The Agricultural Library of the Future: Points from the Rome discussion

During the recent ShareFair held at FAO in Rome (January 20-22); there was a session dedicated to 'The Agricultural Library of the Future.'

Johannes Keizer (FAO), Margaret Zito (FAO Library), Hugo Besemer (Wageningen UR), and Andreas Psoroulas (WFP) started the discussion by outlining what they thought the future roles/responsibilities of an agricultural library could be.

Johannes outlined five main roles that information managers should be working towards:

• Open access – Information managers have a vital role in assisting their organisation in disseminating the global public goods they produce. Information managers need to ensure that their organisation’s research outputs are available and accessible by all, particularly those in developing countries. 
  
• Catalyze and facilitate knowledge exchange – Traditionally information managers have been in the best position in knowing “who does what” within an organisation (be it their own or their partners), due to the very nature of our jobs. Now that organisations use various tools to exchange knowledge, the time is ripe for information managers to step in and help different communities link to each other where appropriate, and to assist them to move forward with their research or development agendas. 
  
• Help to create integrated information and knowledge management platforms. - More often than not, only the IT specialists are consulted when deciding on a software or platform to be adopted; however we have learnt over the years that technology more often than not is not the issue at hand. Information managers are in the best position to ensure that “whole picture” is taken into consideration and that a full integration of organizational information needs and workflows are catered for.
  
• Deliver targeted expert services – with limited budgets and staffing it is necessary that information managers develop and deliver highly specialized services for their users. 
  
• Change your skill sets – information managers need to update and expand their skill base so that they can bring a complementary mix of skills to their job. 
  

Margaret Zito outlined her ideas of the future role of an agricultural library. Libraries can be seen as the following key elements:

• Place - The library is just not a process; the library is a place to explore, and follow through on information needs. The library is a place of neutrality/ security, of trusted and quality resources.
  
• Process – whereby a latent piece of information is made available for resource discovery through the skills of the information manager. Technology now provides the information manager the possibility of using many different tools and methods to describe and push the information out to users (both within their organisation and to the external world)
  
• Products – new technologies provide us with opportunities for customizing, developing and delivering information and knowledge in many different ways. Information managers are the best people to do this.
  
• People – Information managers have very specialised expertise, they are part of an information chain/pathway and they provide the added value to research projects, research outputs and information management within an organization.
  

The discussion was then opened to the other participants. Here are some of the main points that came up from the discussion:

• Are libraries providing the new expected services or just “old classics”?
  
• New generation is expecting instant answers to their queries – library services must target this
  
• Library users are now becoming library collaborators
  
• Library of the future should work more with people rather than for people
  
• As there is a risk that libraries may disappear, libraries must become more aggressive in marketing themselves and the services they offer
  
• Physical libraries are elitist – accessible only to those physically present. Digital content is essential in current world
  
• Role for library is in the service of filtering, synthesizing and packaging the information? Quality and trusted information provided.
  
• Information managers/Librarians need to take their skills outside the four walls of the library and make management aware of the added value that they provide to the organisation. They need to be more part of the core business of the organization. 
  
• Information managers need to build a successful business case for their libraries.
  
• Information managers need to provide services in new ways, through new technologies. 
  
• Perspective of developing countries – how to provide information and knowledge there? Different types of skills and approach needed? Role required in developing countries more like extensionist?
  

Report by Maria Garrucio, Bioversity International

See other stories and comments at: http://iaald.blogspot.com/search/label/sharefair09

Keywords from the 'future of libraries' session in Rome

At the January ShareFair session on future agricultural libraries, some 30 people gathered to reflect on the roles and added value - the 'business cases' as one participant described it - of agricultural libraries. Colleagues at FAO, IFAD, WFP and Wageningen UR started us off, then we had general discussion.

Johannes Keizer blogged his main points; Hugo Besemer explored a future without bricks and mortar ... and Bioversity's Maria Garrucio has worked up her notes for us all to share.

In the meantime, here are some of the key words and phrases jotted down on the flip chart:

• open access; disseminate global goods; catalyze knowledge sharing; integrated platforms for information annd knowledge management; targeted services; skills mix;

• brick and mortar still in use, by some; organizing access to outputs so they travel; providing archival access;

• much diversity among libraries and legacies; multiple roles need bringing together; beyond the walls;

• strengthen e-availability; digitize old information;
  

• Places to exchange and interact; Processes of organizing and sharing and collaborating; Products to share and use; People with "very special expertise."
  

Much food for thought to add to the rich set of comments from around the world. Add yours to this posting or join the others...

At the very end of the session, we asked three people with an interest in agricultural libraries to share some learning points:

Roxy Samii of IFAD was particularly struck by the importance of place, and low a library's location is significant. She saw Minus Two at IFAD as something of a challenge.

Petr Kosina from CIMMYT suggested we need more work on alternative value-adding 'business cases' for libraries; he looked forward to library services to be 'faster than Google'!

Enrica Porcari of the CGIAR reflected on the special sharefair sandwich bar that facilitated knowledge sharing in the FAO atrium, she wondered if future libraries can take on some of the open welcoming nourishing features of such a bar...

Research library of the future ...

At last month's ShareFair session on future agricultural libraries, FAO's Johannes Keizer shared 5 directions for libraries:

• Disseminate the Global Public Goods of your institution!
  
• Catalyze and facilitate knowledge exchange!
  
• Help to create integrated information and knowledge management platforms!
  
• Deliver targeted expert services!
  
• Change your skill sets!

He further elaborates these notions in his background note for a meeting discussing the "Global Research Library 2020."

Knowledge sharing is ...

At the recent 'sharefair' in Rome, participants recorded short video responses to the question: "What's the added value of knowledge sharing to your work and your organization?"

The responses show that knowledge sharing is seen to be:

• nothing but an added value
  
• gets research results out
  
• helps cross fertilization among dispersed centers
  
• is determined by the culture of an organisation
  
• helps delivering on poverty reduction strategies
  
• is key to create links across different sectoral issues
  
• to come up with innovative solutions
  
• to do business in a different way
  
• helps us to get the story from the field
  
• makes organisations more efficient
  
• is necessary to do complex work in a complex world
  
• has multiplier effects
  
• brings in new experiences
  
• enhances cooperation among organisations
  
• is the most effective way to learn new things
  
• is power!
  
• connects people that work on the same problems
  
• reaches the part of your body that other sort of work doesn't
  
• to change the way FAO does business and contribute to the development process
  
• creates and sustains the value of research
  
• is part of our life!
  
• is a social process
  
• is essential to develop projects that do work
  
• is a process

FAO's Stephen Rudgard argues that by sharing properly, we can achieve results that otherwise would take much longer to achieve:

Click To Play

See all the videos

Visualizing meeting discussions with wordle

In the closing session of last week's Rome ShareFair, we used www.wordle.net to visualise the topics discussed.

The first visualization used the pdf version of the ShareFair programme as the source of terms. Wordle allows you to create such a picture from a set of text, in this case we focused on the 50 most frequent terms. Interesting in this ex-ante picture is the prominence to the organizations organizing the event.

On the morning of the final day of the ShareFair, we made a similar visualization from the feed from the ShareFair blog. As in the first picture, the term 'knowledge' was prominent. Interesting however, the organization names disappeared to be replaced by terms like 'people' and 'methods.'

Enrica Porcari at the CGIAR did the same analysis for the sharefair feed from the ICT-KM blog, concluding that "a picture is worth a thousand words."

It looks like a very useful - and flexible - tool to stimulate discussions.

The closing session ppt is on slideshare

Does knowledge sharing add value to our work in agriculture?

As part of this week's 'sharefair' in Rome, participants are recording short 90 second video responses to the question: "What's the added value of knowledge sharing to your work and your organization?"

FAO's Anton Mangstl starts us off:

Click To Play

More video responses

IFAD knowledge sharing in Africa

According to Ides de Willebois, IFAD's Director, Eastern and Southern Africa Division: "Knowledge is at the heart of successful development work: where we are learning constantly and systematically by harvesting, analysing, documenting, disseminating and sharing lessons and experience in a dynamic process that leads to better results and impact on rural poverty."

The December 2008 newsletter from the region has a special feature on 'knowledge sharing for better development results' - showcasing several IFAD-supported initiatives to promote strategic and systematic approaches to knowledge management.

Many more IFAD initiatives in this area will be presented at the 'Knowledge Share Fair for Agricultural Development and Food Security' in Rome, 20 – 22 January 2009.

Future agricultural libraries - Everything will have to be different!

Yesterday's post asking for ideas regarding the future of agricultural libraries is generating several very interesting comments ...

Ajit Maru has sent in a much longer reaction, see below:

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If I were to answer what I think the "Agriculture Library of the Future" should be, I would look at how I use the "brick and mortar" library and its on-line services in the organization I now work in.

1. What primary role or purpose does your agricultural library/information center have at this time?

The sad fact remains that I hardly use the "brick and mortar" library. It is not because I do not need to refer to documents. In my line of work, I really have to look at a myriad of issues in agricultural research for development which require related information according to themes, disciplines, commodities, regions, Institutions etc. In fact I believe I have a very information intensive function. And why do not I use this "brick and mortar " library?

This is because it is primarily a collection of physical documents with very little value added services that I really want.

I do not need a physical repository of documents in todays world where my Terabyte sized portable hard disk costs about 170 Euros and my 8 GB Pen Drive costs about Euro 16. I can physically store all the documents I need in my personal space. The problem I have is in organizing it but that is not a real problem when I can search using my computer or portable device the sentence or phrase I am looking for. Maybe a "mind" map of this information would be useful and there are rudimentary tools now to do this.

I have very good Internet connectivity where I work so the Internet cloud is the source of most (I would say almost all) information execpt that in journals that need to be subscribed. These are also available online (though at what I believe exorbitant costs for work that my peers have done at largely public expenses and provided free with binding conditions to profit shareholders of large publishing houses). I now try to avoid this type of information and search for their open source equivalent. The only function in this regard for the library in the organization I work in appears to be to financially account for what I access from these online and physical document subscriptions !

I do not need the referencing services of the "brick and mortar" based librarians because I can search any document using my desktop search and online search engines. I go to sites of professional organizations (such as IAALD) for profession/discipline related information or use online services that inform me on new documents. What I really need is summarized information from a set of documents (to save my time) which unfortunately librarians in my organizations do not provide. They cannot add value to my information needs because I have expectations that are very customised and new tools make it easier for me to manage my information needs directly rather than through an Intermediary. The librarians provide me with TOCs of publications, not that they are not useful but that this information is usually old hat because by the time the information is published it is rather dated. And, they (the librarians) have never asked me what I need from them !

One of the major problems I have in attending libraries is the enforced silence and the need to talk in hushed voices even with the circulation and reference staff. Why? In ancient times libraries were not only repositories of documents but places where people met and exchanged ideas. Show me any agricultural Institutes' library where there is a space for people to converse? This is an antitheses to the whole concept that libraries store, share and exchange information and knowledge. Even on the "virtual" avatars, which I now think are not very useful because they mimic the "brick and mortar" libraries, we have no way to know who is accessing what document and whether we can chat with that particular user if we are interested in the same topic.

I had been Incharge of a large library at an Academy of one of the largest NARS in the world and when I viewed the data on the numbers of users of the library (which had an average of 400 scientists and students at any given time) I always had my doubts whether the huge investment in the library was really valid. Not that I do not believe in physical repositories but whether the current organization and arrangement of a "Brick and Mortar" library was the right one. And I am not sure whether its "virtual" avatar is also the right way to go about. In today's world, do you really need to accumulate (I would have used the word "hoard") all electronic information at one place? So, the Library or Center, as I can now access in the organization I work in, with its current structure and organization, has no role or purpose that serves my immediate needs. In my opinion, the purpose it has now is only to be a warehouse of documents and a place where I can take visitors to try and impress them that I work in a "knowledge" organization.

2. What might be DIFFERENT about this role, in perhaps 5 years time?

Everything will have to be different.

First of all it will not be a "hoard" of documents except in warehousing printed copies. Second, sections like "circulation", "reference", "indexing and cataloguing" will be irrelevant. Third, subscription of journals will be outdated. Fourth, journals as such will be outdated and so its current focus and budget will be outdated. A very key issue is that do we really need "Journals" in todays world?. The only thing in my opinion that is keeping this time old tradition of publishing is that current reward systems in agricultural research organization for researchers is the requirement of publishing in "peer-reviewed" journals and books for career advancement. If the reward system is changed, this whole publishing mechanism through journals and books will collapse and with it the organization and function of these libraries.

The Libraries and Centers as they are now may not exist.

My sources of information are now changing. I now rely on open archives, blogs, communities of practices and on-line tools such as delicious and search engines to avail and access my information. I have a much better choice of access to information in languages I do not know using online translators. I share and exchange my information also though electronic documents, blogs and participating in online communities (as I am doing now). I do not need agricultural libraries or centers as they are now and their dissappearence will not really affect me. The difference is that they may not exist as they are a huge cost centre in an organization with very little return on the investment. Administrators and managers are now finding this out and questioning this concept of information management through libraries in organizations.

So should we not think differently. Not about Agricultural Libraries and Information Centers but about fulfilling the information needs of communities involved in agriculture (and in my case its development).

What roles for the agricultural library of the future?

On 22 January, IAALD President Peter Ballantyne is organising a session at the sharefair in Rome.

Entitled 'The Agricultural Library of the Future,' the session starts from the premise that libraries and library-like services have powered agricultural information and knowledge sharing for decades. In a 'googling' world, however, where information and knowledge sharing are often seen as a 'Do-It-Yourself' skillset, how are they still relevant and what can they do for us?

Please contribute to the discussion by sharing a short reflection on a question below:

1. What primary role or purpose does an agricultural library/information center have in 2009?

2. What might be DIFFERENT about this role, in perhaps 5 years time?

Please CONTRIBUTE your reactions by POSTING A COMMENT.

Thank you!

[reports from the session will be posted back on this blog]