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Patricia Schroeder, President and CEO, Association of American Publishers
Thank you so much for inviting me to speak at this year's ALIA conference. Australia is very close to my heart, because my son-in-law is from this wonderful country and his family is here. We love the warmth and openness and always wonder if there are any shy Australians.
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) represents most of the major commercial book publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses, and scholarly societies. Our membership is quite diverse, as well are the issues we work on. Publishers take great pride in producing high quality information. I've always felt that publishers needed a publicist because very few people actually know what publishers do. In the US, many think publishers are printers and many others thought publishers and librarians would become obsolete in the digital age. They were wrong. Publishers and librarians have become more valuable as more and more information is thrown at us daily. People want to the information to be reliable, accurate, and need to know where and how to access it. People looking for information can sometimes feel like they are trying to drink from a high pressure hose. HELP!
At AAP, our school publishers have joined together to help correct errors in textbooks. We have put together a form on our website called the Accuracy e-line, where teachers and parents can report errors. We have advertised in educational newsletter asking people to come to the website and fill out the form and let us know if they find any errors. Our publishers will correct them as soon as they can. Our professional journal publishers have linked articles they've published with other publishers' articles on the same topic through digital object identifiers. They know how precious time is for researchers and if they can help expose them to the full range of knowledge in a topic area, it is a win-win situation for everyone.
Publishers and librarians sort through mountains of information, verify it, and try to assemble it in a usable form. Those who declared librarians obsolete when the Internet rage first appeared are now red-faced. We need them more than ever. The Internet is full of 'stuff' but its value and readability is often questionable. 'Stuff' doesn't give you a competitive edge, high quality reliable information does.
We all hope to deliver high quality information and content through the Internet but there has been a lot of difficulty figuring out how to do this. One major issues is that the people preparing these materials would like to be paid. The Internet started as a grassroots movement where people could express themselves freely. We are all for that. Free expression and its protection is one of AAP's main charges. Publishers and librarians have a long-standing, working, relationship fighting censorship wherever it raises it ugly head. Let me be very clear, we want free expression and no censorship on the Internet. This is very different from saying everything on the Internet should be free of charge. Many have fought to be able to copy and send materials anywhere on the Internet for free. I'm an old politician and know this is a very appealing mantra. It is not a hard sell. The only problem is, after you give away all the content that is out there now, it is very doubtful new, high quality, content will appear because the people producing it have mortgages and if they aren't going to be paid, they will look for work elsewhere. So, there would be a great windfall in the short term, but then the content will be back where it started.
As we try to make our case, the entertainment models get mixed up with educational issues. People say you don't need to sell your information, you can sell t-shirts, go on a speaking tour, and other things that might work for a pop music star, but I doubt it would work for a math textbook. We had hearings on distance education in the US Congress. A Senator asked a post-doctoral physics author why he couldn't give his book away for educational purposes when he had the rights to everything else. The author answered,' Thanks for letting me keep the movie rights to my book!' The only real market for this type of book is educating post-doctoral candidates in physics. The challenge is how to make books available fast and on a global scale, for a charge, so the author might write another book someday! This is not about stifling expression, we think everything should be available, but the producer should be paid for their efforts so they have an incentive to produce more.
This position has been the topic of vigorous debate in the US. You are looking at someone who is often introduced as the voice of greedy publishers. I always find it interesting that technology companies want to be paid for their equipment and then say we are greedy for wanting to be paid for our content. There is a long tradition of overselling technology and we in the US are technology junkies. When anything new comes out, people start predicting a huge sea change. A lot of librarians in the US have experienced funding cuts during this period because they were thought to be buggy whips, obsolete. Well, that prediction was totally wrong. People found out that they needed librarians more than ever to navigate the sea of material out there. We are working hard to make up the short fall and get librarians fully funded again. librarians need both technology and content. Just having technology gets you back out into the 'stuff,' but if high quality content isn't available on the Internet, the Internet will just become the yellow pages of the phone book. Helpful, but not maximising its real potential.
Nor should the Internet be used to monitor what people say or, to censor books because some fear they might give the wrong impression or, and to tell others what they can and cannot think or say. In a free society this should never happen. We may not always like what others have to say, but we all have to realise that no matter what, they have the right to say it. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution clearly states that. We sometimes have people who forget the First Amendment works both way - you have the right to make statements I may not agree with, but I also have the right to make statements that you may not agree with. In the wake of 11 September, people were told they should watch what they say by their own government nonetheless. Can you believe in a free country that a spokesperson for the U.S. President would tell the citizens of a free country that they need to be careful of what they say? People can say hurtful and scary things, but stifling speech so that others are not offended is completely wrong. Even with President Bush saying this, Americans went to libraries and bookstores searching for any book they could find on Islam or Afghanistan. They felt secure that their government wouldn't think they were 'sympathisers' and were desperate for reliable knowledge about what the US was facing.
The digital environment has the power to change the way that books are published. Will paper books really ever disappear? Most likely not, because you'll always have people like me who want to curl up on the couch with a good book, however, the possibilities for the industry are almost endless. There are ebooks, not only for fiction and non-fiction books but the value to schools for textbooks and for impaired readers are unlimited. It could change the way that we use libraries. Print-on-demand could change the way that we order books. Nothing would ever be out of print. Publishers want to distribute their information electronically and they want to use the Internet to be able to provide content to readers. We have a lot of work to do, but the future of publishing holds so much promise for those who care about providing access globally to the best information and literature possible.
Literacy is an issue close to my heart and I'm sure all of yours as well. At AAP, we have all been working hard to make sure that it is an issue that gets a lot of attention. A few years ago, we started on a little project at AAP. I pulled out all the reading posters I could find that tried to encourage people to read that we have collected from all sorts of wonderful groups across the U.S. I don't mean to sound disrespectful but most of their messages sounded like 'eat your peas.' You could almost see the spoon coming out and saying, 'This is good for you. Take your cod liver oil.' We began a program called Get Caught Reading. The thought was to make reading look like so much fun that it could be illegal! We targeted 18-35 year olds because our statistics showed that they were buying the least amount of books of any age group. That scared us because these people are parents. They should be buying books and if they don't, they hurt the next generation. We found celebrities that appealed to this group and went out and asked them to pose for a poster while reading a book. We ran the posters in national magazines in donated ad space and encouraged people to get caught reading. Now, here we are, three years later with an incredible cast of celebrities who have signed up. We've also had almost 170 members of the United States Congress, and the First Lady Laura Bush, pose for posters, as well. The program has really taken off in a way that we never could have imagined. We now have 17 celebrities who have been 'caught reading' and every year we are signing up more people who want to be involved.
We've begun to do more posters for children that can be used in classroom. Teachers and librarians absolutely love them! Here's a list of the celebrities so far who have given their time to be part of the campaign: First Lady Laura Bush, actor/comedian Drew Carey, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Donald Duck, actress Patty Duke, actress Whoopi Goldberg, Evangelist Billy Graham, NY Yankee baseball player Derek Jeter, author Vernon Jordan, actor Jake Lloyd, television host Rosie O'Donnell, singer Dolly Parton, The Rugrats, actress Jane Seymour, Chicago baseball player Sammy Sosa, blind mountain climber Erik Weihenmayer, and actor Robin Williams. We have also discovered people are much more eager to read if they pick their books rather than people telling them what they should read.
Recently, our industry has been put to the test. The economy has made a lot of people rethink what they do and cutbacks have hurt others. However, we take refuge in the fact that we are in an industry that has the power to change people's lives and help them understand the world around them. That is the reason why we fight so hard when others try to stop people from publishing books or stop the free flow of information and ideas. This has become an issue that we are now fighting. U.S. President George Bush signed an Executive Order to stop the release of Presidential records. These records from President Ronald Reagan would add valuable insight into the workings of the White House during those years and allow researchers, students, and librarians to read important historical documents and analyse for themselves what happened during those years and to understand the events that occurred. This order could literally stop books from being published. Many researchers depend on those documents to write their books. We are currently working with our members and other groups in our industry to fight this Order and to have the documents released. Also, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has tried to do much the same thing. Before leaving office, he signed an order that would allow him full access to his records and the ability to decide what is personal without the help of the city's archivists. He will be the one to preserve them and distribute them. We are fighting this as well. You can almost say that this is a form of censorship. What the government doesn't want you to see. Forget deciding for ourselves; let the government tell us what they want us to remember.
The AAP is also working to ensure that we have a vibrant and diverse industry. We have recently put together a new committee called the AAP Diversity Committee. This group is working to attract more individuals from every ethnic background to work in publishing. The group has even put together a wonderful video that speaks to students and others about the value of working in the industry. It features authors, such as Maya Angelou, Walter Moseley, and Amy Tan, speaking about the different ways that books have changed their lives. We hope that this will show people just what they can offer by getting involved in the industry.
Our Get Caught Reading program, that I mentioned earlier, is also a way that we are working to help make this industry vibrant. By reminding people of how much fun it is to read, we are hoping to grow the market and to encourage more people to read. Books make fabulous companions. Stuck in line at the airport, bring a book. Need to wait at the doctor's office, bring a book. Want to learn about a new theory or be entertained, read a book. Encouraging people to read encourages more tolerance or more understanding of the world. It makes us a more diverse group. We begin to know and understand each other. It makes us better people. This is also one of the ways that we are marketing and quantifying the value of books to government and to the community.
This past March, we held our Second Annual Get Caught Reading event for members of Congress. We encourage members of Congress to have their photos taken and to then distribute them to local newspapers, schools, libraries, and bookstores in the members' home districts. We think it's a great way for them to show their support for reading and literacy, but it also draws attention to a very serious issue in a lighthearted way. We need to do something about it and we are making this point with our members of Congress by asking them to 'get caught reading.' We need to remind them just how important reading and literacy are.
It's so important for us to get books to young children. Studies show that children who have books in their homes, score higher on tests than children who do not read at home. If children don't develop some literacy skills before they enter school they are more likely to drop out. These are statistics we need to change. There is such an opportunity here in the publishing industry to try and do what we can to help people understand just how important books are to all our lives.
Books give us a sense of history. They allow us to learn from our mistakes and tie us to our past. They give us knowledge and a chance to escape into other worlds. They are the experiences and expressions that make us who we are. As librarians, you truly know the value that books provide.
The globe is shrinking and everything is moving faster. Librarians and publishers have an essential role to make sure citizens have the most reliable information available and easily accessible.
Dr Marianne Broadbent, Group Vice President, Executive Programs Worldwide, Gartner
Make the link between executive focus and your value contribution
Business executives are excited by shareholder or stakeholder value. For commercial enterprises, this is top-line and bottom-line financial growth. For non-commercial enterprises this is constituency and political capital.
Knowledge and information investments contribute at the business operational level. Information professionals need to articulate a 'trail of evidence' for their business colleagues to clarify and explain their value contribution.
Knowledge-based initiatives are often unfocussed and not linked adequately to business outcomes. Leveraging knowledge assets effectively requires well focussed initiatives clearly linked to business performance.
Information professionals need to understand executive perspectives
First, identify business imperatives and the information contribution. Four critical imperatives are gaining agility, leveraging knowledge, enhancing quality and reducing costs.
The imperative most relevant to information professionals is often leveraging knowledge. The reasons for this imperative include skills shortages and an intellectual capital based economy. Information and IT contribute through intelligent customer relationship management, and the better management of intellectual assets.
Second, understand that four factors drive share-holder value:
Third, recognise that each of the four imperatives impacts directly on drivers of shareholder value.
Know what information investments do
Each enterprise needs to view its IT investments in terms of a portfolio of investments, just as individuals and enterprises have portfolios of financial investments. Like any investment portfolio, the IT portfolio is made up of investments with different objectives, each with different risk versus return profiles to be balanced to meet the goals of the enterprise. The IT portfolio needs to be disaggregated by management objectives and so that different risk-return profiles are clear and communicated.
Enterprises invest in IT to achieve four fundamentally different management objectives: transactional, informational, strategic and infrastructure. These management objectives then lead to transactional, informational, strategic and infrastructure systems, which make up the total portfolio. The portfolio notion provides a well-understood business lens as well as concepts familiar to business management. The balance in the portfolio will vary according to business drivers and the tolerance of risk and risk management capabilities in the enterprise.
Informational objectives include improved decision making, increased control, better information and improved quality. Where enterprise invest more than their competitors in the informational component of their portfolio they have shorter time to market, can charge premium pricing and have superior quality. (Source: P Weill and M Broadbent, Leveraging the new infrastructure: how market leaders capitalize on IT, Harvard Business School Press, 1998). Business executives need to understand this link.
Communicate your value contribution
Business value is created at all levels of the organisation - enterprise, business unit and business process. The stakeholders at each level have different views and definitions of what constitutes business value. The challenge is to develop the most appropriate measures for each level and to link them to indicators of the information and IT contribution.
Business process value contribution can be linked to enterprise measures. The trail begins with defining the types of business value most important to each business process. Each process is likely to have just a few extremely important types of business value. For example, business values in the 'Developing Products' process might be 'faster to market', 'new product functionality' and 'easier regulatory compliance'. Information professionals need to discuss what they consider the most important business values with business partners as the starting point in the trail of evidence to communicate value contribution.
Link knowledge to performance
Today the ability to create and exploit knowledge is a key success factor for leading enterprises. To be part of the new economy you need speed and knowledge. Speed is about shorter product life cycles and the rapid merging of organisations to form completely new entities. Knowledge is about exploiting every opportunity to improve productivity and processes. Every new customer transaction is a source of new knowledge and every assignment is an opportunity to learn.
Speed can only be achieved if those performing an action are those responsible for learning and knowledge, not if the responsibility is delegated to a third party. Knowledge must be gleaned from the performance of the process itself. And knowledge has to be feed back to performance. The cycle is 'Knowledge to performance, performance to knowledge, and back again - quickly'. (Source: J Henderson, GarnterEXP Report, Exploiting the High Performance Knowledge Engine, April 2001)
Linking knowledge to performance requires creating a two-cycle knowledge engine - splitting the knowledge cycle into two parts, the direction part - called strategy and the action part - called production.
Starting at the bottom of this engine, the production part provides acquires the right knowledge, structures it in the right way and presents it to the right people, at the right time and in the right format. But identifying all these 'rights' need some careful thinking. This is where the strategic part comes into play.
The strategic part of the two-cycle knowledge engine guides and defines what information is trapped as the raw material for turning into knowledge, by whom for what purpose. To do this is makes reference to the enterprise's overall strategy, environment and business models.
Understand the anatomy of the knowledge engine
The knowledge engine's production capability has three stages: acquisition, structuring and targeting. Acquisition involves capturing and codifying knowledge so it can become an asset. It is also about increasing the likelihood that people will use the knowledge asset. Structuring is concerned with synthesizing, consolidating and organising knowledge so that people want it and access it. This stage not only determines who has access to knowledge and how they will access it, but also begins to establish how people integrate knowledge-management capabilities into their own performance processes. Targeting, means packaging and delivering the right knowledge, to the right people, at the right time, in the right format. Instead of waiting for knowledge users to access the knowledge base, relevant and targeted knowledge is proactively pushed to them.
While the production capability of the knowledge engine concentrates on action, the strategic capability is centered on the strategic direction of the enterprise and has three stages: strategy, focus and reflect. The focus stage ensures that just enough of the right knowledge is provided, at the point of decision and action, to change people's ability and motivation and to produce results. Focus ensures that investments in future knowledge assets are consistent with the enterprise's strategy and also motivates people to share and use those assets. In the reflect stage, the leader, regardless of level, develops a higher-level perspective that enables him or her to challenge current direction, ways of thinking and business models.
Recommendations
Leading information professionals really know the business - the business of their enterprise. They understand business cycles, what drives their executives, the share price, and what constitutes real 'shareholder' value.
They acknowledge the reality and deal with it: there are real dilution effects between investment in information resources and enterprise impact. If you don't create the 'trail of evidence' no one else will.
To be effective and 'hooked in' you need to be immersed in the culture of the business. In the words of one corporate librarian, 'if you don't make a real effort to be part of the culture, part of the fabric of the organisation, you will simply no longer 'be''.
You need to understand and use the reward systems in the business and focus on information and knowledge for performance - not because it just makes sense (to you) to do so.
Finally, and most critically, you must able to articulate your personal value proposition to your enterprise ... Don't expect anyone else to do so. Get used to life not being fair, make your own successes, and don't shy away from communicating your real contribution to the success of the enterprise.
Joyce Kirk
This has been a very exciting and stimulating Conference. Its format has been different to other Biennial Conferences in a number of ways: our distinguished speakers have been invited to look at libraries and information services and our profession from the outside in. Some of our speakers have confessed to a degree of uncertainty in meeting the brief given to them but they have all privileged us with their honest and thoughtful approaches to the Conference theme. As our speakers have broadened our horizons and challenged our thinking I think that we too might have broadened their understanding of us and the unique roles of libraries in the social, cultural, economic and intellectual life of their communities, however defined: rural communities, suburbs, commercial firms, educational institutions and other kinds of organisations.
There have been three events parallel to the Conference: the Issues Forum that has been conducted through a moderated list and has focused on issues that are perhaps more inward looking; the online chat sessions with the speakers; and the trade exhibition that has allowed us and our organisations to maintain relationships with vendors and also to follow up new contacts and leads. The Conference and these events have engaged over a thousand people in exploring ways in which we might power our futures. Significantly a proportion of these people are not ALIA members - at present. They are though all well placed to work with us to spread out influence and advocate on our behalf.
In one, two or more years I suspect that we will look back on this Conference and see it as a watershed. The speakers have brought home to us the discontinuities that surround us and touch most aspects of our daily lives. It is clear that incremental change is no longer an appropriate response to the turbulence that we experience. It is transformation that is required and this will be sometimes disruptive, sometimes threatening, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes breath taking but always challenging. The Futures Foundation tells us that this century is ' the century of the invisible. Success for organisations will come from the way they gather and share information, knowledge and wisdom; from their rate of learning, adaptation, innovation; the quality of the culture, values, relationships; and from design, ideas and creativity'. The Foundation also reminds us that 'systems thinking is the key to the 21st Century' and will shift us from industrial age ideas and approaches to 'newer more sophisticated ways of thinking about people, work, community, society'. In other words we can create the future: it doesn't have to just happen.
I would like to go back to the recent past, back to Sunday evening when our Conference Chair, Dagmar Schmidmaier urged us to join conversations, think and have fun. I would like to briefly explore each of these tasks that were presented to us.
Conversations - Just think about this word, even say it in your mind or whisper it. Conversation wanders or meanders and is often formless or shapeless. It relies as much on listening as it does on speaking. Compare 'conversation' (from the Latin for dwell or associate with) with the more goal directed 'discussion' (from the Latin for struck asunder) and with the highly structured 'debate' (from the Old French for to beat). Conversations allow us to share ideas, create meaning and explore common ground. They have elements of unpredictability as well as serendipity. Understandably, conversation is the language of courtship and the forming of relationships.
We have heard a lot about collaboration during the Conference. Perhaps conversations will be the building blocks of the new kinds of collaboration or connection that we need: collaboration that perhaps has a more subtle form, more nuanced and characterised by trust. The language and tone of collaboration in the future might reflect a shift in focus as the Knowledge Economy connects with people's social and cultural lives. We clearly need to attend to collaboration within our sector as well as with external partners. The Peak Bodies Forum represents a promising start especially as a way of recreating public information. We also have to strike up new conversations especially with younger, the older, the isolated and the marginalised. Our conversations must be inclusive.
Think - we have been encouraged over the past three days to think in new and different ways. Some of the associated words that we have seen and heard include creativity, imagination, innovation, invention, learning and lateral thinking. These approaches to thinking have been linked to rebuilding communities, building capacity, developing elearning networks. They are fundamental to the creation of knowledge.
Perhaps we need to adopt more subtle approaches in our own thinking and the expression of our thoughts. So often we think in dichotomies (or silos): providing access or building collections; print or electronic collections; academic or public or special libraries; national or international initiatives; museums or archives, galleries or libraries; public sector or private sector information services. Maybe we need to think in terms of continuums to avoid cutting off any options. Perhaps we need to start thinking about our libraries and information services not as institutions but as relationships.
Have fun - If we are to engage with each other in fruitful collaborations to turn dreams into reality then we will no doubt respond to what we do and achieve in different ways. Bold and adventurous action rests on passion and commitment and is guided by values.
At the Colloquium on Research Libraries hosted by the State Librarian of New South Wales the Chief Justice of NSW, spoke about the tension between managerial and professional values: one set based on quantifiable measures and derived from the world of commerce, the other on qualitative judgement and derived from service to the public. It will be interesting to see how we allow these values to play themselves out.
The information agenda
Now we come to the information agenda. What does all this mean for an action plan that ALIA as our professional association might develop and implement? First of all it would be presumptuous of me to lay out such a plan even if it were possible at this stage to do so. However this does not mean that no such plan will be developed. The Association - that is us - must commit to a vibrant and sustainable future. These are some of the features that an action plan might have:
i) It will be based on a future that we want to create, recognising that achieving a desired future will be demanding on us in all sorts of ways.
ii) It will be developed through conversations with different people and groups, some internal and others external to our Association. We know we have support for what we do from key people in our communities and we must remain connected with them as well being ready to make new connections.
iii) An action plan might encompass different agendas. For example there are some problems such as bandwidth that have been highlighted in the Conference and the Issues Forum. We will be asking the Issues Forum (half of whom are non-members) about carrying our conversation forward. Other agendas will emerge in the context of our future. One that is ripe for attention is the renewal of the Association's leadership and membership as generational change takes place.
iv) It will be developed with a sense of continuity over time. We've been reminded that nothing is finished. The Board of Directors must consider the outcomes of the Conference and processes for carrying them forward to the yearly National Policy Congress as well as future group activities and Conferences.
v) Finally we must keep our communication open. There's no point in having an action plan unless we all know about it and are prepared to tell the world about it. Ideas and information from the Conference will be made available as soon as possible through the groups and guidance and feedback be sought from our members. We need to find ways of building our knowledge base through sharing what we know. We need our own village green to help us keep our focus on the bigger picture as well as on more focused concerns.
I would like to conclude by expressing on your behalf our appreciation of the courage that Dagmar Schmidmaier as Conference Chair and Neil McLean as Co-Chair, the Conference Committee and the Conference sponsors have shown in daring to be different. Through their daring they have shown us the positive impact of risk taking. If we ain't seen nothing yet in terms of information and communication technologies, we certainly ain't seen nothing yet in terms of a learning society powered by information, knowledge and wisdom. Our challenge is to articulate our vision for this future.
Neil McLean
Preface
This brief paper contains a summary of the professional issues arising out of the Conference, of importance to the development of an information agenda. It should be read in conjunction with my pre-Conference paper Information Futures, Professional Issues, which looked at the core values of ALIA as a key professional body, explored a range of professional issues that have been expressed by librarians through the public Issues Forum over the past few months, and looked at the various factors and themes likely to emerge as important to the development of an information agenda. For a summary of the substance of the papers presented at the Conference, it is necessary to read the summary provided by Professor Malcolm Gillies.
What did we hear?
The primary purpose of the Conference was to listen to leaders in key service sectors as a means of challenging our 'mindsets', as a way of rethinking our business, and as a catalyst for the development of an information agenda. A wide range of economic social and political viewpoints were canvassed which were relevant to our agendas and these were drawn out skilfully by Malcolm Gillies.
From an economic viewpoint, the terms economic fundamentalism, restructuring, globalisation, knowledge economy, regulation etc. all painted a picture of global communities going through a time of profound change, predominantly due to the IT revolution.
The social pulse of Australia was thoroughly explored by Hugh McKay, Anne Harding, Phil Ruthven and others. A complex and somewhat depressing picture emerged in terms of trends in population demographics, the rural-urban divide, the generation gaps, the sense of alienation felt by many, the loss of identity and a general sense of powerlessness in the face of global economic forces. On the other hand the yearning for community (or the 'tribal urge' as coined by Hugh McKay) was readily evident, particularly amongst the younger generation.
The political consequences of this social and economic upheaval manifest themselves in a variety of largely negative ways: low expectations of government, disengagement from serious debate, reliance on pragmatic solutions and an inclination towards regulation as a means of 'righting-wrongs'.
What should we conclude? It is clear from the complexities inherent in the economic, social and political analysis that generalisations should be avoided; there is no 'one-size-fits-all' and it represents a patchwork of the old and the new in many senses. It is probably wise to accept however, that we are in for a long period of functional discontinuity which will impact on all aspects of our lives.
Several speakers alluded both publicly and privately to the absence of debate on what I call the 'public sphere'. We no longer have concerted debate on the 'big' social issues in academic circles and the concept of 'public good' has been obscured by our love affair with economic rationalism. Both sides of politics feel compelled to 'balance-the-books' and to debate endlessly the means of doing so to the detriment of proper consideration of where we actually want to be in terms of our society's general wellbeing. One major consequence is a shortage of vision, which means an inevitable reliance on short-term pragmatic responses to almost all the 'big' issues impacting on our society.
There were many hopeful signs, however, of communities regenerating themselves, particularly in rural areas and it is probably wise to embrace the maxim that 'uncertainty breeds opportunities'.
Our professional responses to these issues, as reflected in the questions, deserves some consideration. There was a feeling at certain points in the conference that we thought we as the library and information profession were immune to all the functional discontinuity so readily identified by various speakers; that we 'knew the answers' if only others would listen; that it was 'they' that had to change not 'us'. In the best sense this could be interpreted as a manifestation of professional pride, at the worst it could be seen as yet another example of 'Fortress-Australia' - a retreat to the safety of the known. It is unlikely that our profession is immune to the economic and social upheaval going on around us and a collective acceptance of the 'will-to-change' may well be the key to the creation of an effective information agenda. We need to confront therefore, the powerful visual imagery of the silos as presented by Terry Cutler and we need to accept the challenges inherent in his image of the bend in the road where we could not see around the corner; in fact all we could see was the greyness of the trees leading off the roadway and into the forest.
What are our values?
At a time when our society may have a rather fuzzy view of it's basic humanitarian values, the recently adopted values statement by ALIA is to be applauded. Whilst they were adopted as professional values, they are in fact values which are basic to any healthy democratic society. As the preamble says: 'A thriving culture economy and democracy requires the free-flow of information and ideas'.
We would do well therefore, to embrace this concept as the cornerstone of any information agenda and to build on the values of connectedness, being informed, respect for others, preservation of cultural heritage and the concept of partnerships, as a means of realising our professional service ambitions.
In addition we need to come to terms with the concepts of sustainability and transformation, both of which were underlying themes in many of the conference presentations. In other words, how do we reinvent ourselves in a way that is meaningful both to ourselves and to those whom we hope to partner with and serve?
How do we do it?
There seem to be a number of strategic imperatives arising out of the analysis so far, the most important being how we can translate our values in context. Value is almost always a matter of perception and in our case this has to be translated into a very complex set of service contexts. In meeting this challenge we will need to work out the terms of engagement, create our own vision, find appropriate partners and develop means of leveraging finite resources.
In fulfilling these strategic imperatives it would be good if we shared some high level inspiration such as that embodied in Christopher Chia's vision which was based on the powerful association between 'knowledge, imagination, hope and possibilities'. We Australians are not generally disposed to the use of lofty rhetoric but we need to find our own way of expressing our determination to be active in the process of transformation within our society.
Perhaps the principal message arising out of this conference is that we need to listen even more attentively to our user communities. There was a general comment that so little research takes place into the information needs of our communities, and this needs to be rectified. This does not mean however, that we wait to hear more about the information requirements, we need to engage immediately in lateral thinking about just how we might engage in new service paradigms. At the same time we need to develop new forms of professional gossip so that (in Peter Crawley's terms) we speak the same language, if not the same accent, as our stakeholders and our user communities.
Incidentally, terminology emerged as a problematic issue during the conference, even on our own professional 'patch'. Terms such as information and knowledge were used, or confused, in different contexts, particularly in relation to the economic and social drivers. As alluded to earlier in this summary, the concept and meaning of a public good has been albeit erased from our collective memory. 'Knowledge management' is espoused by many information professions as a cornerstone for service development, whereas Marianne Broadbent, as an expert in the field, warned against using the term at all.
The development therefore, of professional gossip to make our vision, our values and our service objectives relevant and meaningful to our user communities remains a formidable challenge.
We made little progress during the Conference in identifying key political drivers relevant to our proposed information agenda. It is essential that we work out who can help us, where political power lies and how we can use such power to our advantage. There is a complex interdependency between Commonwealth and State responsibility for many of our information agenda issues and considerable attention should be paid to the means by which we develop our political advocacy strategies. We need to think also how we get leaders of peak bodies and leaders of public and political opinion involved in promoting and fighting for our goals and objectives. In a more concrete way, we should consider developing an electronic databank of information to help communities of all kinds formulate and promote their social and political agendas. Part of the feeling of alienation and disengagement comes from the fact that it is no longer easy to access at the community level relevant information on a range of economic and social issues which might help people rebuild their communities.
Who do we partner with?
Partnerships and collaboration have been all-pervasive themes throughout the Conference. You will all have your own ideas about how to tackle this task of partnering, however, there are a number of potential partnerships that could be worth particular attention as a way of nurturing our collective information agendas. There can be summarised as follows:
1. Rural communities
We were privileged to hear a most illuminating presentation from Sue Middleton on the challenges facing rural communities and on the highly inventive and determined way in which people are rebuilding their communities. In spite of the economic and social dislocation facing many rural communities, they still retain a sense of community that disappeared long ago in urban areas. We, as librarians, should look closely at their endeavours, become involved with them and work through the means by which technology can be used to enhance these communities and to see how the local library can be even better used as a community resource. The lessons out of such involvement could be applicable in many different kinds of communities. Looked at from a different perspective, these rural communities appear determined to help themselves with, or without, our assistance.
2. Business communities
We probably have a lot to learn from the business communities in terms of how they have adapted to the IT revolution and in terms of how they use information. Marianne Broadbent showed us a powerful (but complex) blueprint of the way in which information and knowledge can be harnessed for the corporate good of an organisation. She showed also the means by which value can be established between so-called 'knowledge inputs' and 'productivity' outcomes. From another perspective, she showed how successful companies globalise their business and how they use judicious outsourcing to remain flexible and efficient. Is it possible therefore, to think of libraries as a networked corporation that can optimise the various inputs in pursuit of efficiencies for particular communities. One would like to think so, but most of us are associated with libraries which are very much tied in terms of inputs and outputs to particular user groups. We do collaborate, but on very specific terms which do not challenge our treasured autonomy.
3. K-12 education community
Martyn Forrest and Peter Crawley gave us stimulating insights into the current ferment in the K-12 sector. Libraries have always been an integral part of the education sector but very often it proves to be an unequal partnership. Teachers do not readily perceive, or acknowledge, the value of library services and they contest, albeit implicitly, the librarian's claims in the vexed areas of information and IT literacy.
But at the strategic level there are many synergies in terms of developing political agendas: both rely on common technical infrastructure, both need connectivity for success, access to information and for learning delivery. Both aim to have literate informal communities based on a similar set of competencies and both rely on the provision of a diverse range of content.
Political advocacy in terms of having adequate infrastructure and in terms of telecommunications regulation and bandwidth provision are proving challenging for the K-12 sector and libraries could usefully form a strong alliance with the political leaders in this sector in furthering these agendas.
4. Relationships with publishers
Libraries and publishers have traditionally been strong partners and it is sad to see the fairly rapid decline in this relationship over the past decade. This declining relationship is, no doubt, due to the impact of the IT revolution as both parties struggle to realign their business and this is proving to be a rather painful process. Blame is a symptom of the restructuring process and both sides feel aggrieved and bewildered at the loss of a valued relationship. Almost certainly new ways have to be found to both create and deliver information but a productive partnership is likely to speed up that process to the benefit of both parties.
5. University of the Third Age (U3A)
It may surprise some of you to find this suggestion for partnership featuring so prominently in the summary.
U3A has been however, one of the quiet but pervasive revolutions in the UK and in Australia. New learning communities have emerged at the grassroots level based on the rapidly growing generation of retired people. These informal, vibrant communities are avid users of knowledge and information and a study of such communities may well shed considerable light on the way we develop our strategies for learning communities outside the institutional context.
How do we build our 'state of readiness'?
As intimated in my pre-conference paper, there are a host of professional issues that we need to address 'in-house' in order to be ready for the new service challenges. The Issues Forum proved to be most popular and it is encouraging to see such a level of participation. ALIA has a considerable responsibility in fostering and developing professional competencies, and the peak bodies for the various library sectors need to work even harder at developing workable collaborative strategies.
Ultimately success will depend on our ability to balance our 'inward' and 'outward' visions and aspirations.
I wish you all well in meeting this challenge and I trust you have found this conference a useful catalyst in the process of formulating our 'outward' vision.