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University of York Staff Development

Brian Kelly facilitated a workshop session on "Preparing For The Future: Helping Libraries Respond to Changing Technological, Economic and Political Change" at a staff development event for library staff at the University of York. The workshop was held at the University of York on 4^th July 2012.

The session took place from 11.00-13.00 in the the training room.

Abstract

What technological developments might we expect to arrive which will affect the working environment of the academic library?

We can expect mobile devices to grow in importance and the recent announcement of Nook ebook readers which cost £29 for the entry level device will require libraries to make plans for an environment in which students (and staff) will bring their own device.

We might also expect social media services to continue to grow in importance, even if its relevance in a leaning context is still not fully appreciated.

There are also developments such as Linked Data, which, after a seemingly prolonged gestation period, may start to have relevance in the Library world.

But there are dangers of making plans based on technological determinism. After all many of the predicted developments of our youth have failed to materialise: we don't travel to work by monorail or spend our summer holidays on the moon!

This workshop will provide an opportunity for participants to make use of a methodology for identifying 'weak signals' of technological developments and an open sense-making process for discussing the implications of such developments.

However libraries will not only be affected by technological developments. Economic, social and demographic changes also need to be considered. The workshop will also consider such issues, including the implications of redundancies and staff departures which the the funding changes in higher education may see exacerbated. After all, although in many respects the future is uncertain, we can safely predict that most of us will at some stage leave our host institution. But although students may have developed digital literacy skills, have staff and researchers grown over-reliant on an institutional IT environment, and will be unprepared for using an IT infrastructure which will be provided in the Cloud?

Materials

Slides

Preparing For The Future: Helping Libraries Respond to Changing Technological, Economic and Political Change

[MS PowerPoint format]

Note that the slides are also available on Slideshare and are embedded below.

Biographical Details

Brian Kelly helped to set up probably the first institutional Web service at the University of Leeds in 1993 when he was the Information Officer in the Computing Service. He has previously worked in IT Service departments in the Universities of Loughborough, Liverpool and Leeds. In 1997 he started work at UKOLN, University of Bath where he is a national adviser on innovative uses of the Web.