by Sandra Crumlish, Southern California Chapter, Biomedical & Life Sciences and Leadership & Management Divisions

One thing I have learned in the corporate world is that space is a high commodity. For the past 21 years I have been able to keep the Library in the same place – a somewhat large room with one wall of windows. The ideal space to allow people to feel like they are away from the desk to read and acquire information in a different environment. As we concentrate on utilizing technologies of the future to ready ourselves, our libraries, and our organizations for what is to come, let’s not forget our physical presence – where that applies.

The Library tends to lead the organization in adopting new technologies and is the first to provide virtual resources for the global organization. As we transition to a more digital than a mainly print library I am eyeing my space as a vulnerable target, and the vultures are slowly starting to circle. Future Ready is not just about planning our futures in the profession and keeping up. For those of us who have physical libraries we have to be even more creative and innovative about how our space becomes Future Ready as our print collections diminish in the face of providing more electronic materials. We are planning now because looking into the future two or three years will show us with fewer shelves full of books and journals, although we will always retain a print collection, it will just be smaller.

Welcome to the future! While we do not plan to have space-age seating and workstations, we do plan to have a space that aesthetically encourages people to actually visit the Library. Some of our brainstorming ideas center around collaboration spaces that do not look anything like mini conference cubicles. We are talking about circular spaces that allow dynamic discussion with teamwork tools available, displays of devices, diagrams, anatomical representations of implanted devices (ours of course), programmers and remote care units, new technologies, etc. – past, present and future. By providing access to our past and present, with room to boost creativity, our researchers can plan and design for the future. This creative-enhancing space will provide unique resources for the future and they will not all be digital.

The future holds so many possibilities we should not limit ours. We have to think of interactive experiences – the younger generation is coming to work with those of us who may be a little long in the tooth, but there is room for both our worlds to meet, especially if we want to compete.

Sandra Crumlish, Manager St. Jude Medical CRMD Library & Resource Center, developed St. Jude Medical’s Library from a bare storeroom with a few journals to a multi-disciplined library and was the driving force to create a virtual library, providing enterprise-wide access to medical, technical, business, and industry electronic resources. Sandra’s current focus is in developing a knowledge management initiative for the company and is working with the IT Web Development Team to create more efficient and capable tools to achieve that end.

by Helen Josephine, Silicon Valley Chapter, Science-Technology and Engineering Divisions

A report on the new “bookless engineering library” was included in “Morning Edition” on NPR in July 2010. After this report aired, library and literary blogs quickly began discussing the future and fate of libraries in the digital age—is it the wave of the future or the end of the world as we know it? We find that some of our student and faculty users prefer digital content to print, while others do not. The digital library is not the end of the book and print collections, but the beginning of something new and exciting.

After four years of planning, the new Engineering Library at Stanford University opened on August 9, 2010. The vision document for the new library, SEQ2 Library Vision: The Information Collaboratory informed not only the physical design of the new facility but the staffing, collection and service models as well. In addition to the challenge to replace the physical collection with digital content, three themes for the new library were called out in this document: high-touch human contact, mediation and subject expertise and mutability or continuous change and experimentation.
To achieve our goal of becoming a largely bookless library with access to all of the online resources required by one of the premier schools of Engineering in the world, the constant questions we asked of our vendors were—can we get it online?, can it be flexible?, can it be self-service? We anticipate that even more innovative information resources and devices will be available to us as we continue to evolve and experiment with new technologies, new services and new vendors.

One current experiment is our e-reader program, a combination of circulating e-readers and tethered e-readers (10 Kindle, 8 Sony Touch,1 Nook,1 iPad) with content selected by librarians. In addition to the content we have selected and purchased for the e-readers, we are also testing the ability to load and read content that we have licensed from e-book vendors that allow for unlimited content download. Student feedback on the project has been positive and the e-readers are always checked-out. The e-reader program is part of our mission to understand the information needs of the current and future students and to experiment with new technologies.

Our physical space is one-third the size of our former library, but the open floor plan of the new library and the foldable, stackable, moveable furniture allows multiple configurations within our 6,000 sq ft. space. Collaborative work areas for groups of 4 or more with tables pushed together, individual work at tables near the windows, as well as impromptu classroom seating for groups as large as 50 are all feasible. The technology in the library includes a 60”digital bulletin board for announcements of library events and information plus School of Engineering events and student projects, a rolling display cart housing a 60” monitor with touch capability, an information kiosk using a 23” touch screen computer for basic library information and a 3M RFID system for book self-check out and security.

When you define your library as a place for innovation and experimentation with information technology and digital content, the possible roles for librarians are limitless and the types of services offered are dynamic and ever-changing. This is a true definition of “future-ready.”

Helen Josephine is Head of the Frederick Emmons Terman Engineering Library (http://lib.stanford.edu/englib), part of the Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Center at Stanford University.  She is a past-president of the Silicon Valley chapter of SLA and has been a member of SLA since 1999. She has also been active in many regional, state and national library groups, including the Arizona Online Users Group, California Academic and Research Libraries, and ALA.

by Richard Huffine, SLA Board of Directors, Division Cabinet-Chair Elect

I am becoming future ready by pursuing new publishing models on behalf of my organization. I work for a Federal research organization with over 130 years of experience producing research to inform decision-makers. Our research has shaped policy and practice and the library has played an important role in supporting both the research and the dissemination of that research. Our library maintains the complete catalog of publications by our staff and we have converted more than half of our backlist catalog for on-line access. The future is digital, we know that but what will it mean to be digital in the future?

Do we want our research products listed in the Amazon Marketplace? Google’s ebookstore or Apple’s iBookstore? What does it mean to publish an ebook versus a traditional report? How do these new outlets (and their associated standards) change the way we prepare our research for dissemination and use by other researchers, students, and the general public?

The Library is the perfect place to be exploring these new publishing models and work with the institution to adapt to these new approaches to dissemination of information. Our library purchases ebooks, on-line journals, and database content. We are working with our users to figure out how Blackberries, iPhones, iPads and other tools will be used to consume information and to put data in the hands of our researchers in the field. Future Ready for me is about preparing my organization for the future and hopefully placing us ahead of the curve.

Richard Huffine is SLA’s Division Cabinet Chair-Elect. He is the National Library Coordinator at the U.S. Geological Survey.  He has been active in SLA since 2004 as the founding Chair of the Government Information Division.  He is also an active member of ALA, and is President-Elect of the District of Columbia Library Association.