david lewis on libraries
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All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men: College Libraries at the Beginning of the Digital Age
David W. LewisNITLE
October 31, 2012
© 2012 David W. Lewis. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Abstract:
This presentation will examine what the current state of College Libraries. I will use the lens of Clayton Christensen’s theories of disruptive innovation to attempt to determine what jobs students and faculty will hire college libraries to do and what theories we can use to look into the future and make reasonable predictions about what is coming. A central consideration will be the role of collections. Collections are of prime importance because they are both where most of the money goes and because they have shaped library practice and values. They are core to how we see ourselves and how others see us. But collections have large opportunity costs, and if college libraries are to be successful in the next decade they must shed some of these costs, without impacting their users, and reinvest them in new services.
“That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place.”
Clay Shirky, “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable,” March 2009. Available at: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/
Clay Shirky
Today’s Agenda
1. Importance of Theory2. Disruption in Our World3. Clayton Christensen’s Disruptive Innovation
Theory4. What Job are We being Hired to Do?5. Collections6. Questions to Think About
The Importance of Theory
• Data is only available about the past
• Every time we take an action it is based on a theory
• The lens of theory lets you see the future
• Usually our operating theory is that the future will be a continuation of the past
The Importance of Theory
• The future will be a continuation of the past is not the theory we need
• Clayton Christensen’s Disruptive Innovation theory is a much better lens because it fits our time
“Disruptive Innovation transforms a product that historically was so expensive and complicated that only a few people with a lot of money and a lot of skill had access to it. A disruptive innovation makes the product so much more affordable and accessible that a much larger population have access to it.”
Clayton Christensen, “Disruptive Innovation Explained,” HarvardBusiness, May 30, 2012. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDrMAzCHFUU&feature=related
Our World is Being Disrupted
1. The Big Shift2. Ray Kurzweil3. Clay Shirky
The Big Shift
John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison, “Measuring the forces of long-term change: The 2009 Shift Index,” Deloitte Center for the Edge, 2009. Available at: http://www.johnhagel.com/shiftindex.pdf
The Big Shift
The Big Shift
The Big Shift
Disruption Space
The Big Shift
• First Order Effect: Technology substantially reduces barriers to entry and barriers to movement on a global scale
• Second Order Effect: Competition intensifies on a global scale
• Third Order Effect: As competition intensifies, instability and uncertainty increase
The Big Shift
• Organizations have generally been unable to apply the capacities made possible by the technology to increase performance
• Power moves to consumers• Power moves to trained and skilled
individuals
• Creates organizational and personal stress
See: Ray Kurzweil, “The Law of Accelerating Returns,” March 7, 2001, available at: http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns
Ray Kurzweil and “The Law of Accelerating Returns”
When a technology becomes digital the pace of change becomes exponential.
See: Ray Kurzweil, “The Law of Accelerating Returns,” March 7, 2001, available at: http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns
See: Ray Kurzweil, “The Law of Accelerating Returns,” March 7, 2001, available at: http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns
See: Ray Kurzweil, “The Law of Accelerating Returns,” March 7, 2001, available at: http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns
“The moment we are living through, the moment our historical generation is living through, is the largest increase in expressive capacity in human history.”
Clay Shirky, “How Social Media Can Make History,” TED Talk, June 2009. Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html
Clay Shirky
Disruptive Innovation Theory
Disruptive Innovation
Clayton Christensen
Disruptive Innovation
• The capacity for customers to use new products and features increases, but at a slow rate
• Products improve faster than customers can use the improvements
• Products that are initially not good enough become too good
Time
Customers ability to use new products or features
Time
Customers ability to use new products or featuresProduct Improvement
Time
Customers ability to use new products or featuresProduct Improvement
UndershotCustomer
OvershotCustomer
Disruptive Innovation
• Undershot Customer– Wants and will pay new features– Where money can be made
• Overshot Customer– Doesn’t care about new features – performance
oversupply– Basis of competition changes– Wants product to be cheaper, faster, easier– Commoditization
Time
Customers ability to use new products or featuresProduct Improvement
Time
Customers ability to use new products or featuresProduct Improvement
New Users
Disruptive Innovation
• Starts off as not being good enough for established customers so they don’t care about the product
• Often creates a new group of users who did not have the time, expertise, or money to use the established product
• Begins by competing against non-consumption
Disruptive Innovation
• Needs– New Technology (simplified solution)– New Business Model– New Value Chain
• How products become cheaper, faster, and easier
Why can’t established firms adapt disruptive innovations?
Business Models
Value Proposition
A product that helps customers do more effectively, conveniently and affordably a job they’ve been trying to do
Business Models
Value Proposition
A product that helps customers do more effectively, conveniently and affordably a job they’ve been trying to do
ResourcesPeople, technology, products, facilities, equipment and cash that are required to deliver this value to customers
Value Proposition
A product that helps customers do more effectively, conveniently and affordably a job they’ve been trying to do
ResourcesPeople, technology, products, facilities, equipment and cash that are required to deliver this value proposition to customers
ProcessesWays of working together to address recurrent tasks in a consistent way: training, development, budgeting, planning, etc.
Business Models
Business Models
Value Proposition
A product that helps customers do more effectively, conveniently and affordably a job they’ve been trying to do
ResourcesPeople, technology, products, facilities, equipment and cash that are required to deliver this value proposition to customers
ProcessesWays of working together to address recurrent tasks in a consistent way: training, development, budgeting, planning, etc.
Profit Formula/ValuesAssets and fixed cost structure, margins, professional values, career paths, etc.
Business Models
Value Proposition
A product that helps customers do more effectively, conveniently and affordably a job they’ve been trying to do
ResourcesPeople, technology, products, facilities, equipment and cash that are required to deliver this value proposition to customers
ProcessesWays of working together to address recurrent tasks in a consistent way: training, development, budgeting, planning, etc.
Profit Formula/ValuesAssets and fixed cost structure, margins, professional values, career paths
Business Models
• Established values make in nearly impossible for organizations to create disruptive innovation
• Separation is the only strategy that works• Firms that survive sacrifice business units
that don’t
Value Chain
Product or Service
Sales and Service
Supplier
Customer
Value Chain
Product or Service
Sales and Service
Supplier
Customer
NEW Product
Value Chain
Product or Service
Sales and Service
Supplier
Customer
NEW Product
Value Chain
Product or Service
Sales and Service
Supplier
Customer
NEW Product
NEW Supplier
Sales and Service
NEW Customer
Value Chain
OLD Customer
NEW Product
NEW Supplier
Sales and Service
NEW Customer
Response to Disruptive Innovation
• Cramming — Try to make the innovation work within old organization processes and cultureThis rarely works
• Move up market — Focus make a better product for the best customers and concede lower end Eventually the market tops out
What Job are We being Hired to Do?
Ronald Harry Coase
“The Nature of the Firm” Economica 4 (16): 386–405 1937
Question: If markets are efficient, why do we have firms?
Ronald Harry Coase
“The Nature of the Firm” Economica 4 (16): 386–405 1937
Question: If markets are efficient, why do we have firms?
Answer: Transaction Costs
Ronald Harry Coase
“The Nature of the Firm” Economica 4 (16): 386–405 1937
• Where the market has high transactions costs firms bring activities in house
“The Nature of the Firm” and Libraries
• In the past the market could not answer questions
• Now answering many kinds of questions is easy
• What is hard now is evaluating what you find
“The Nature of the Firm” and Libraries
• In the past the market could not manage collections
• Now access to many kinds of collections is easy
• What is hard now is curation and preservation of “unpublished” and special materials
Old Job: Provide documents to
users by building a local collection
Our approach to collections has created our values and it is how others judge us.
Changing this will be very hard!!
Redefining the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services, Advisory Board Company 2011. Available at: http://www.theconferencecircuit.com/wp-content/uploads/Provosts-Report-on-Academic-Libraries2.pdf
Redefining the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services, Advisory Board Company 2011. Available at: http://www.educationadvisoryboard.com/pdf/23634-EAB-Redefining-the-Academic-Library.pdf
10 M
20 M22 M30 M ?
Two Drivers of Change in Collections
1. Open Access
2. Change from Just-in-Case to Just-in-Time
Two Drivers of Change in Collections
1. Open Access - Journals
2. Change from Just-in-Case to Just-in-Time - Books
Open Access
“Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. OA removes price barriers (subscriptions, licensing fees, pay-per-view fees) and permission barriers (most copyright and licensing restrictions).”
– Peter Suber
Peter Suber, “Open Access Overview,” at: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm
Open Access
• Open Access is a disruptive innovation (Clayton Christensen)– New technology– New business model– Starts out as an inferior product– Improves over time and its advantages make
it dominant– Adoption follows an S-curve not a straight
lineDavid W. Lewis, “The Inevitability of Open Access,” College & Research Libraries September 2012. Available at: http://crl.acrl.org/content/73/5/493.full.pdf+html
Open Access
2000
2002
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2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
2016
2018
2020
2022
2024
0.0%
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20.0%
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Figure 3: Pace of Substitution of Direct Gold OA for Subscription Journals (normal scale)
Laakso, et. al. Estimates S-curve Extrapolation Based on 2000-2009
S-curve Extrapolation Based on 2005-2009
David W. Lewis, “The Inevitability of Open Access,” College & Research Libraries September 2012. Available at: http://crl.acrl.org/content/73/5/493.full.pdf+html
From January 1, 2012 to October 25, 2012 18,414 Articles Published
eLife is a researcher-driven initiative for the very best in science and science communication. We promote rapid, fair, and more constructive review. We will use digital media and open access to increase the influence of published works. We commit to serving authors and advancing careers in science. At eLife,
Publishing is just the beginning.
If we can set a goal to sequence the human genome for $99... then why not $99 for scholarly publishing?
PeerJ is an Open Access publisher of scholarly articles. We aim to drive the costs of publishing down, while improving the overall publishing experience, and providing authors with a publication venue suitable for the 21st Century.
Available at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/files/2012/09/Berstein-report-on-Elsevier.pdf
Implications of Open Access
1. Changes in review practices because space is not an issue
2. “Journal” becomes less important than the article
3. Large sites replace individual journals, for example PLoS One or SSRN
Implications of Open Access
1. As more journals become open access, the library will have to pay for fewer journals
2. Escape from the grip of monopolistic publishers
3. Libraries in their role of information providers, won’t be part of the system
Just-in-Case to Just-in-Time
• In a typical research library 50% of the books that are purchased never circulate
• In the past this made sense as an insurance policy
Just-in-Case to Just-in-Time
• Now nearly any book can be purchased at any time with very quick delivery
• Why purchase before the user needs an item if you don’t have to?
• Since past use is the best predictor of future use, books users “select” are likely to get use in the future
• Print books delivered nearly as quickly as digital files
• Digital readers nearly as good as print books
For what might come next, see: Mike Matas, “A Next-Generation Digital Book,” TED Talk, March 2011. Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/mike_matas.html
Implications ofJust-in-Case to Just-in-Time
1. Aggressively work at not buying books that will never be used
2. Book purchases will decline3. But impact on readers will be minimal
4. Will impact scholarly publishers by reducing revenue
They don’t see this coming
Questions to Think About
1. What do we give up?
• Disruptive Innovations have replaced our expensive and hard to use services
• Can we free ride on commercial services or other libraries?
• Implications for our role on campus• Implications for the status of the campus
2. What Do We Do Differently?
• Can aggressively pursued sustaining innovations keep us ahead of our competitors?
• Can we collaborate to achieve greater scale and efficiency?
• Can we disrupt our own services?
3. What New Things Can We Do?
• Can we disrupt others?
• Are there new jobs we can be hired to do?
“That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place.”
Clay Shirky, “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable,” March 2009. Available at: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/
Clay Shirky
Questions?Comments
© 2012 David W. Lewis. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.