections as a complement, integrate on equal footing with other library holdings, or replace other library collections as a priority? Most professional respondents chose ‘integrate’ (Figure 2), agreeing with the statement: “Digital collections are an equally important part of a library’s holdings alongside other collections.” This question provided the first example of divergence in quantitative and qualitative responses, with many going on to describe what was in fact a supporting function for digital collections: 25% of respondents favoured digital collections as a means to access and preserve original material (Figure 3), while in response to the role of digital collections in the library’s overall mission, 57.5% cited these same functions as the purpose of digital collections for the library mission (Figure 5). Almost all responses took analogue collections as their reference for talking about digital and only 8.3% of respondents mentioned the significance of born‐digital collections. The idea of using digital to actually build entirely new library collections as part of its mission was mentioned by only 2.7% of respondents. 19 Figure 2 q36: Overall, which of the following, if any, best reflects how you think digital library collections should exist with other library collections?4 Figure 3 q36: Reasons in favour of digital collections (responses UK:25 ROTW:35).5 4 All data presented in pie charts received 102 responses. 5 All data in clustered column charts are presented as a percentage of overall response rate in descending order of frequency. 20 Figure 4 q36: Reasons against digital collections. Figure 5 q34: Reasons why digital collections are important to the library mission (UK:31 ROTW:42). The dominant reason against a larger role for digital collections was that digital could not be a substitute for original analogue material (Figure 4), again reflecting the assumption that digital is an extra service derived from analogue originals. 21 There was also significant support for digital collections, not all of it derived from analogue priorities: “Providing information online in real time is standard for research at this time. To ignore that would be to disservice patrons.” 6 The most cited reason for a larger role for digital collections was the notion of collections enhancement, followed by those who asserted that digital collections should be considered as collections in their own right (Figure 3). Figure 6 q73: User reasons in favour of digital collections. Data presented in descending order of frequency (responses: 31). Differences between user and professional responses could be observed on this question, where a larger proportion of users (38.7%) held the view that digital collections formed collections in their own right, feeling that digital was ‘no different’ to analogue with regards to information provision (Figure 6). Asked why they felt libraries were creating digital collections, 78.9% of users cited access, but also mentioned collaborative use, reproducibility and knowledge democratisation – key issues surrounding digital collections not mentioned by professional respondents (Figure 7). 6 Due to the confidential nature of the survey and interviews, all quotations are anonymous, except interviewees who are distinguished by a unique identifier. 22 Figure 7 q72: In your opinion, why do you think research libraries might be developing digital collections? (responses: 57). 4.1.2 Interviews There is very little need now for physical copies of things that are being published nowadays, especially academic material that doesn’t have value in terms of it being an object. To elicit commentary on these findings, interviewees were asked whether they agreed with the view that digital collections were second to analogue. Those who agreed echoed reasoning contained within the survey: “I’m a historian, so I’m very keen on the material culture of artefacts such as books and manuscripts, and so digital technology … can’t reproduce everything that’s material about a book or a manuscript” (P2). There was also sympathy towards this view in relation to the established library collection model: “That’s understandable given that print has been around for so much longer, people have already got their collections up and running…. When they are producing a second collection, 23 which is going to be digital in nature, it’s going to be a subsidiary set of what they’ve currently got” (E2). Many responses chose a middle ground, making the distinction between digitised and born‐digital collections: “I think it comes down to the subtlety of digital – if you’re talking about digitised I’d tend probably to agree…, if you’re talking about born‐digital then certainly not” (P5). Taking that further, some noted a changing landscape: “I think that was the case for many years, but is increasingly less the case. Born‐digital is going to be very central to library collections in the future. So I think there has been a big shift in that, really over the last four or five years”. Such comments in favour of born‐digital collections throughout the interviews provided evidence that born‐digital is the elephant in the room when it comes to library digital strategy: “If a library is a record of human achievement, increasingly a lot of record of human achievement is being generated in born‐digital format – it would clearly be retrogressive to move that into other formats” (E3). Several interviewees disagreed entirely and spoke of a generational divide informing this view: “This is a big issue for us, because for my management, they are [second to analogue collections]. They are people who work in a more traditional environment … for me they aren’t; for my colleagues, for my peers, they aren’t” (P3). Others described a user perspective: “I think that preservationist and archival mindset is only really something that exists inside libraries, I think that when you look at users and the people who are making use of these materials that’s absolutely not true; they don’t particularly care about the paper copy, they are interested in getting access to the things they want access to” (E4). Finally, in response to the library mission, the whole question of formats was described as a distraction: “The primary content of a library is its informational content, and the format of that information is simply an accident of whatever happens to be the prevalent format in a given generation” (E6). The interviews were also an opportunity to expand on knowledge obtained from the survey to learn more about the potential of digital collections in libraries. Interviewees were therefore asked to give examples of further roles for digital collections in libraries besides general ‘access’, and answer whether they felt that libraries should be expanding their provision of such collections. 24 Answers revealed value unique to digital collections: “On the one hand you can have many thousands of users using one original text, on the other hand you can have clever analytical tools applied to the text which simply could never be applied to the physical original. That’s where the digital material will start adding more value, becoming more valuable potentially than the original…” (E1). The digital format was also seen as fundamentally changing the way users can engage with a collection: “Removing them from [their archive] context is actually sometimes an interesting thing to do, because then you can juxtapose different things about the topic, which in the physical archives might not be together” (P6). Social impact was also mentioned, largely absent from the survey responses: “One of the things that libraries have been critical at … is that idea of the right to access and engage with information; that then is the basis of lots of other economic, personal and social decisions. So by providing access to that body of content you are overcoming information asymmetry, which is a kind of democratisation” (E6). Of the 12 individuals interviewed, nine of them answered ‘yes’ to the question of whether libraries should expand their provision of digital collections. The other three responses were balanced: “I think they need to come to terms with the issues; whether that’s actually an expansion, I don’t know” (E3); or, “I think there is a lot of pressure from everyone to do so; users want it as well” (P4). One person responded that it “depends on the collection policy of the library…, on the library’s interpretation of its designated user community’s needs” (P1). Individual institutions may decide on the relationship between their collections, but interviewees broadly agreed that digital is in the ascendancy. 4.2 How the provision of resources are achieving the library’s digital aims 4.2.1 Survey Until recently there was a part time funded post dedicated to digital collections. This post will no longer exist due to cuts/service restructure. 25 The way that a library allocates resources to digital collections can reveal its institutional priorities as well as the economic environment in which it operates. As one respondent put it: “Old guard thinks it’s 'really nice' to have a Digital Library, but I'd like to say 'put your money where your mouth is'.” Figure 8 q35: How does the library (where you were involved in creating digital content) fund the creation of digital collections? (UK:40 ROTW:49). Funding models varied most by geographic location (Figure 8). Within the UK, only around half as many respondents reported that their libraries were funding digital collections from their operational budget compared to the rest of the world, with UK libraries more likely to be funded by grants and public money. This funding model can have a restrictive influence on the library’s ability to meet user needs as meeting funding guidelines become the higher priority. 26 Figure 9 q43: How adequate is/has been the infrastructure of the library (where you were involved in creating digital content) for creating digital collections content? When respondents were asked about the quality of their library’s infrastructure for creating and managing digital collections, there was a positive response, with little difference between UK and non‐UK respondents (Figure 9). This positive feedback contrasted with comments surrounding management and staff resources elsewhere in the study, suggesting that libraries may face more of a problem with personnel than technical infrastructure. To provide a counterpoint to these answers, users were asked about their experiences of using library digital collections generally: how they perceived the content provided, the design of the interface (ease of access and use of content) and the functionality of the content made available (allowing collaboration, reproducibility and data manipulation). Overall, satisfaction was high regarding available content (Figure 10): “The content tends to be good and I would suggest that this is because libraries and those who work for them are in the business of curating and collecting content.” A change occurred as users reported their experience of the collection interface (Figure 11): “The ones I have used have often been poorly organised and as a result it has been necessary to dig through an excessive amount of material to find the relevant information. Essentially better cataloguing is needed for many of the collections I have used.” Again, this 27 changed for the worse as users reported their experience of online collection functionality (Figure 12): “The information architecture was not good, and format used is difficult and time‐consuming to manipulate.” Figure 10 q70: Overall, how would you rate your experience of the following aspects of digital library collections? User rating of content (responses: 50). Figure 11 User rating of design. 28 Figure 12 User rating of functionality. Library digital professionals were asked whether their library had engaged in commercial collaborations, a question chosen to focus on a popular solution to funding problems (Figure 13). Of both the UK and non‐UK respondents exactly 55.6% had carried out commercial collaborations. The type of collaboration varied geographically, with 50% of UK respondents reporting collaboration with a commercial publisher, compared to 17.2% outside of the UK, where mass digitisation was outsourced principally to specialists (Figure 14). Libraries outside of the UK were prepared to outsource a wider variety of tasks, including their content‐management system, metadata creation, OCR and project management. They were also open to more non‐commercial partnerships, with 27.6% outside of the UK, compared to just 6.3% in the UK, calling into question the strength of UK collaborative structures between libraries. 29 Figure 13 q44: Has the library (where you were involved in creating digital content) engaged in commercial collaborations to develop digital collections content? Figure 14 q44: Types of collaboration (UK:16 ROTW:29). 30 4.2.2 Interviews I don’t think we’re looking at under­funding, I think we’re looking at an identity crisis. With funding a common concern for libraries, interviewees were asked for their solutions for how libraries could manage their resources to expand their provision of digital collections. The financial challenges were mentioned: “It’s not just a financial investment, there’s an investment of staff time, staff resource in terms of having the people who have the expertise to manage this stuff” (P1); these pressures will feel more acute where libraries see digital as a second service provision. As a long‐term solution the importance of strong initial investment was cited: “I think a lot of time and effort is saved by building up a decent infrastructure, not only in a delivery infrastructure but a metadata one. That means that developmental costs come down as collections are added incrementally” (P4). Library funding issues were linked to a lack of strategic alignment for digital within the institution: “What’s needed is that extra work, in a sense, to be taken on board as a strategic priority and for that strategic priority then to be properly funded” (E1). There was also strong criticism of a perceived over‐
reliance on the analogue library business model: “There is an assumption that you have a particular business model and that business model is under pressure. I think if you were to treat the research library as though it were a start‐up, and if you were to start from today, you would look at creating a product that emphasised connecting people to information as quickly and as efficiently as possible, and then you would use the best of the current generation of technologies to achieve that outcome…” (E6). The implications of that would naturally be to channel resources away from analogue collections towards digital, and the consequences of a lack of strategic alignment can lead to misallocation of resources: “Within a university library actually an enormous amount of the budget is simply taken up by the cost of things like Wiley Blackwell journal subscriptions and things like that at the 31 very beginning” (E3); also that “the really difficult choice is essentially for huge amounts of libraries which don’t have books that are necessarily of much age or value as a physical object, there does come a point where one has to consider what space is actually needed in terms of storage for books…” (E5). Other solutions presented revolved around collaboration: “We still haven’t got our collaborative structures right…. Collaboration is very, very important in insuring that we get affordable access to, for example, journal subscriptions and so on” (E3); and, “For me it’s about community approaches and degrees of that kind of collaboration…. I think it’s a given that no one can go it alone…” (P5). Commercial collaborations and the success of Google Books, in particular, also arose: “If people like Google were involved with more of this, like they were with the Bodleian to do that, then that could work as a kind of funding route” (P2). Additionally, given the EU funds available, it was queried why these had not been utilised in the UK: “I do not understand why research libraries in the UK do not engage more with EU projects, with EU research. I do not understand if it’s a cultural issue, or if there are other issues I’m not seeing” (P3). The nature of the digital evolution within libraries was summed up thus: “There’s a transformation that has to happen and that really points to where I think the answer lies: if users expect online access, and if we can see greater impact through online resources, then that’s presumably what the academic research library is about … ultimately that will mean the winner in the contest will be the part of the library that is able to demonstrate … impact and re‐use. And if impact and re‐use come to the digital resources, and all the pointers suggest that they will, then that’s going to be the nature of the transformation in the next decade or so” (E1). 32 4.3 Bridging the gap: how libraries are meeting user needs with digital collections 4.3.1 Survey What we have been able to accomplish has been of value to our users; we have not been able to accomplish enough. Professional survey respondents were asked directly whether they felt their library digital collections were meeting user needs. Most communicated that this was a work in progress, saying that this had been achieved ‘to some extent’ (Figure 15): “Digital content is restricted to only some elements of the collection. There is a huge volume of collections not currently accessible in this format and we are failing to meet the expectations of twenty‐first century users.” A number were confident in their offerings to their users: “We have received very positive feedback on the project and reached audiences across the world.” Some felt that they had met user needs ‘hardly at all’: “Because of specific policy issues, and capacity problems, currently we are keeping a rather low profile on digital collections.” 33 Figure 15 q38: To what extent do you feel that the digital collections at the library (where you were involved in creating digital content) meet/have met the needs of its users? Under‐development and lack of resources were cited as reasons for lack of impact. Combined with reported limitations on personal development for those who might work with digital collections in libraries, under‐development consistently appeared as a reason for under‐performance in library digital collections (Figure 17). More specific reasons included poor metadata and functionality, consistent with user feedback (Figure 10). Reasons for success were the exact reverse, with good functionality cited (Figure 16). An increase in user numbers was the principal evidence provided: “Many users have since been drawn to use the collections that have been digitised.” 34 Figure 16 q38: Reasons given for meeting user needs (UK:24 ROTW:36). Figure 17 q38: Reasons given for failing to meet user needs (UK:24 ROTW:36). More than half of respondents either didn’t know whether users had been surveyed or reported that they had not been (Figure 18). Some mentioned that users may not be the primary consideration when it comes to digital collections: “To be honest, I’m not sure that the users were the priority when deciding what 35 to digitise. Where I worked previously, projects were taken on an ad‐hoc basis, depending on where the funding came from”. In response to the question of how content was chosen for digital collections in their libraries, funding was the most common answer (Figure 19). The complexity of the selection process was revealed in the diversity of responses, with apparently opponent selection processes (such as by subject matter experts and user requests) achieving equal overall status. As noted previously, funding opportunities (grants) were more important to UK institutions, with corresponding importance given to selection by theme. Figure 18 q40: Has the library (where you were involved in creating digital content) performed user surveys in connection with digital collections? 36 Figure 19 q42: How does the library (where you were involved in creating digital content) choose the content for digital collections? (UK:38 ROTW:55). 4.3.2 Interviews It’s really not a completely different world from the initial mission of the library; it’s an add­on to it, making it more effective. Interviewees were asked how libraries ought to offer digital collections to their users in an ‘ideal world’ free from resource restrictions; what should libraries be aiming for? For some the answer was relatively straightforward: “The sort of resources that are required by their designated user community” (P1). To accomplish this, librarians would have “to work with their communities to demonstrate to them what sort of resources are available, and to get their feedback and then obtain the best resources for that particular community” (E2). Such provision would therefore depend on each particular institution and its users needs, but “where research libraries stand out is in their own special collections … because these historic collections are typically not available 37 through … subscriptions, and therefore there is a real value to be achieved in big research libraries attending to those collections” (E1). More generally, the library should “act almost as though it were a public service broadcaster, so collecting and making available material that otherwise it would be economically unsustainable to collect and make available” (E6). The emphasis on special collections and what type of material to collect was examined: “I think this is the most pressing need now, is the ability of libraries to deal with born‐digital material and increasingly I would place that as a higher priority to digitising the material that you’ve got…. Such huge quantities of information are now being created in a born‐digital format that whatever your research interests, I think you’re duty‐bound to think about how you’re going to approach that born‐digital material” (E3). Physical archives were also identified as important: “You can often get hold of a book if you try hard enough in your local area but there’s only one copy of most archival sources…” (P2). Others, in allowing themselves free reign to answer the question, revealed aspects of digital collections requiring further work: “Why not spend time lobbying for copyright change, for legislation that supports more of this work? Why not have teams of people dedicated not only to the broad brush collections‐
crossing aspect of infrastructure like storage and preservation but fund entire teams to work in the niches as well? … to support a lot of front end stuff which can often get lost as well when the back end is funded – user experience, visual design…” (P5). Fundamentally, a tension was identified between whether libraries should hold collections themselves or connect users with collections that exist in different places: “I don’t think it’s pragmatic for institutions to expect to be the locus of collecting all this material, just because of the way content flows now”; rather, librarianship itself was identified as a critical role in developing digital literacy in society: “How do you navigate information overload? How do you deal with trust and authenticity? How do you create people who are digitally confident in de‐duplicating sources and making sense of the world? Those are critical functions…” (E6). 38 4.4 Facing the future 4.4.1 Survey Librarians need to move with the times and some of them are. We need to position ourselves on the vanguard and be able to share skills with others … to survive. As curators of library collections, the librarian plays a crucial role in the provision of library digital collections. Respondents were asked for their perceptions on how well librarians were handling the associated challenges. As with responses to how libraries were meeting the needs of users (Figure 17), librarianship in a digital age was largely reported as a work in progress, with most respondents answering that librarians were equipped ‘to some extent’ (Figure 20): “In a sense, the same drive to collect and catalogue hasn’t changed, librarians just have to look in new places.” Those voicing confidence in digital change management to date cited a strong knowledge foundation of transferable skills that could be adapted to the new environment: “Same basic theoretical skills required, no matter what form the content is in. Technical skills required can be learnt.” It was also noted that librarians were taking on these new skill sets: “Libraries are retooling the organisation and staff to deal with these challenges.” 39 Figure 20 q46: A lot of information that libraries would use is now in digital form – in your opinion to what extent are librarians still equipped to collect and manage information in the current digital information environment? Of those who lacked confidence, born‐digital was cited as an overlooked collections priority: “Too much born‐digital content is already being lost to inattention; what little is being saved is inconsistently organised or described.” In some cases, the challenges faced could seem insurmountable: “We do not have the budgetary or legal resources we need to acquire, preserve and provide access to born‐digital content. Copyright law is a major stumbling block, as is the proprietary nature of software in which digital content is created. These make preservation and provision of access so potentially expensive that there is no apparent reason to acquire something.” A discrepancy between the information articulated within quantitative and qualitative responses was also present in this question. While more respondents voiced confidence in modern librarianship than lack of it within the quantitative response, the qualitative data revealed more concern than confidence within comments provided, which cited a lack of knowledge and cultural resistance, alongside a lack of time and resources to learn digital skills (Figure 21): “Unfortunately many librarians still consider digital materials ‘second class’ or somehow inferior to physical ones. If the desire is there, I’ve 40 found that even technologically‐challenged librarians can learn to work with digital materials with help and training.” Figure 21 q46: Reasons for lack of confidence (UK:27 ROTW:30). The responses of both users and digital library professionals were compared when asked whether the provision of analogue collections was still relevant in the current information environment (Figure 22). User responses appeared to corroborate the popular view that digital is not a substitute for analogue (Figure 4), and again this was repeated here as a reason for the continued analogue’s relevance. When faced with a choice between the two formats, users and professionals opted for analogue, with little support for digital as a more relevant format (Figure 23). 41 Figure 22 q78: In your view, to what extent does library provision of analogue media remain relevant in the current digital information environment? Reasons in favour of analogue (User:29 DLP:57). Figure 23 q78: Reasons in favour of digital (User:29 DLP:57). 42 4.4.2 Interviews I really am not persuaded that libraries will be with us in the same form in a decade or two… Interviewees were asked how they saw the way that digital collections provided by libraries would be changing over the next five years. Several dominant themes emerged, the first of which was the connectivity of information: “I think what will, I hope, happen … is that the capability of linked and open data, and APIs and aggregations, start making sharability a less painful and therefore more attractive option” (E6); and, “Everything will become a lot more integrated. It’s going to be about insuring this integration of content, horizontal discovery, but also depth usability” (P5); and, “They should change in terms of linked data. The tendency, I believe, is going towards these ‘one‐stop shops’ … you don’t have to know if something is in an archive or in a library, or digitised or not, you go there and search for the item and get all of the results” (P3). A consequence of this is the changing nature of the library space: “Libraries if anything will become a place where you still go to meet people and talk about ideas but it will become more about that then actually people doing their research…, because now the future is access from wherever really” (E5); and, “Libraries are increasingly dispersed … through electronic means rather than being focused on one particular big building where books are stored. The library will be more and more a place of interaction, not just with the electronic collections but with student learning” (E1). As for roles within the library, “what I see now, and this is partially a generational thing, is that there are people reaching mid to senior management positions in libraries who grew up with APIs and Web 2.0 and sharing and openness…. So I think there is a kind of tipping point thing going on at the moment” (E6). Some interviewees remarked how commercial interests could define change in libraries via different means: “A lot of it’s going to depend on the level of trust that the information providers will put within the library. Keeping a custodial view on that information, they will have to realise that that’s not the 43 best approach to take because that’s not what people want to happen in the future” (E2). The impact of mobile devices and apps was mentioned frequently: “I think the main way in which that’s going to change is going to be dealing with the availability of this material on a variety of platforms and the increasing commercialisation that’s going to occur as a result of that. The challenge that libraries are going to confront is how they avoid excessive commercialisation and insure that the data remains hooked up in that environment” (E3); and, “Libraries will probably follow the current technological trends which is more towards the provision of mobile devices. But at the same time, all of that relies on having access to high‐speed broadband Internet connection which are fine in cities, less available in rural areas and not universally available across the planet” (P1). Finally, the interviewees were asked simply whether libraries should be taking more risks to adapt to the digital environment. Of the 12 individuals interviewed, ten of them answered ‘yes’ to this question, while two offered a balanced response: “Libraries should identify areas where they do not want to take risks…. Then there should be areas in which they really should foster innovation…. They should listen sometimes to relatively junior members of staff … and create spaces in which risks can be taken in a way that does not affect business critical activities” (P3). Support for the idea of increased risk in libraries was robust: “If you only do what you’ve always done you’re only going to have what you’ve already got. Libraries have been in a constant state of change, and the idea that libraries are these staid buildings where nothing ever happens in them, that’s a view of libraries that has really only occurred within the last 80‐100 years” (E2). Relying on an established model is also affecting the creation of digital collections themselves: “The problem is that we’ve got a model that we’re quite happy with, it’s quite ‘steady state’ in terms of digital provision now. That means that we’re failing to exploit the possibilities of the technology and really to drive out the innovation that the technology can offer, and to fail to realise the transformative effects of the technology” (E3). Several responses reflected on a short‐sightedness in the sector: “I think it’s so easy to focus on the short‐term risks – on the funding cuts, the e‐books, 44 copyright – that people aren’t seeing the great big risk which is a lack of traction and relevance to the way that people deal with information in the next ten years” (E6). Interviewees also noted the extent to which changes would need to be made: “I think that the role does change for the librarian and I think those libraries which lead the way are the ones that said we are going to get rid of everything, we’re not going to have any more paper journals coming in because we don’t need them” (E5); and, “Some of the values of librarianship will be sadly lost, but I think it will also be based on greater access and greater flexibility in the use and deployment of collections, and that, broadly speaking, is about impact and therefore for the greater good” (E1). 45 5: Conclusion The benefits are not immediately tangible – it’s easy not to do this for quite awhile and still maintain a level of service … whereas the holes will appear when you start to ignore it for five years, ten years, fifteen years, all of a sudden it becomes too late. In the final analysis, are libraries meeting the needs of users with digital collections? Do users even want digital collections? One interviewee described from personal experience that “…there is broad agreement that digital collections are great, they’re very useful, people use them all the time, that they think they’re just wonderful resources in terms of how they advance the ability to do research; but when it comes to then people talking about whether they are willing to admit to having used them, the whole picture turns upside down” (E4). It would seem that a bias against digital research still exists, particularly within more traditional scholarly disciplines. The user response to this study was conservative, possibly as a manifestation of this phenomenon, but there are other explanations. The professional feedback showed that, in most cases, library digital collections are still a work in progress, with few aspects deemed reliable or established, particularly funding, staff resources and skills. Then, the model of mass digitisation endorsed by most libraries was in most cases never intended to create unique and indispensible collections, but rather to achieve an easy win for libraries, promoting access to and leveraging existing collections, possibly with some preservation benefits for the originals when potential users were diverted to their digital surrogates. It is the low‐risk option, with a corresponding impact. In some cases this can lead to extraordinary resources and new models for scholarship, but even here the scope is inherently limited and essentially represents little more than the traditional library forced into digital space. 46 The obvious alternative identified within this study was born‐digital, the special collections of the future. Born‐digital underlies the creation of almost every printed text today; with increasingly few exceptions, the supporting intellectual output behind them is also in that format. Thankfully, manuscripts still exist for study as a record of the ancient to early modern era, and printed books and physical archives have documented modern times almost to the present day. The record of our times will be digital. A rational appraisal of this past and present situation in the transmission of knowledge over time can only lead to the conclusion that, if we really value the written heritage we have been fortunate enough to receive from the past, then we will begin to seriously engage with preserving our future written heritage now. As expressed by an interviewee, “This requires a willingness to visualise the core mission of the library expressed in a digital world” (E5). Rather than relying on digital surrogates of analogue collections to engage users (who invariably value the original over a pixelated image), there may be mileage in prospecting for users through the creation of new digital content as collections in their own right. It is an exciting time to be involved in libraries and information management. It has been over five hundred years since the last comparable shift in information formats created a new environment for education, commerce and culture throughout Europe: the introduction and growth in the technologies of paper and moveable type. From this study it is clear that there is much support for the historical and artefactual value of research library special collections, and the book as a format shows no sign of disappearing soon. As a means of information transmission, however, the book and printed material are no longer common currency for information exchange in our present society and culture. Not unlike the powerful combination of movable type and rag paper that began in the mid‐fifteenth century, digital cuts through previous boundaries of availability and flow of knowledge. As Erasmus proclaimed in response to the proliferation of printed books: To what corner of the world do they not fly, these swarms of new books? . . . the very multitude of them is hurting scholarship, because it creates a glut, and even in good 47 things satiety is most harmful. [The minds of men,] flighty and curious of anything new, [are lured] away from the study of old authors (Eisenstein 2011: 25). We are faced with a similar choice: do we hold onto manuscripts as our model of a knowledge economy, or do we adopt the “swarms” and “multitude” of printed text? Do we hold onto the printed text, or do we adopt the ‘data deluge’ of born‐
digital? Certainly there is a ‘digital divide’, certainly the digital format is fragile and ephemeral, certainly the new models for libraries that cross the digital threshold are unproven, but what are the consequences for those who do, or do not? The UK Government has chosen to invest in technology: superfast broadband infrastructure, combined with seed funding to urge the arts industry to embrace new business models and technology; it shows no inclination to support the library sector in its current form. Would a library sector that put digital literacy and the knowledge economy at the forefront of its mission attract a different response? This is an area that merits further consideration. As many have pointed out, creating and managing digital collections is not cheap; many feel restricted by lack of funding and other resources. The outcomes of this study suggest that perceptions are critical in solving this problem. Every institution is different, but the growing evidence suggests that if a library were to truly focus on its mission instead of focusing on the formats of its collections, funding would not be the problem that it appeared to be before. It becomes a problem when a library tries to straddle the old world and the new, attempting to make digital collections, which demand new models for genuine and efficient exploitation, fit into an old analogue model focused on the printed text. This process is unsustainable, and fails to situate libraries in the position of influence they could hold in the present knowledge economy. Overwhelmingly, the message for the future here has been one of increased connectivity, with libraries effectively described as knowledge ‘hubs’. As library buildings become increasingly perceived as warehouses for books, “enormous, handsome ghost ships sailing on with all lights on and no passengers” (Grafton 2008), the growth in digital formats for knowledge has the potential to revitalise the library physical space. Beyond the scope of this study 48 but important is the need to re‐examine what a library is now and how that will continue to evolve into the future. The Urban Mediaspace Aarhus in Denmark, The Hive university‐public hybrid library in the UK and digital innovation at New York Public Library in the US show the massive potential for the reassertion of the library as civic space. To assume these roles and meet their potential, to manage these changes and mitigate risk, the cultivation of collaborative structures are essential for UK libraries. In many respects libraries are on their own now, without funding, without strategic guidance, without a clear identity. For the right library, that may be an extraordinary opportunity. 49 References ALA (1989), Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: Final Report, Chicago: American Library Association. Anderson, J. and Rainie, L. (2012), The Future of Apps and Web, Pew Research Center (23 March 2012). Available online: http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2012/PIP_Future_of_Ap
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