5.3 Risk Aversion Narrows the Future of Libraries

Librarians like to believe that we are a source for innovation, but where is our innovation in the services we provide to the scientific community? Are we perhaps not as innovative as we think we are? Jump 20 years forward. Virtually all scientific research is open access. It is unimaginable that researchers do not archive and share their data and software. The quantity of digitally-born assets, including citizen-created content, has exploded; it is supported by global infrastructure linked to networks of tools tailored to individual research communities. Journals still exist but articles have become complex, interlinked communications that include text, data and software, and are mined by semantic algorithms more than read by humans. In the future libraries will have stopped doing much of what we are doing today. We keep up with the most promising trends in scholarly communications. We deploy realistic strategies to enable researchers to be successful, especially when those green shoots of innovation spring up in our own institutions. We look at everything we do through the lens of the expectations and behaviors of our users, be they scientists or citizens with information needs. What should libraries be doing in 2017 to be meaningful partners for authors and readers, and our institutions, in this world? Do we feel confident that we be able to respond nimbly as these changes come along if we continue along our current path? What are the barriers we must overtime to become that kind of library? Libraries are weighed down by significant ballast we carry from our print past. The Integrated Library System, and its print- and process-centric workflows and mindset, is a major culprit. It holds us back at a time when platforms based on modern web technologies that manage complex digital objects and are designed around how researchers work today are already available. Certainly, these will change over the next 20 years, but that does not mean libraries can simply afford to hold back until things are “settled” and the “perfect” solution has come along. Bringing these platforms into the library in place of the old-school ILS can serve as a catalyst for library staff to think differently, spend less time on lower-value work, and see the library first of all through their users’ eyes. Developing relevant skills, cultivating engagement, and building our future credibility within our institutions, can all happen now. Innovation cannot be limited to a few cutting-edge institutions. If libraries of all sizes and types do not want to be pushed aside from their centuries-long role in the research and education enterprise, we can–and must–take greater risks, begin to live in the future. This paper will feature two “visitors from the future,” the CERN and Caltech libraries. We will share our initiatives, each informed by a researcher-first mindset and employing tools and collaborations undertaken in partnership with TIND (CERN spin-off). We believe the steps CERN and Caltech have taken to begin to build our libraries of 2035 can serve as relevant, even inspiring, models for others