Eric Schnell Associate Professor Head, Information Technology Prior Health Sciences Library Technology and Innovation: The Librarian's Dilemma.

Eric SchnellAssociate Professor

Head, Information TechnologyPrior Health Sciences Library

Technology and Innovation: The Librarian's Dilemma

Andrew Heller

“Technology is like a fish. The longer it stays on the shelf, the less desirable it becomes”

CEO Heller Associates; lead IBM RS6000 team

David Thornburg

“One of the worst things that Xerox ever did was to describe something as the office of the future because if something is the office of the future, you never finish it. There’s never anything to ship, because once it works, it’s the office of today. And who wants to work in the office of today?”

The Thornburg Center

Presentation Overview

- Clayton Christensen

- Sustaining and disruptive technologies- Are libraries organized to innovate?- Challenges- Solutions?

Clayton Christensen

- “Innovator’s Dilemma”

- Hard drive industry

- Why do good managers fail?

- Sustaining vs. disruptive technologies

- Value and resource allocation

- Separate organizations

Factors that Inhibit Innovation

Organizations are designed to focus on and protect existing practices than pay attention to developing new ideas. The more successful an organization the more difficult this is.

Innovation transforms the structure and practices of an organization.

The problem is creating an infrastructure conducive to innovation

Van De Ven, Andrew H. “Central Problems in the Management of Innovation”

Sustaining

Improves the performance of established products or services that mainstream customers have historically valued

Organizational structures and resource allocation remain (relatively) unchanged

Disruptive Innovation

“… new organizations can use relatively simple, convenient, low-cost innovations to create growth and triumph over powerful incumbents…”

Disruption

- Is a process, not an event

- What is disruptive for one organization may be sustaining to another

- Is not limited to technology

- Can occur in any service market

Sustaining vs. Disruptive

Sustaining vs. Disruptive

Sustaining vs. Disruptive

Disruptive Innovation

Innovative product or service initially underperforms established market

Customers pay a premium for improvements

Disruptive technologies often do not meet functional needs of high-end customers

Disruptive Innovation

Overshot customers will pay premium for improvements

Many no longer pay premium for improvements because of competition

Organizations marketing to overshot customers are vulnerable to disruption

Sustaining vs. Disruptive

Sustaining vs. Disruptive

Sustaining vs. Disruptive

Sustaining vs. Disruptive

A Librarian’s Dilemma ?

- Survey current customer needs

- Place value on sustaining services

- Have organizations designed to focus on and protect existing practices

- Allocate resources to support sustaining services

- Lack organizational structure conducive to innovation

Librarian’s Dilemma

By listening to our customers and placing value and allocating resources on what they “need,” are libraries destined to meet a fate similar to hard drive manufacturers?

Challenges

Library Innovation?

- Digital library systems- Chat reference- Link resolvers- Metasearch interfaces- Content management systems- Electronic resources management

Library Innovation?

Library Innovation?

Library Innovation?

Library Innovation?

Innovation in Libraries

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to identify any of the requirements and needs for a potentially disruptive technology. This is because we don’t know anything about the technology. It can’t be analyzed.

Therefore, the goal of the innovation process in libraries should be one of learning and the exploration of new ideas and not meeting the needs of our current customers.

Roy Tennant

“…prototyping can be a useful and efficient way to explore functionality and design in the very early stages of a project. Such feedback can prevent serious and expensive course corrections later, or, more important, keep you from releasing a system that inadequately or erroneously addresses the need you sought to serve. ”

Library Journal May 15, 2006

Stewart Brand

“Demo or Die”

in 1988 book about MIT Media Lab

Are Libraries Organized to Innovate?

 - Do administrators really understand today’s technology environment?- If not, how can they affect organizational and process change to foster innovation? - If so, what are libraries doing to create new organizations and processes?- What are the best practices?

How are Decisions Made?

 - Current customer demands- ROI- If so, what are libraries doing to create new organizations and processes?- What are the best practices?

Challenges

- Libraries are resource dependent. Cater to those providing the funding.

- Libraries wait until new technologies are popular enough to be interesting, then buy them from vendors

- Libraries plan to create committees that do the planning

Resource Challenges

Budgets

Staffing

Budget

"You must appeal to the public you have. People who pay taxes want what they are paying for."

John Shelton, former director, Gwinnett County Public Library

Carrie Young “Bestsellers at Center of Controversy” Gwinnett Daily Post. June 11, 2006

Budgets

Library Journal Automated System Marketplace 2006

Increasing cost of serialsIncreasing cost of software licenses

Budgets

Nicole C. Engard. http://www.web2learning.net/archives/332

Where does III fit? I’d say it’s like a crazy cousin you have to deal with because he’s family”

Staffing

Administrative 17%Reference/Information Services/Outreach 16%Acquisitions/Collections/Tech Services 15%Subject Librarian/Bibliographer 10%Archive/Special Collections 10%Instruction/Literacy 10%Cataloging/Metadata 8%Circulation/Access Services 5%IT/Systems 4%Digital Library/Media 3%Web Services/System Design 2%

ACRL Job Site Jan 1 – May 8, 2006

Solutions?

- Budget Reallocation

- IT Decision Making

- Disruptive Technology Play Group

- Organizational / Process Structure

- Collaboration/Open Source Consortiums

Budget Reallocation

- Rethink sustaining services

- Rethink open positions

- Position sharing

Decision Making

- Involved IT staff from start?

- Is IT support assumed?

- Are priorities set in an authoritative or directive manner?

- Do pet projects take precedence?

Disruptive Technology Group

- Creative / brainstorm / sandbox

- Tech savvy members

- Operates outside SOP

Organizational / Process Structure

- Build for change (vertical teams?)- Technology / service lifecycle- Processes and procedures. One size

does not fit all. - Innovation pigeonholed into existing

processes will lose it’s potential.

Collaboration/ Open Source Consortiums

- Partner with other organizational IT groups / position sharing

- Library systems paradigm- 2005 ILS marketplace alone: $535

million- Open Source !

Bottom Line

Library administrators need to think out of the box for solutions, not for solutions that comes out of a box

Thank You!

Comments?

http://ericschnell.blogspot.com

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