Andrew - As a Library Director - may I be the first to say - "Spot On". I have delivered this message to my patrons and staff, but not as eloquently. This will be required watching for every staff member, because all levels of staff contribute to the curation and help to leverage the advantage of place
Loved this talk and thought you completely nailed it Andrew . I've been in plenty of libraries that don't necessarily cater to their communities, but to be fair, most public funding has slowly been leeched away from them making it hard to compete. From I an see, most libraries have never applied market principles to their business...because they don't view themselves as a business or competing for customers. I applaud your efforts. We'd be a lesser society without our libraries.
As a library para professional I am open to constructive criticism and thoroughly enjoyed listening to Andrew Roskill's honest opinion of his library experience. We do need to make access easier, I spend a lot of my time showing students how to access information and I share their frustration. Passwords for logging onto networks, different passwords to access online learning management systems and more passwords to access databases, and so on. I also agree that we have to provide the services that our clients want and take on our competitors by encouraging people to come to the library. We must provide excellent customer service and I know many of my students would appreciate laptop rental, free printing (limited to a certain number of pages of course), technology help and advice, tutorial support and also information literacy classes. Thank you Andrew I will be sharing your RUclips clip with my colleagues.
Great presentation. Andrew really gets the difference between library catalogs and gateways and Google/Amazon. If only libraries could make the experience seamless. His most important point was Libraries are curators and know about curation. We should remember and focus on that, taking advantage of what computers can do for access to information.
Really enjoyed this, the message that libraries need to provide a user experience more like Apple or Amazon is so true. I tried to check out an ebook from my library using Overdrive and just gave up. The problem with the ebook circulation constraints is driven by the publishers ... something needs to change.
I’m really bothered that he basically says the library experience is purposefully difficult and complicated because they’re trying to limit people from getting free books… as if anyone *actually designed* the current state of things. That’s like saying potluck dinners are 80% pasta salads and 20% jello-based desserts because there’s a conspiracy out there to bore people to death. It’s difficult and complicated because there is no single entity in charge of the entire experience, and so *it doesn’t get designed at all.*
Jason Pokines When planning a potluck, it's wise to have a sign-up sheet or similar device to ensure that you don't wind up with an end result that suits no one's needs. Libraries have for years taken whatever table scraps are offered by publishers, aggregators, and vendors. These systems are almost uniformly unusable as standalone products, and become exponentially more-so when thrown together. It's long past time for some quality control. At what point to libraries begin refusing to accept this level of quality from those entities who happily take our money? THAT'S the point of this talk. As long as libraries and librarians hand out funds for content without regard to the quality of that content's presentation and interoperation, we'll continue getting a poor user experience. You're right that no one has designed the current sad state of affairs. So let's get to designing.
To be fair, he did say he was pulling from a specific example there (article entitled "Welcome to Crazytown"). That article and the experience it describes (which discusses the artificial limitation) is about the app Overdrive. Overdrive was actually designed (although one could argue this given how poorly it was done) and does impose limits on how many books you can borrow, how long you can have them (currently trying to read an 1200 page book in 14 days), and how many books you can request to get in line to borrow. That portion of his talk resonated with me. I instantly recognized which app he was discussing because of my own awful experiences with it. While I am grateful for the access to the books (as I couldn't otherwise afford my reading habit), I must say I find the user experience completely aggravating!
Thanks for a very thought/discussion provoking talk, and I'm glad the comments below clarify that publishers more than librarians control a number of the eBook experiences regarding circulation. The one thing I would push a bit further on is that primary focus on economic development and wealth. While not unimportant, I believe it is one of a number of community building goals at which the library can be a central facilitator. Indeed, the Whole Foods metaphor opens up this possibility that was then lost when the following bridge slide returned to an economic stance. As with Whole Foods, the experience is designed around the community, and it's likely economic development will be one focus. But all, no matter of income, also value a range of other community building outcomes beyond economic development/wealth. Thanks again for what I expect will be a great resource for my library and information science classes!
I totally agree with Andrew that libraries need to talk to their patrons to know what they like and dislike. Unfortunately, it seems libraries have top down approach instead of a grass root approach.
I am happy to see this topic being raised through TED and commend Andrew on his technical approach to this challenging topic. I don't think there is a Librarian or library staff member that would disagree with anything that he said. Unfortunately, there are many factors in this conversation that were not addressed during this talk which make doing this "easy" impossible (in the current climate) - at least in terms of eBooks. Library budgets are flat-lined, if not declining, in most jurisdictions and the provision of digital content is a whole new service that needs to be developed inside of these budget constraints. Publishing is in a state of flux and many are struggling with developing a library-based digital business model that they are comfortable with and is profitable for them. There is limited competition in terms of platform vendors - all of which cost a fairly significant chunk of change, before a single item is purchased. Add into this mix Digital Rights Management and international copyright issues. I think we would all love the solution to be easy - in a perfect world it would be. But, for now, we are doing the best with the tools that are available and the climate in which we work. As a technology entrepreneur, I know that there are libraries around the world who are looking to make the process easier and to improve the experience of our users. Are you up to the challenge of taking a crack at this?
If you look at his response to the comments, he is a tech person who works for a company that is working with libraries to help them access digital content. So, I would say his answer would be that he is currently taking a crack at it.
He is on point about marketing and branding libraries but a lot of libraries don't have money or employees to achieve a business model and libraries don't have control over electronic user interfaces when they buy from vendors.
I think there are some good points in this presentation. Most of them I would agree libraries need to improve on - providing mobile access, promoting individualized and curated content, leveraging the physical presence. The one area I think public libraries will continue to struggle with is the discovery interface challenge of "easy, elegant, engaging" Public libraries have limited budgets and can't often afford interface designers. They rely on off the shelf products that are built by library specific vendors whose products probably wouldn't be adopted more broadly in a larger community due to poor interface design. It would be great to see the technology community make a stab at improving these discovery tools at a price point public libraries could afford.
The ebook part is pretty funny, but this guy is completely out of his element for blaming libraries for the sad state of digital content. It's not librarians that impose the false scarcity of ebooks, but the publishers. Also, his holier-than-thou disposition is so incredibly aggravating. The things that he's telling librarians to "leverage," most have been doing for a long time, but he's not a librarian and given his social economic status probably not a library user either. He basically has no concept of what a library does and who it services, but as an affluent white man, he likes to shop at Whole Foods, so let's make libraries like Whole Foods. Really? I have yet to enter a library that doesn't cater to its community with the content that it provides. That's exactly what libraries do. He would know that if he wasn't blinded by his money. As a society, we really need to stop listening to businessmen and libraries need to stop listening to slimy vendors like this guy,
Andrew Roskill A lot of libraries are leveraging local, digital content. librarybox.us/ is a great example. Makerspaces and local gardening (seed libraries) are taking off, as well.
Hi Andrew, i agree with1librarian - you are a little out of your element here - before creating this presentation did you think to perhaps speak to (any) librarians about what you might present? I absolutely love anything that will advocate on behalf of libraries, however i was disappointed that your main theme seemed to be "libraries don't understand what users want". The very sad situation is that many librarians are very frustrated at not being able to provide similar services akin to those of the big names you mentioned. I challenge you to find any library that is cashed up enough to even attempt to provide the same kind of experience. we are all typically reliant on as you say "tax payer dollars" and those that have a say in how many of those tax dollars we get are every year more and more frugal with those tax dollars. Instead of encouraging your audience to "let the library know", how about encouraging the public to let their politicians know?? You are not telling librarians anything we dont already know. When you mention the 50 shades of grey book, how much it cost, and then state "is this the best use of resources" i think you fail to take into account a number of things, ie if we didnt provide that book, our patrons would go straight to those big three you are telling us to be more like, and you also dont investigate why it costs the library so much to provide access to such a book. one word. publishers. library content is not free - we have to purchase these resources. you also fail here to mention how libraries can attempt to achieve your suggestions - we are all ears (on a library budget, of course). Would love to see you do another talk that took on the people who can actually help libraries make some of the changes you suggest - as i said, you are preaching to the converted.
Andrew Roskill The problem is, publishers shouldn't be ABLE to boss libraries around like media producers boss around corporations like Netflix. Libraries are a public institution. We shouldn't have to be fighting them, since our mission is enshrined in the laws of this country. The publishers are just benefiting from the fact these laws are only seen to apply to print, not digital content. If we could change that in the law, it would benefit libraries much quicker than trying to ape Google or Amazon or Netflix, things that WOULD be less valuable without the popular content. Netflix streaming, by the way, is demonstrably less valuable in that it doesn't offer popular or even sleeper hits.
"Its Google but just not as good"...often a public perception but entirely untrue. The library set up is likely better organized and less over-run by excess, duplication or irrelevant information. The rest though is very well laid out.
While I agree somewhat, particularly re: "excess," there is also tons of stuff on Google (and Google Scholar, which college students are increasingly using over library web sites) that you can't get at the library, and a ton of the library stuff is "reference" databases which are often just encyclopedic-like snippets, or links to links to content that can't be accessed. Moreover, the discovery engines that libraries employ are often not the best (due to lesser technology and/or content indexing). So both have plusses and minuses, but following trends in student use should be telling and I think that was the point.
This is going to sound very cynical, but the stated assumption of "Digital literacy will give people jobs" or solve income inequality doesn't have a lot of support behind it.
Ok great talk, but nothing new. I work in a library. we have been discussing this problem for years............ no real solution was offered in the talk. i see your company claims to be the solution. what library systems has Biblioboard helped improve?
Andrew - As a Library Director - may I be the first to say - "Spot On". I have delivered this message to my patrons and staff, but not as eloquently. This will be required watching for every staff member, because all levels of staff contribute to the curation and help to leverage the advantage of place
Loved this talk and thought you completely nailed it Andrew . I've been in plenty of libraries that don't necessarily cater to their communities, but to be fair, most public funding has slowly been leeched away from them making it hard to compete. From I an see, most libraries have never applied market principles to their business...because they don't view themselves as a business or competing for customers. I applaud your efforts. We'd be a lesser society without our libraries.
As a library para professional I am open to constructive criticism and thoroughly enjoyed listening to Andrew Roskill's honest opinion of his library experience. We do need to make access easier, I spend a lot of my time showing students how to access information and I share their frustration. Passwords for logging onto networks, different passwords to access online learning management systems and more passwords to access databases, and so on. I also agree that we have to provide the services that our clients want and take on our competitors by encouraging people to come to the library. We must provide excellent customer service and I know many of my students would appreciate laptop rental, free printing (limited to a certain number of pages of course), technology help and advice, tutorial support and also information literacy classes. Thank you Andrew I will be sharing your RUclips clip with my colleagues.
The library has been my second home since childhood. I use Google, RUclips , tweeter, StoryCorp, and love the digital age.
Awesome presentation! Thanks Andrew.
Great presentation. Andrew really gets the difference between library catalogs and gateways and Google/Amazon. If only libraries could make the experience seamless. His most important point was Libraries are curators and know about curation. We should remember and focus on that, taking advantage of what computers can do for access to information.
The libraries as Whole Foods analogy was awesome. Love.
Really enjoyed this Andrew, great presentation. Hope they grab onto this idea, because the change is certainly needed.
Really enjoyed this, the message that libraries need to provide a user experience more like Apple or Amazon is so true. I tried to check out an ebook from my library using Overdrive and just gave up. The problem with the ebook circulation constraints is driven by the publishers ... something needs to change.
I’m really bothered that he basically says the library experience is purposefully difficult and complicated because they’re trying to limit people from getting free books… as if anyone *actually designed* the current state of things. That’s like saying potluck dinners are 80% pasta salads and 20% jello-based desserts because there’s a conspiracy out there to bore people to death. It’s difficult and complicated because there is no single entity in charge of the entire experience, and so *it doesn’t get designed at all.*
Jason Pokines When planning a potluck, it's wise to have a sign-up sheet or similar device to ensure that you don't wind up with an end result that suits no one's needs.
Libraries have for years taken whatever table scraps are offered by publishers, aggregators, and vendors. These systems are almost uniformly unusable as standalone products, and become exponentially more-so when thrown together. It's long past time for some quality control.
At what point to libraries begin refusing to accept this level of quality from those entities who happily take our money? THAT'S the point of this talk. As long as libraries and librarians hand out funds for content without regard to the quality of that content's presentation and interoperation, we'll continue getting a poor user experience.
You're right that no one has designed the current sad state of affairs. So let's get to designing.
To be fair, he did say he was pulling from a specific example there (article entitled "Welcome to Crazytown"). That article and the experience it describes (which discusses the artificial limitation) is about the app Overdrive. Overdrive was actually designed (although one could argue this given how poorly it was done) and does impose limits on how many books you can borrow, how long you can have them (currently trying to read an 1200 page book in 14 days), and how many books you can request to get in line to borrow. That portion of his talk resonated with me. I instantly recognized which app he was discussing because of my own awful experiences with it. While I am grateful for the access to the books (as I couldn't otherwise afford my reading habit), I must say I find the user experience completely aggravating!
Thanks for a very thought/discussion provoking talk, and I'm glad the comments below clarify that publishers more than librarians control a number of the eBook experiences regarding circulation. The one thing I would push a bit further on is that primary focus on economic development and wealth. While not unimportant, I believe it is one of a number of community building goals at which the library can be a central facilitator. Indeed, the Whole Foods metaphor opens up this possibility that was then lost when the following bridge slide returned to an economic stance. As with Whole Foods, the experience is designed around the community, and it's likely economic development will be one focus. But all, no matter of income, also value a range of other community building outcomes beyond economic development/wealth. Thanks again for what I expect will be a great resource for my library and information science classes!
I totally agree with Andrew that libraries need to talk to their patrons to know what they like and dislike. Unfortunately, it seems libraries have top down approach instead of a grass root approach.
I am happy to see this topic being raised through TED and commend Andrew on his technical approach to this challenging topic. I don't think there is a Librarian or library staff member that would disagree with anything that he said. Unfortunately, there are many factors in this conversation that were not addressed during this talk which make doing this "easy" impossible (in the current climate) - at least in terms of eBooks.
Library budgets are flat-lined, if not declining, in most jurisdictions and the provision of digital content is a whole new service that needs to be developed inside of these budget constraints. Publishing is in a state of flux and many are struggling with developing a library-based digital business model that they are comfortable with and is profitable for them. There is limited competition in terms of platform vendors - all of which cost a fairly significant chunk of change, before a single item is purchased. Add into this mix Digital Rights Management and international copyright issues.
I think we would all love the solution to be easy - in a perfect world it would be. But, for now, we are doing the best with the tools that are available and the climate in which we work.
As a technology entrepreneur, I know that there are libraries around the world who are looking to make the process easier and to improve the experience of our users. Are you up to the challenge of taking a crack at this?
If you look at his response to the comments, he is a tech person who works for a company that is working with libraries to help them access digital content. So, I would say his answer would be that he is currently taking a crack at it.
He is on point about marketing and branding libraries but a lot of libraries don't have money or employees to achieve a business model and libraries don't have control over electronic user interfaces when they buy from vendors.
I enjoyed his talk, he made a lot of great points and I appreciate his thought. I wish he spoke slightly faster though.
I think there are some good points in this presentation. Most of them I would agree libraries need to improve on - providing mobile access, promoting individualized and curated content, leveraging the physical presence. The one area I think public libraries will continue to struggle with is the discovery interface challenge of "easy, elegant, engaging" Public libraries have limited budgets and can't often afford interface designers. They rely on off the shelf products that are built by library specific vendors whose products probably wouldn't be adopted more broadly in a larger community due to poor interface design. It would be great to see the technology community make a stab at improving these discovery tools at a price point public libraries could afford.
Critical commentary for building a national digital strategy for libraries
The ebook part is pretty funny, but this guy is completely out of his element for blaming libraries for the sad state of digital content. It's not librarians that impose the false scarcity of ebooks, but the publishers. Also, his holier-than-thou disposition is so incredibly aggravating. The things that he's telling librarians to "leverage," most have been doing for a long time, but he's not a librarian and given his social economic status probably not a library user either. He basically has no concept of what a library does and who it services, but as an affluent white man, he likes to shop at Whole Foods, so let's make libraries like Whole Foods. Really? I have yet to enter a library that doesn't cater to its community with the content that it provides. That's exactly what libraries do. He would know that if he wasn't blinded by his money. As a society, we really need to stop listening to businessmen and libraries need to stop listening to slimy vendors like this guy,
Andrew Roskill A lot of libraries are leveraging local, digital content. librarybox.us/ is a great example. Makerspaces and local gardening (seed libraries) are taking off, as well.
Hi Andrew, i agree with1librarian - you are a little out of your element here - before creating this presentation did you think to perhaps speak to (any) librarians about what you might present? I absolutely love anything that will advocate on behalf of libraries, however i was disappointed that your main theme seemed to be "libraries don't understand what users want". The very sad situation is that many librarians are very frustrated at not being able to provide similar services akin to those of the big names you mentioned. I challenge you to find any library that is cashed up enough to even attempt to provide the same kind of experience. we are all typically reliant on as you say "tax payer dollars" and those that have a say in how many of those tax dollars we get are every year more and more frugal with those tax dollars. Instead of encouraging your audience to "let the library know", how about encouraging the public to let their politicians know?? You are not telling librarians anything we dont already know. When you mention the 50 shades of grey book, how much it cost, and then state "is this the best use of resources" i think you fail to take into account a number of things, ie if we didnt provide that book, our patrons would go straight to those big three you are telling us to be more like, and you also dont investigate why it costs the library so much to provide access to such a book. one word. publishers. library content is not free - we have to purchase these resources. you also fail here to mention how libraries can attempt to achieve your suggestions - we are all ears (on a library budget, of course). Would love to see you do another talk that took on the people who can actually help libraries make some of the changes you suggest - as i said, you are preaching to the converted.
Andrew Roskill The problem is, publishers shouldn't be ABLE to boss libraries around like media producers boss around corporations like Netflix. Libraries are a public institution. We shouldn't have to be fighting them, since our mission is enshrined in the laws of this country. The publishers are just benefiting from the fact these laws are only seen to apply to print, not digital content. If we could change that in the law, it would benefit libraries much quicker than trying to ape Google or Amazon or Netflix, things that WOULD be less valuable without the popular content.
Netflix streaming, by the way, is demonstrably less valuable in that it doesn't offer popular or even sleeper hits.
"Its Google but just not as good"...often a public perception but entirely untrue. The library set up is likely better organized and less over-run by excess, duplication or irrelevant information. The rest though is very well laid out.
While I agree somewhat, particularly re: "excess," there is also tons of stuff on Google (and Google Scholar, which college students are increasingly using over library web sites) that you can't get at the library, and a ton of the library stuff is "reference" databases which are often just encyclopedic-like snippets, or links to links to content that can't be accessed. Moreover, the discovery engines that libraries employ are often not the best (due to lesser technology and/or content indexing). So both have plusses and minuses, but following trends in student use should be telling and I think that was the point.
Hey Tedx, check your inbox when you're available please :)
it's great.
This is going to sound very cynical, but the stated assumption of "Digital literacy will give people jobs" or solve income inequality doesn't have a lot of support behind it.
Ok great talk, but nothing new. I work in a library. we have been discussing this problem for years............ no real solution was offered in the talk. i see your company claims to be the solution. what library systems has Biblioboard helped improve?