JP Rangaswami, author of the routinely insightful Confused of Calcutta blog, had an interesting post yesterday in which he considered the role of the ‘livebrarian‘.

JP is not a librarian. He’s formerly CIO and now ‘Chief of Alternative Market Models’ at London investment bank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (which seems to have expunged Wasserstein from its name?). Suddenly, my ‘Technology Evangelist’ looks tame by comparison…

Returning to my point, JP writes;

“There are a number of critical differences between the physical libraries of yore and the digital library that is the web. I think there is a way of categorising them:

Time. Libraries are static. The web is live.

Shape. Libraries have books and magazines and CDs and DVDs and tapes and a few other things. The web has all of these, sound, picture, video, text.

Location. Libraries are physically located in particular places. The web is everywhere and global.

Scale. Libraries contain a discrete and finite number of items. The web is infinite.

Classification basis. Libraries rely on Dewey and its extensions. The web relies on tags.

Nature. When you take a book out of a library, it is with you and not with the library. When you take something out of the web, it is still there.

Speed of change. Libraries measure their purchases and their culling and their weeding in months. The web does it in seconds.

I could go on, but that’s not the point.

The point is that the web is live.

So we need livebrarians. Part bookseller, part journalist, but primarily librarian. Librarian of something that is live.”

I could stand back and wait for the horrified howls of the biblioblogosphere but I won’t, because JP makes a number of valid points. Some I might question, others I would identify as extremely valid differences deserving of protection.

I would argue, though, that the libraries we are trying to build today embrace many of JP’s points.

The library of Library 2.0 [pdf] is fully immersed in the living flows both of the web and of the physical and social spaces within which it rests. The library itself grows, shifts and adapts to the world around it, whilst offering a resolute core of public service values and societal memory.

The library of Library 2.0 [pdf] celebrates the wealth of material held within our buildings and reaches out to integrate it with the multiple media streams pervading cyberspace.

The library of Library 2.0 delights in offering a physical space in which its beneficiaries can meet, interact, communicate and learn, whilst extending and re-imagining those services in an online space, whether integrating with Amazon, appearing in Second Life, or delivering traditional services to the distance learner.

The library of Library 2.0 exults in integrating the consistency and cohesiveness of formal classification systems with the more fluid granularity of the folksonomy.

The library of Library 2.0 refutes the primacy of the book, recognising the diverse ways in which different audiences respond to different delivery mechanisms for different purposes.

The library of Library 2.0 harnesses the enthusiasm and talents of its staff, its benefactors and its beneficiaries in order to ensure that the latest modes of expression and fashions in thought are available for all, alongside a wealth of context and depth.

To turn JP’s neologism around, the deadrarian has no place today, and nor does the deadrary. Libraries are vital (in all senses), and seizing the opportunities presented by modern technology, modern thinking, and falling costs of execution and ownership to reach out further than ever before. They deliver services that people want, need and value, and they deliver them where, when, and how required.

“The libraries we have are new, a different paradigm.”

…

“Kids are allowed to make noise. In fact everyone’s allowed to make noise. There are no SILENCE signs in the web.”

That one’s for you to respond to, Michael Stephens! I think you might have a Flickr stream to share…?

At Talis, we recognise that libraries need to change in order to fulfil their potential in the 21st century. We see many (typically isolated) examples of librarians and others beginning to push those changes through. Coming from a background in the library world, we are now forging a new organisation capable of seizing opportunities to work in a totally different way, delivering value to libraries and their beneficiaries, wherever they may be. A commitment to Open Source. A commitment to Open Data. The construction of a Semantic Web-underpinning Open Platform, and an active effort to engage set us apart from traditional providers in this space, and point the way to libraries which are very much alive for many years to come.

Turning to the comments, ‘Dan’ (presumably Daniel Pett at the Portable Antiquities Scheme? Hi Dan!) draws attention to the People’s Network Enquire Service, a centrally controlled virtual reference solution also available in other forms outside the UK. A wholly personal opinion, this, but I’ve never liked these things. Give me a library that simply runs a proper IM service any day… That’s a library that’s making the effort to fit itself into my workflow and my way of working, rather having the hubris to expect me to drop out of Adium and engage with them on their terms in their monolithic, screen- and cpu-grabbing client. Who’s the customer, again?

My illustration, in an attempt at lateral thinking, shows the view across to the Bank of America from inside the Seattle Public Library. The picture was taken by Victor Szalvay, and is available on Flickr, licensed with a Creative Commons licence. Thanks, Victor!

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