What if users ate rather than borrowed books?

OK, so this post is really about ‘thinking outside the box’. There I said it, and I wasn’t struck down by a bolt of lightning! This phrase is now considered to be so uber-corny that even your common or garden bullsh**ter – every organisation has one - doesn’t use it anymore. Anyway,  I was last encouraged to, erm, think outside the box, earlier this month during a ‘creativity workshop’ at the EBSLG conference in Ashridge. As you can probably imagine, just the phrase ‘creativity workshop’ struck terror into the hearts of many of the attendees, as they mused on the inherent danger of role-play implied by such a title. The reality was thankfully painless, and better still, I do think that it has encouraged me, in one very specific respect, to think differently.

The session, which was led by Phil Anderson (he of the startlingly orange shirt) and Angela Jowitt, began with the audience trying out simple tasks such as joining up A & B on a piece of paper and tearing up paper with our eyes closed - you know the sort of thing. However, these seemingly pointless tasks had an important function, as they proved that we are conditioned to think in a certain way, for e.g. with the A & B paper task, most of us fell into the trap of following the maze that had  been printed on the paper to join the two points, rather than just drawing a straight line between the two, or simply rolling the paper up to link them, despite the fact that no rules had been specified.

We were then asked to look at different images, problems and sequences, that had been posted  around the room, and to add our answers or descriptions to the sheet. There were of course no right or wrong answers this was about using our imagination and perspective to provide different ideas and options.

Prior to the conference we had been asked to send on details of questions we wanted answering during this session, and these formed the basis of the next stage of the workshop: working in groups to solve these dilemmas creatively. However, before we separated into groups, everyone was given the opportunity to pose more questions. All the questions (new and pre-sent) were subsequently sorted into generic groups by a whole crowd of delegates (I sat back for fear of being trampled to death in the ensuing melee!) before we had to individually choose an issue that we were most interested in solving, by going and standing next to it (a bit like TV’s Runaround but without Mike Reid bellowing at us to “Runaround nahhhhh!”). I had wanted my pet topic of ‘engaging faculty’ to be solved but by this point in the proceedings this has unfortunately been genericised to the overall problem of communication so I chose that. Of course, Phil then turned the tables and we ended up being given another group’s problem to solve (‘making library services innovative’), while another group took on our choice. Dang!

We were then guided to separate breakout rooms where we were greeted by terrible jazzy music (which I think was meant to encourage us to be creative, but by general agreement was promptly switched off ), what I can only assume was the ’EU coloured card mountain’, spray glue and a stack of magazines. Yep, you’ve guessed it, the next task was a mood-board.

After duly sticking innovative slogans and images all over flipchart paper for a good half hour, two of us (there were six in our group and around 6 groups in total) were asked to join some other equally intrigued pairs back in the main room, in order to learn a technique for thinking creatively. The technique we got to learn about was using ‘What if?’ statements in order to encourage leaps of imagination,  to lead you in turn to solutions to problems that would not ordinarily have occurred to you. The examples we came up in this mini-session are listed on the flipchart in the image below (e.g. What if monkeys ruled the world; What if this isn’t reality? and the firm favourite: What if we had an unlimited budget?) all of which led us down surprising new lines of thought and demonstrated once again how we can become too constrained by rules and regulations when attempting to solve problems.

Concurrently to this ‘What if’ teaching , other pairs were being taught other techniques (examining the reverse of a situation, word association etc.) The two of us then returned to our group and began to try out this new technique and thus began what can only be described as a dizzying spiral into insanity. For example: What if users ate rather than borrowed books?, which led us to muse that you would have to classify books according to taste (!) and from there to what flavours would be most popular and the fact that there would be no loans as such just a gradually diminishing stock, and so on. This and several other ‘What if’s’ ultimately led us to consider the possibility of library film nights, a hunt the librarian quest and, my personal favourite, giving the students a physical induction gift ironically called ‘The Gift of Knowledge’ (subtitled: the gift that keeps on giving) – a little box containing little cards advising on effective searching, key resources and the like. After coming back to reality we then had a chat with the rest of our group and agreed how we would present our collective findings to the other group. This other group then chose the idea of ours they liked best and vice versa. It is at this point that I must admit that I have entirely forgotten what was selected, probably because it seemed inane and far too safe to me at the time. However, I suspect the choice was largely irrelevant as the whole purpose of the afternoon was NOT to focus on the solutions, but to recognise that there  just might be creative ways of getting to them.

The workshop proved useful and entertaining and not just because we weren’t being talked at, but because it genuinely highlighted how programmed and limited we can become in our thinking.

I wonder how many blank looks I’ll get from next year’s students when I get around to presenting them with ‘The Gift of Knowledge’ TM?

Andy

Exploring tomorrow today

Last week I attended another challenging session at the EBSLG conference at Ashridge , presented by Christine Reid, a member of faculty at the University of Strathclyde as well as its Learning Resource Manager.

Christine presented an incredibly detailed overview of the issues and trends outside the library (and business school) world which will inevitably impact upon what we as librarians will do in the future. She was upfront about the fact that she didn’t pretend to have the answers and was keen to provoke discussion instead.

Highlights:

• The fact that as humans we are conditioned to think that tomorrow will be the same, however, we actually need to expect the unexpected. Christine referred to Bertrand Russell’s turkey: “A turkey is fed evey day. Every single feeding firms up the bird’s belief thta it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race. On the afternoon before Christmas Day, however, the turkey is surprised by not being fed. Instead if itself now becomes the food for the Christmas activities.” We as librarians must not suddenly become the equivalent of Christmas dinner!
• Keynes notion that: “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas, an in escpaing from old ones.
• Facts about today’s youth: younger than the Internet; never known a mobile-less world; have friends around the world; and one electronic device for everything. 9 out of 10 teenagers have a PC, a mobile phone and a games console. These ‘digital natives’: just do it; like to feel in control; have a short attention span, and are comfortable with media multi-tasking. When they enter higher education they’ll want diferent services to those currently being offered and when they enter the world of work they’ll want the workplace to adapt to them not the other way round.
• Computing power is still doubling every 18 months (Moore’s Law). Technology is key to the development of our library services, but will it ensnare us or free us?
• Significance of the growth of social media. We can now all be publishers, movie makers, artists and storytellers. And we can all influence what happens e.g. return of the Wispa bar. Also directly helping companies to make money – Threadless. The media revolution focuses on the individual – ‘You’ (Time Magazines’ ‘Person of the Year’ in 2006)
• Education is changing – now embracing different types of learning: blended; personalised; participative and activity-based; collaborative; problem-based; and not just in the classroom.
• Business Education/Business School issues: budgets; globalization; partnerships; corporate universities; publish or perish; research assessment; rankings and accreditation; eLearning – the fact that emerging technologies are transforming teaching and learning.
• Relevance of our services is absolutely key.

Closing Thoughts:

• Are we prepared for technological change?
• How much are our future visions based upon invalid assumptions?
• How open are we to having our worldview challenged?
• Are we ready to tackle the challenges and opportunities?

Christine’s session was backed up with some very detailed stats on current trends ensuring that the audience  felt the momentum of the changes she described more keenly. This also helped to make the session specific rather than generic as is so often the case.

After the session I found myself particualrly questioning how open I really am to having my worldview challenged and also how many libraries and librarians in the UK (especially in the business school sector) may become that Christmas Turkey over the next few years.

I like to think that the service I head up is relevant and embracing of change, but will that be enough for us?  Do faculty truly recognise the value of the many services we offer? If it came to the crunch would they rally round and support the cost of the service?

Andy

10 challenges for the library profession

Over the next week or so I’ll be posting summaries and reviews of the many excellent sessions presented at the recent EBSLG conference at Ashridge Management College (5-8 May 2009), The first session was led by Tony Sheehan, Ashridge’s Learning Services Director.

Tony identified 10 challenges that currently face the library profession and which were also intended to answer the increasingly asked question: “Do we need libraries at all?”

Tony’s 10 Challenges:
1. Business
Librarians should be integrating with all parts of their organisation and avoid their library becoming a silo. Collaboration and connectivity are therefore key.
2. Workload
Information has grown exponentially but our capacity to absorb it has not. There is an ever widening zone of ignorance.
3. Search
Librarians are now answering more complex research questions than ever. This shift is important and will help us to erode the zone of ignorance (see above). 
4. Attention
We are now driven  by info-lust and distracted by content and therefore hyperlinking off in our own minds all the time. Mistakes arise from our ‘emotional tagging’ of information and recognising misleading patterns. After Bazerman and Chugh, we need to bring the right information into our conscious awareness at the right time.
5. Complexity
Librarians are now facing brand new problems and the answers are frequently to be found in different disciplines.
6. Connections
The Internet now offers us connections. Shirky: “Each URL is a latent community” – the trigger for richand engaging conversations – the launch point for creativity”. Technology is providing us with connections that should be fully utilised. e.g. the lizard spit that may provide the answers to diabetes.
7. Communities
Networks of knowledge (such as EBSLG) are now more important than ever for librarians. See book: The Wisdom of Crowds and e.g. of checking out TripAdvisor before choosing a hotel.
8. Technology
What we all now experience at home, technology-wise, is setting the standard for our experience at work. We can do almost everything electronically now. e.g. of use of World of Warcraft by CISCO for job selection process!
9. Personalisation
Eagleton refers to the human situation of ”hasty, random choices with little thought and evaluation”, which we’ve arrived at through Google and the search engine revolution. Critical information skills have been lost and librarians have to ensure that they are still on the agenda by providing the best of both worlds (Google and information portals/services).
10. Reflection
We should be spending more time reflecting, thinking and learning and less time doing. Space is important. We need this in order to keep up with the latest trends.
Conclusion:
Libraries and librarians can still be valuable if they can keep up-to-date and respond to organisational, individual and environmental needs. The problem is that many library services are currently invisible.

Although there was nothing particularly groundbreaking about Tony’s presentation, I found it to be both affirming and relevant.
His call for librarians to spend more time relecting and learning in order to keep up-to-date was actually the final catalyst for me to start blogging. As for the invisbility factor – promoting my own library service to make it as visible as possible is easily my number one priority on a day-to-day basis.

Andy