Back to the Future: Amazing Discoveries in a Futurology Card Index from the 1980s

Guest article by Anna Kasprzik

The principle of knowledge organisation

Semantics is the study of meaning, and knowledge organisation is semantics made explicit. A great deal of the time I have spent studying, engaged with my Ph.D., and working has been taken up with these two topics and I particularly love eccentric examples of them, such as Luhmann’s card index (German).

During my librarian traineeship in Munich, our subject indexing lecturer Gabriele Meßmer left a lasting impression on me when she told us how, many years ago, she had to beg for three years (!) as a little light at a large German library to be allowed to sort cards into the subject catalogue, because at that time only officially qualified subject indexers in the higher service were allowed to do so – I guess that at some point she wore down the resistance of her superiors. Later she was very eager to follow how the library world entered into electronic data-processing, initially with punch cards … and, after several decades of persistent work on the topic, she became one of the leading lights in the world of committees and education regarding subject indexing in the German library system. Now she is retired. Her unwavering passion for knowledge organisation moved and inspired me.

A few years ago, when I had recently arrived at ZBW, I was therefore delighted to be allowed to rummage around in the card indexes in Kiel, which contained the precursors of the Thesaurus for Economics (STW) … and was pleased to find a set of particularly interesting cards. I was all the more alarmed when I heard rumours this spring that these boxes were to “go over the ramp” (or something like that, I couldn’t help thinking of “walk the plank”) – “oh no! I absolutely have to save ‘futurology’!” ?

Photo 1: Futurology card index

Fortunately I was able to infect my superiors with my impetuosity and in a cloak and dagger operation (ok, it was actually during a regular site trip to Kiel in broad daylight), I was allowed to “extract” the box and evacuate it via the internal mail to my office in Hamburg, where it is now safely stored. Since then, this box has been an endless source of amusement whenever I need a break from the more serious side of our work.

A melange of meta-levels resembling an Escher painting

Why was I so fascinated by “futurology” in particular? Or to put it the other way round: What’s not to like? For nerdy semantics enthusiasts, futurology and this box with cards dating from the 1960s to the 1980s represent a huge crazy bouquet of meta-levels and mind-blowing twists – a (not-at-all complete) list:

  • In bygone days people thought about the future, and I am now in their future, thinking about the people who in the past thought about the future …
  • Futurology (also known as future studies) isn’t merely concerned with the future, however, but with the science of thinking about the future …
  • The cards in this box deal with literature that represents the contemporary view of the science of how one should best think about the future and how people are thinking about the future …
  • … and the knowledge organisation system back then tried to use the keyword “futurology” to classify literature that represents the contemporary view of the science of how … and so on.

How many meta-levels is that already? Never mind, I’m feeling pleasantly dizzy.

I was also fascinated to discover how much one can glean from the titles – without having read the listed publications themselves! – about the attitude to life at that time, and perspectives at that time on the next century, and how shockingly visionary or also how shockingly up-to-date these perspectives still are. Some things were simply amusing, others made me choke on a cynical laugh.

I thought I would share a few examples with you in this blog post and add my two cents’ worth ( ? ) as well.

An astonishingly clairvoyant potpourri of visions

“Too stupid for the future? People from yesterday in the world of tomorrow” (German, publ. by Theo Löbsack, 1971)
? Apparently, people were scared of being left behind 50 years ago as well…

 

“The desire for doom. Pessimistic future prognoses, a modern illness?” (German, Ivo Frenzel, special issue “Zukunft konkret”, 1978)
? Now we can answer this question too: Whether it’s illness or a valid immune response, it is still rampant – you simply have to scroll through Twitter for half an hour.

 

“The most dangerous years since the Ice Age. Our future up to the year 2000” (German, Karl Deutsch, “Presentations in the context of the gala to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Edeka juniors group”, 1980)
? “The most dangerous years”? Wait until the year 2020, you ain’t seen nothing yet …

 

“Only one working day per week in the future? Microelectronics and its social consequences” (German, Frank Niess, 1981)
? Also highly topical! From fears of being cast aside due to the progress of automation through to pandemic-accelerated flexibilisation of our working methods and work locations with the help of “microelectronics”… although: to my knowledge, Google and other Silicon Valley companies have not yet managed to compress working hours to a single day per week – dear Civil Service, perhaps a chance for you to make a name for yourself as being particularly innovative…? ?

 

“The problems with personal privacy in the year 2000” (German, Harry Kalven, 1968 !! )
? There’s almost nothing more I can say about this. They SAW IT COMING! ALL OF IT!

 

“Wrongly programmed. About the failure of our society in the present and for the future, and what actually needs to happen (German, Karl Steinbuch, 1968)
? Also has a ring of familiarity to it! ? I really wanted to know what “actually needs to happen”, so I started searching for the book and here you are: number 226604144 in EconBiz (German). From the single-view page, you at least get to an amusing review in the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung (German, PDF, from 25.09.1968 )- excerps:

    “This book is aggressive: In an age of sensory overload, information no longer reaches its target without the vehicle of provocation.”
    ? No kidding.

    “The object of this aggression is the ‘hidden world’, by which the author means everything that prevents us from developing a scientific culture based on research and technology.”
    ? Science sceptics! We know about them!

    “A future superiority of computers over the human brain regarding all rational mental processes will make possible the establishment of a ‘cybernetic state’ superior to all previous forms of political organisation. […] “This requires a careful analysis of which principles are suitable for making human life possible and worth living in the engineered world of the future and dense mass society.” That gets to the heart of the matter. Who analyses? Who decides what is valuable and ethical?”
    ? The fear of “artificial intelligence” and all that “it” could come up with – that too is highly topical.

    “But: [this also requires a new faith.] In the quality of the future person, who […] must have not only the opportunity, ‘to develop patterns of thinking and behaviour in freedom, which were previously unknown’. Who has to be not merely […] an original personality, which, as might be expected, does indeed require a high level of optimism, but who must also be more humane, a ‘better person’ in the deepest sense of this hackneyed term. This kind of ‘moral mutation’ would be an innovation in the history of homo sapiens.”
    ? And this 300 years after the dawn of the age of the Enlightenment … oh well. Sic transit gloria mundi. ?

On that note: I hope that you enjoyed this trip “back to the future” and wish you all a pleasant turn of the year. Stay healthy and in good spirits!

P.S.: My journey down the rabbit hole with the previous publication went on ? my parents’ two cents’ worth:

Parent 1: “I think ‘Wrongly programmed’ is on the book swap shelf. I’ll go and see if it’s still there.”
Me: “I wonder if the author ever dreamed that he would end up on the book swap shelf …”
Parent 1: “That was a bestseller. Basically everyone had that book. That means there still must be a lot of copies around that are now being thrown out.”
Parent 2: “Yes, Steinbuch was a technocrat – he didn’t understand much about society. Many people had it in their cabinet at that time, including your grandfather. He was unpopular with the 1968ers and the young Green Movement.”
Ho-hum. ?

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More articles by and with Anna Kasprzik on ZBW MediaTalkk

About the Author:

Dr Anna Kasprzik, coordinator of the automation of subject indexing (AutoSE) at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. Anna’s main focus lies on the transfer of current research results from the areas of machine learning, semantic technologies, semantic web and knowledge graphs into productive operations of subject indexing of the ZBW. You can also find Anna on Mastodon.
Portrait: ZBW©, photographer: Carola Gruebner

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Workshop Retrodigitisation 2022: Do It Yourself or Have It Done?

by Ulrich Blortz, Andreas Purkert, Thorsten Siegmann, Dawn Wehrhahn and Monika Zarnitz

Workshop Retrodigitisation: topics

Under the workshop title “Do It Yourself or Have It Done? Collaboration With External Partners and Service Providers in Retrodigitisation”, around 230 practitioners specialised in the retrodigitisation of library and archive materials met in March 2022. This year, the Berlin State Library – Prussian Cultural Heritage hosted the retrodigitisation workshop (German), which was held online due to the pandemic. For the first time in 2019, it had been initiated by the three central specialist German libraries – ZB MED, TIB Hannover and ZBW. All four institutions jointly organised a programme which, on the one hand, was about “Do it yourself or have it done?” and, on the other hand, about the question “Is good = good enough?” about quality assurance in retrodigitisation. After each of the eight presentations, there were many interesting questions and lively discussions developed.

Keynote: colourful and of high quality

The keynote on „Inhouse or Outsource? Two Contrasting Case Studies for the Digitisation of 20th Century Photographic Collections“ (PDF) was given by two English colleagues, Abby Matthews (Archive and Family History Centre) and Julia Parks (Signal Film & Media/Cooke’s Studios). They reported on their projects on digitisation of photographic records and old photographs from municipal archives, which they have carried out in cooperation with volunteers.

This was also a big challenge because of the Corona pandemic. Both were able to say that by involving those who later became interested in this offer, a special relationship to this local cultural heritage was developed. The experience of the volunteers also contributed a lot – especially to the documentation of the images, the speakers said.

Cooperation: many models

The first focus of the workshop was on collaboration in retrodigitisation. There were five presentations on this, which had a wide range:

Nele Leiner and Maren Messerschmidt (SUB Hamburg) reported in their presentation on “Class Despite Mass: Implementing Digitisation Projects with Service Providers” (PDF, German) on two retrodigitisation projects in which they worked together with service providers. It was about the projects “Hamburg’s Cultural Property on the Net” (German) and a project that was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in which approx. 1.3 million pages from Hamburg newspapers are being digitised.

Andreas Purkert and Monika Zarnitz (ZBW) gave a presentation on “Cooperation With Service Providers – Tips for the Preparation of Specifications” (PDF, German). They gave clues on tips and tricks for preparing procurement procedures for digitisation services.

Julia Boensch-Bär and Therese Burmeister (DAI) presented the “‘Retrodigitisation‘ Project of the German Archaeological Institute“, which is about having one’s own (co-)edited publications digitised. They described the work processes that ensured the smooth implementation of the project with service providers.

Natalie Przeperski (IJB Munich), Sigrun Putjenter (SBB-PK Berlin), Edith Rimmert (UB Bielefeld), Matthias Kissler (UB Braunschweig) are jointly running the Colibri project (German). In their presentation “Colibri – the Combination of All Essential Variants of the Digitisation Workflow in a Project of Four Partner Libraries” (PDF, German), they reported on how the work processes for the joint digitisation of children’s book collections are organised. The challenge was to coordinate both the cooperation of the participating libraries and that with a digitisation service provider.

Stefan Hauff-Hartig (Parliamentary Archives of the German Bundestag) reported on the “Retro-digitisation Project in the Parliamentary Archives of the German Bundestag: The Law Documentation” (PDF, German). 12,000 individual volumes covering the period from 1949 to 2009 are to be processed. Hauff-Hartig reported on how the coordination of the work was organised with a service provider.

Conclusion: In the presentations on cooperation with other institutions and service providers, it became clear that the success of the project depends heavily on intensive communication between all participants and careful preparation of joint work processes. The organisational effort for this is not insignificant, but the speakers were nevertheless able to show that the synergy effects of cooperation outweigh the costs and that projects only become possible when others are involved.

Quality assurance: Is “good” = good enough?

This question was posed somewhat self-critically by the speakers in this thematic block. Procedures and possibilities for quality assurance of the digitised material were presented:

Stefanie Pöschl and Anke Spille (Digital German Women’s Archive) contrasted the quality, effort and cost considerations of “doing it yourself” with those of purchasing services. In their presentation on “Quality? What for? The Digital German Women’s Archive Reports From Its Almost 6-year Experience With Retrodigitisation” (PDF, German) they looked at the use of standards to ensure the highest possible level of quality.

Yvonne Pritzkoleit and Silke Jagodzinski (Secret State Archives – Prussian Cultural Heritage) presented under the title “Is Good Good Enough? Quality Assurance in Digitisation” their institution’s quality assurance concept. This is based on the ISO/TS 19264-1:2017 standard for image quality. The concept can provide many suggestions for other institutions.

Andreas Romeyke (SLUB Dresden) explained in his presentation “Less is More – the Misunderstanding of Resolution” (PDF, German) why less is often more when it comes to the resolution of images. He described what is meant by resolution, how to determine a suitable resolution and what effects wrongly chosen resolutions can have.

Conclusion: Increasingly, digitised material is not only used as a document to be received for academic work, but it itself becomes research data that the users use, e.g. in the context of the digital humanities. This results in special quality requirements that are not always easy to implement. The three presentations on this topic showed different approaches to the topic and also that it is an important concern for quality management to put effort and benefit in a reasonable relationship. It became clear that standards such as ISO 19264-1 are increasingly being applied, even if this is still not always done according to the textbook, but within the range of technical and personnel possibilities.

Workshop Retrodigitisation 2022: lively discussions – good feedback

In the first part of the workshop, all presentations contained concrete recommendations and useful tips for the design of digitisation projects with service providers. Many aspects that were described in the presentations and discussed afterwards were strongly oriented towards practice, so that they could be incorporated by the participants for their own implementation of projects with service providers and offered a good basis for future planning of their own projects. It was particularly interesting to hear which quantity structures for the pages to be scanned can be implemented in projects with service providers and how projects could be successfully implemented with several institutions despite the pandemic.

The presentations on the topic of quality in the second block of the workshop also met with great interest. Again, all contributions included many practical tips that can be applied to the audience’s own organisations.

In summary, it can be said that the workshop with its many interesting contributions showed the many different ways of working with service providers and the increasing importance of quality management.

The feedback survey showed that the workshop was again very well received this year. All participants were able to take away many new impulses and ideas. The organising institutions will offer another workshop next year. In 2023, it will be hosted by the ZBW.

This text has been translated from German.

Further readings:

About the authors:

Ulrich Ch. Blortz is a qualified librarian for the higher service in academic libraries and a library official. He has worked at the former Central Library of Agricultural Sciences in Bonn since 1981 and has also been responsible for retrodigitisation at the ZB MED – Information Centre for Life Sciences since 2003.

Andreas Purkert is a freight forwarding and logistics merchant. In the private sector, he worked as a certified quality representative and quality manager and as part of the industry certificate REFA basic certificate work organisation. Since May 2020, he has been head of the Digitisation Centre of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.

Thorsten Siegmann is Head of Unit at the Berlin State Library and responsible for managing retrodigitisation. He holds a degree in cultural studies and has worked in various functions at the Foundation Prussian Cultural Heritage for 15 years.

Dawn Wehrhahn has been a qualified librarian since 1992. Since then she has worked, with a short interruption, at TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Technology and Natural Sciences and University Library. Her areas of work were: Head of the Wunstorf Municipal Library, Head of the Physics Department Library at TIB, from 2001 Team MyBib Operations within TIB’s full text supply. Since October 2021, she has headed the retrodigitisation team.

Dr Monika Zarnitz is an economist and Head of the Programme Area User Services and Preservation at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.

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Open Badges: Meaningful Credential for Continuing Education in Libraries?

At the #vBIB21 , the ZBIW (Centre for Further Education in Library and Information Science) at the TH Köln / University of Applied Sciences (German) offered a session on Open Badges in which it explored the issue of whether Open Badges are an instrument for course assessments in the context of informally acquired qualifications and skills-oriented learning content as part of further education. The ZBIW would like to award badges for its certificate courses in the future, thereby taking the validation of skills in a new direction. Open Badges represent a new digital format that describes skills which are not found in traditional attendance reports and certificates of participation.

An interview with Meik Schild-Steiniger (ZBIW)

What are Open Badges? What are they good for? Why does the science system need Open Badges?

Open Badges are digital records that prove skills acquired in the context of further education. Deposited metadata describe the skills acquired; they are thereby specific and individual. They can and are used for the validation of non-formally and informally acquired skills. The badge can then be shared by the learners – for example in their (social media) profiles such as LinkedIn, ORCID, Twitter or XING, but also on websites, e-portfolios or job portals, in order to gain the attention of (potential) employers with a kind of “mini-certificate”. As yet, there isn’t an appropriate form of recognition and appreciation for these kinds of skills. Open Badges can fill this gap. In a macro-didactic sense, it’s about interlocking formal and non-formal/informal learning opportunities.

Open Badges by the School of Data

Why did the ZBIW decide to work with Open Badges in their seminar offers in the future?

As a nationally operating further education provider for employees in public and academic libraries as well as other information institutions, the ZBIW has been following the development of the badges for a long time. Our director Ursula Georgy published an article on the future of scientific further education in b.i.t-online (PDF,German); in 2017 she gave a lecture on the topic (German) at the German Librarians´ Day in Frankfurt am Main. In 2020 the further education centre at TH Köln – the Academy of Continuing Scientific Education – contacted us with the idea of pursuing the topic jointly. The ZBIW and the academy form a quality association in the context of their ISO-certification.

We see the topic as a possible answer to the paradigm shift in the learning culture. We also closely follow the further education market and higher education institution development; a dynamic development can be perceived in which badges are playing a continually bigger role. We therefore want to pick up on this trend and co-design proactively. We speak of a ‘culture of enabling’ because we are predominantly breaking new ground.

What are the potentials and plus points of Open Badges?

I have already mentioned the potential for validating skills. At the same time, education and further education are becoming ever more digitalised. Certificates for acquired skills however cannot be deposited on the internet, or only partly, e.g. by scanning records of participation, certificates and testimonials. It therefore seemed to be just a logical step to being able to digitally prove learning achievements, skills and accomplishments. Furthermore, traditional records of participation and certificates confirm the knowledge acquired only insufficiently or not at all. On the other hand, employers are increasingly looking specifically for certain abilities. To this end they are increasingly proceeding in a proactive way by contacting potentially suitable candidates directly via career portals, for example. And last but not least, even job application procedures are now taking place almost exclusively digitally. Until now, you had to scan certificates and references in order to submit them: there was no proof of their authenticity. By contrast, Open Badges are already available in digital form and are also correspondingly secure.

And what are the current challenges in this field?

There are various challenges. First, you need to decide on what basis the badge is awarded. Each institution can issue badges and also define individually for what the badges are awarded. Quality standards must therefore be defined and kept to. In doing so we are guided by the quality assurance system of the TH Köln; at the same time, criteria and processes have to be defined in the context of our quality management system.

Various questions arise as a result: Which figures do we need for validation? How can we measure and assess the performance that must be rendered for the badges? There is also additional work for the ZBIW and its lecturers: How will this be remunerated? These are just a few of the questions.

In addition, the integration of the Open Badges in our existing educational structures is by no means complete. This would be an important prerequisite to increase knowledge of and trust in the badges.

Are there now established standards for Open Badges or is it more of a mish-mash? For which system have you decided?

There have been badges for MOOCs for a long time – the “Open Badges Infrastructure” was created for them. The IMS Global Learning Consortium has realised further standards; in particular it has been working towards uniform metadata. The position paper of the German Rectors’ Conference (German) of 2018 recommends using the „Common Microcredential Framework“ (CMF, PDF) as a guide.

Particularly abroad, there are already partnership networks to which several universities and research institutions belong. One topic is, among other things, the uniform allocation. I assume that we will initially set up something independently, until there is a standardised overall procedure.

To what extent are Open Badges already acknowledged by employers and universities?

The universities in the German-speaking countries have only recently adopted the topic on their agendas. As with all approval procedures, the badge needs to be individually checked, and this is subject to the discretion of every university.

For employers it is somewhat easier because they are more flexible. Large further education academies such as the Haufe Academy or the Chambers of Commerce now also offer badges. SAP and a growing number of major companies are offering badges in the context of their further education. They are likely to act as promoters.

Do you have a few examples of libraries that already work with Open Badges? Does it tend to be an Anglo-American phenomenon or are there already pioneers in German-speaking countries?

Actually, at the moment I can name almost only Anglo-American examples. About 20 percent of the universities there are already trying out badges. Research by the American Library Association (ALA) shows that they are testing this above all in the context of information skills – on the basis of the „Framework for Information Literacy“.

German-language libraries will also follow because they can use models and frameworks of the information skills which have nationwide validity. I can imagine that big city libraries will also get on board in the longer term, as they increasingly offer educational programmes, be it on information or media literacy. And it is precisely these rather short training courses that have hardly been recognised by certificates so far.

To promote media literacy, libraries in North Rhine-Westphalia use the Media Competence Framework (Medienkompetenzrahmen, German) or the DigitalCheckNRW for courses in adult education. They can advertise educational offers via the Digital Check portal, and many use this opportunity. The system undertakes the validation; it is not necessary to work out your own procedure.

And recently the EU has made a start with the European Digital Competence Framework (DigComp) which also includes an evaluation tool for skills validation.

If a library or digital infrastructure institution would like to start with Open Badges, what would be your tips? How should it proceed?

First and foremost, libraries should network with each other. It’s not necessary to reinvent the wheel. A criteria catalogue should be developed which answers the following questions: For which achievement should a badge be awarded? Which metadata will be used? What content should be recorded in it? What do the recognition rules look like? What does the design of the badge look like?

One possibility could be that libraries take the media skills framework as a basis and then look at the information skills sector. You can derive learning objectives from the requirements, such as the learning objectives taxonomy according to Bloom. This enables you to compile figures that you can validate. After this, you can issue the badge.

This text has been translated from German.

You might also be interested in this:

We were talking with Meik Schild-Steiniger

Meik Schild-Steiniger is responsible for continuing education and training for academic libraries in the continuing education management of the ZBIW (Centre for Library and Information Science Continuing Education). He is a librarian and media educator (M.A). After studying library science at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam and the TU Köln – University of Applied Sciences (B.A.), he completed the part-time Master’s programme “Education & Media” at the University of Duisburg-Essen, with a focus on media education in adult education and education management. He is vice-chairman of the BIB regional group NRW (German) and co-organiser of the “BIBchatDE”on Twitter. He himself can also be found on Twitter: RheinlandFranke.
Portrait: TH© [CC BY 4.0], photographer: Heike Fischer

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Digital Trends 2022: Dynamic Interplay of Metaverse, Tech Fatigue and Creating New Meaningful Connections Online

by Birgit Fingerle

The coronavirus pandemic and climate change seem to function as a booster for digital innovation in some parts and at the same time lead to counter-reactions and effects on the wellbeing of individuals and communities. In this blog post a selection of digital trends is highlighted that could be of interest for organisations such as libraries or digital infrastructure facilities, especially in the context of Open Science.

Metaverse: Web 3.0 leads to new portals of possibility and You-Topia

It is assumed that the next iteration of the internet will be defined by virtual worlds, metaverses, and augmented phygital realities. Metaverse is a dominant topic at present in various trend reports, among them the „2022 Trend Report by Trendhunter – The Roaring 20’s are Coming Back“. The metaverse is an evolution of the internet in which physical and digital worlds converge. In the metaverse people move as avatars and are able to interact, to enjoy entertainment or work on projects for instance. Digital assets, like land, buildings, products, and avatars, can be created, bought and sold.

Many companies aim to play a central role in the metaverse. Although, until now, only a small number of them seem to influence the metaverse. Among them are Meta (Facebook), Spotify, Zoom, Amazon (Twitch), Alibaba, Roblox, Snapchat, Apple, Huawei, WeChat and Microsoft. For instance, Microsoft is expected to launch Mesh for Microsoft Teams in 2022, which it envisions as a gateway to the metaverse. Mesh will offer a mixed reality with shared holographic experiences, where users can attend meetings as customised avatars and collaborate and where companies can build immersive virtual environments. This example demonstrates that the metaverse has the potential to transform the way we work and to enable new forms of creativity.

“Portals of Possibility – Transport people to new dimensions” is a trend defined by Trendwatching.com linked to the metaverse. Libraries could take a lead in this, broadening patrons’ horizons by using the metaverse to make them familiar with new ideas and concepts. Careers Wales demonstrated an example of rethinking traditional career counselling in high schools by launching CareersCraft. This virtual world, hosted on Minecraft helps students identify their strengths by completing challenges and activities along their way between various landmarks in Wales.

Trendwatching.com expects that consumers will favour companies that use their influence to build a more egalitarian digital world in this Web 3.0, where power is distributed or decentralized and where consumers have the power, the tools and the skills to build the metaverse. Consequently, Trendwatching calls the trend “You-Topia – Help build a fairer Web 3.0”. Perhaps libraries and Open Science projects might support them and thus play a major role in the metaverse if it is really going to take off.

NFT: New ways of trading arts and other digital products

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are widely discussed since the end of 2020 because they are creating a scarcity and desirability for digital items, not seen before, and are associated with the metaverse. NFTs are units of currency in the Blockchain ecosystem that cannot be replicated. Thus, they prove a person’s possession of a digital product.

Creators and artists are using NFTs to trade photographs, videos, music and other digital products. NFT Art helps artists and musicians to profit from their work more easily as selling their works as NFTs is a new and innovative way which helps them to still have some control of it on the internet. Even NFT Exhibitions are already taking place with NFT art galleries becoming more popular. These galleries exist in the digital world and in real spaces and are centered around NFTs. Libraries and Open Science projects should bear in mind to check the consequences of this trend on their work.

Environmental protection: Integrated into everyday tech and even website design

In IFLA’s Trend Report 2021 Update environmental issues were already raised. Libraries cannot ignore the fact that they too have to act, because of the threats of climate change. In different industries, more companies are committing to regenerative practices and sustainability. Thus, environmentally friendly trends are part of various trend reports. In its 2022 Trend Report Trendhunter lists Solar-Powered Retail and Biodegradable Tech as new trends. This refers to tech products and accessories being built with environmentally friendly materials, for instance biodegradable desktops, compostable phone cases or more eco-conscious materials.

Another interesting trend is called Carbon-neutral browsing: Companies are rethinking the way they design their websites in order to be less damaging to the environment. By redesigning their websites using small images or basic typefaces they make them more energy efficient, because simple visuals decrease the energy needed to load the site, this reduces carbon emissions. These are only some trends of regenerative practices libraries should consider to fulfil their responsibility.

Consider new practices to live diversity seriously

As the IFLA Trend Report 2021 Update stated, diversity is now taken seriously. More awareness of the existence and impacts of discrimination in society will influence diversity practiced in libraries. Living diversity and ending discriminatory practices is extremely important to contemporary consumers and is expressed in various trends. Two are cited in the „2022 Trend Report von Trendhunter – The Roaring 20’s are Coming Back“. The trend LGBTQ+ Therapy encloses means to tailor healthcare to better serve non-binary, trans and queer consumers. Related to this is the trend LGBTQ+ Entrepreneurship, which stands for not-for-profit organisations supporting the business endeavours of the LGBTQ+ community in order to develop a diverse business and tech industry by overcoming barriers. Corresponding to these trends, taking diversity seriously could or should have an impact on the collections, services and practices of libraries and Open Science projects to better support marginalised communities.

Creating meaningful connections: Joyning, Mutual Aid and P2P Communities

Joyning – Finding meaningful connections in a lonely world is a trend evolving from the digital lifestyle with omnipresent digital technologies and platforms, the ongoing pandemic and the rising number of people feeling lonely and isolated. To serve this trend, organisations should ask themselves, how they could support people to foster connections that are genuine, supportive and meaningful.

The trend P2P Community (Peer-to-peer Community) could be part of the answer. New platforms and communities create digital spaces where people connect and give one another peer-to-peer support. Another related trend is Link ‘n Learn – Engaging through peer-to-peer education. An example of this trend is a platform for online classes where older adults are encouraged to connect and engage with their peers. It enables anyone to teach or join small classes and to interact while they cook or dance. Mutual Aid Network is another similar trend enforced by the coronavirus pandemic. Mutual aid networks maintained exclusively by volunteers are growing worldwide facilitated by not-for-profits that offer special tools to bring the community together in sharing resources. How could libraries and Open Science projects participate in these trends and build such supportive communities?

Analogue backlash: Tech fatigue boosts mindfulness

The IFLA Trend Report 2021 Update (PDF) stated an Analogue Backlash caused by the stresses of constant social media connectivity. Similarly, a Tech Fatique is diagnosed by Trendhunter that is also grounded in working and learning from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic leading to stress and a lack of being outside and physically active. To answer this trend and to fight burn-out, organisations add special features to their products, like built-in features on meeting platforms that limit stimuli and help people taking breaks and being more mindful with their energy levels. This trend could be interesting for library services and Open Science activities when rethinking their digital services and tools.

More information on trends und technologies for 2022:

Author: Birgit Fingerle

Birgit Fingerle holds a diploma in economics and business administration and works at ZBW, among others, in the fields innovation management, open innovation, open science and currently in particular with the “Open Economics Guide”. Birgit Fingerle can also be found on Twitter.

Portrait, photographer: Northerncards©

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Open Access goes Barcamp, Part 2: How to organise networking online

by Hannah Schneider (KIM), Andreas Kirchner (KIM) und Maximilian Heber (KIM)

You normally get together for a Barcamp event on site in a relaxed atmosphere, write ideas on whiteboards, pinboards or flipcharts and switch back and forth between the sessions as you see fit. You also naturally get into conversations with others in the kitchenette, in the corridors, during breaks or when having dinner together. All these elements enliven Barcamps and make them what they are. So how do you succeed in transferring a physical setting of this kind into a virtual space while staying true to the character of a Barcamp event?

Choose the right tools for the online Barcamp event

As we wanted the virtual Open Access Barcamp to reflect not only the exchange of information and ideas but also the networking character online, we decided to use gather.town as the technical basis. In our opinion, this tool is better than other videoconferencing software, such as Zoom or BigBlueButton, at facilitating quick conversational exchanges and the independent formation of small groups. A special feature of gather.town is that it offers users the option of moving around freely as a small figure in a space specially created for the respective event. As soon as you approach others, the camera and microphone are activated. This helps participants make a variety of contacts – just like at real meetings. We also considered using wonder.me, but since it does not provide for flexible room design, we ultimately decided against it.

Screenshot 1: The Gather.town room (CC BY 4.0)

We also used the online whiteboard Miro to collaboratively collect topics and for documentation purposes. This gave participants the opportunity to catch up on the contents of the sessions they could not attend. We chose Miro because it offers both a voting function and enough space for different groups to work in different corners at the same time.

Since technical issues and problems are to be expected when using such interactive tools, there were also two people in the conference room who provided technical support throughout the event, in addition to a central helpdesk email address. This proved to be very helpful, especially at the beginning of the event. An illustrated guide on how to use the tools was sent out in advance to help participants prepare for the event.

Screenshot 2: The Miro whitheboard (CC BY 4.0)

A central point of the programme at the beginning of each Barcamp event is the session planning to collectively set the agenda. The aim was to fill the five 45-minute sessions with up to three parallel events. To do so, we first collected topics on Miro and then presented each topic for one minute in an elevator pitch. A vote integrated into Miro then determined which topics should be included in the agenda. Care was taken to ensure that they did not overlap in order to allow as many people as possible to participate in the most popular sessions. The scheduling preference of the people giving the sessions was also taken into account.

Illustration 3: Session planning (CC BY 4.0)

To sweeten the break for the participants while the organisation team finalised the programme, a conference bag containing Open Access items and chocolates was sent to their home office in advance as a “care package”. For this purpose, we had asked the participants to provide their addresses on a voluntary basis during registration and most of them accepted the offer.

Illustration 4: Carepaket (CC BY 4.0)

How to create networking opportunities online

Since networking with other people is often more difficult at online events than at on-site meetings, and brief conversations during the coffee break usually don’t happen during virtual events, we specifically scheduled times for socialising.

Participants were given time to get to know each other better on the first day. For this purpose, three organisational questions were asked, according to which everyone in the gather.town room was asked to line up (for example, “I have already been to a Barcamp event” ? line up in ascending order from never to very often). The resulting groups were then given the opportunity to chat.

A kind of “speed dating” activity also took place allowing participants to talk to one person for five minutes, after which the interlocutors changed partners in order to ensure that each participant could have several different conversations.

We also deliberately left a time slot open on the second day for topics that either had not made it onto the agenda or required more extensive discussion. During this time slot, everyone could gather around “topic tables” to discuss aspects that concern them personally in their everyday work with Open Access. In keeping with the motto “bring-your-own-problem”, this facilitated practice-oriented discussions in smaller groups, for example on the topics of secondary publications, publication funds or Open Access consulting services.

During the evening programme, likewise held in gather.town, the participants were first given the opportunity to put their general knowledge to the test in a pub quiz. They then also had a chance to make or consolidate contacts with other Open Access enthusiasts in an informal setting. Although all the participants had spent the whole day sitting in front of the screen, about 25 people met up again in gather.town in the evening. Even though the quiz could have been a little shorter according to the feedback from some participants, it was a relaxed get-together despite the virtual setting.

The online Barcamp thrived on the active participation

We feel that the virtual Open Access Barcamp was a successful experiment all things considered and are pleased that the community had a lively exchange of ideas in our innovative setting. The two-day online event thrived on the contribution and collaboration of everyone and the active engagement of the participants. Numerous practical aspects and challenges in the everyday work with Open Access were addressed and discussed, and participants looked for solutions together.

We would like to point out that the vast majority of participants saw the video conferencing tool gather.town as very suitable, despite initial technical difficulties. It not only challenged and supported participants with their activities, but also facilitated conversations in the virtual kitchenette or socialising time slots. The combination with an online whiteboard such as Miro has also proven successful for session planning as well as for collaboration and documentation during the Open Access Barcamp. It should be noted, however, that the technical performance of online events is highly dependent on the internet connection and other technical conditions that are difficult to influence as an organiser. The virtual format nevertheless offers all interested parties the opportunity to exchange ideas easily with the Open Access community, regardless of location and without having to travel far or implement other logistical planning measures.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all participants for their active and lively engagement in the programme. We would also like to thank them for their openness to the unconventional online format and their patience with technical problems. A big thank you also goes out to the entire open-access.network project team for their great teamwork. We are looking forward to #OABarcamp22 next year!

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This text has been translated from German.

The post Open Access goes Barcamp, Part 2: How to organise networking online first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

Digitalisation in Libraries: 5 Lessons from the Corona Crisis for the New Normal

by Doreen Siegfried

What innovative push towards digitalisation in libraries worldwide has been ushered in by the coronavirus? What was digitalisation status at the beginning of the corona pandemic? What were the biggest challenges for infrastructure institutions? How were they solved? What were the “highlights” of the employees? What was the biggest “life hack” that an institution picked up from the corona crisis in the field of digitalisation? And what have you learned from it?

We recently put these and other questions to our partners in the international EconBiz network. In a detailed overview, eight infrastructure institutions from Singapore, France, Germany, the USA, Denmark, Malaysia and Turkey described their experiences and the most important lessons learned from the pandemic: Digitalisation in Libraries – To What Extent has Corona Given a Boost? In a short report we now introduce the five most important trends and lessons from the network, which are sure to be reflected all over the world as well.

Lesson #1: Virtual collaboration facilitates cross-location cooperation

Digital communication technologies have fundamentally changed teamwork in academic libraries. New patterns of behaviour have been created worldwide. Virtual meetings, break-out sessions, discussions with courtesy breaks, chats and working at a distance have been learned and are now part of the standard repertoire of collaboration in libraries.

The Aarhus University Library / The Royal Danish Library, for example, with its 900 employees spread across different locations in Denmark, has sustainably reduced the social distance between branches through digital tools. Thanks to virtual working with video conference systems, employees have grown together and will continue to use their new work tools. Susanne Dalsgaard Krag, library manager, writes:

„The pandemic has taught us to work together across departments and across the country in a way we would never have imagined. You can mention a lot of different things, we have learned during the pandemic, but I guess this is one of the biggest advantages, and something we will carry into the post pandemic world, which we all look forward to welcome.“

Lesson #2: Investing in human resource development pays off

What has become clear for all EconBiz partners throughout the globe is: We are living in new times. There will be no going back to a pre-corona era. Working according to prefabricated workflows was yesterday. What propelled the libraries forward were creative employees with the ability to adapt rapidly to continually new parameters and to accept this state of fluctuation. This awareness for working and living in a VUCA world – in other words a world determined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity – will also define personnel management in academic libraries in the post-corona era.

Rajen Munoo, Head of Learning and Engagement at Singapore Management University Libraries, stresses:

„Our biggest ‘life hack’ was upskilling – to ensure that all staff were ‘vaccinated’ with digital skills to be resilient and agile by providing them with opportunities to learn, unlearn and relearn through continuing professional development opportunities in this VUCA world.“

Corey Seeman, USA, University of Michigan, Kresge Library Services, summarises:

„Libraries will have a choice on the other end of this pandemic to keep the changes that have been implemented or revert back to their previous normal ways. The path forward will likely be a combination of these both, but it is important to embrace these changes as a way to a more modern library.“

Lesson #3: Good networks are crucial for fast and stable solutions

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, infrastructure institutions have had to continually develop new solutions in order to keep hygiene regulations and health and safety measures. They therefore enter a dialogue not only with the authorities but also with other institutions on the campus or in the wider world. Those who are well connected here, can easily find common solutions. Rajen Munoo from the Singapore Management University Libraries, suggests:

„With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ever-changing directives from various agencies, our priority was collaborating with campus partners in order to comply with the health and safety protocols“.

Lesson #4: Empathy for users promotes creativity

Those who deal with the needs and wishes of users in an empathic way will also find creative solutions. This is suggested by a study from the University of Cambridge. The experiences of the EconBiz partners also reveal that creative solutions are found wherever libraries show empathy for the fears and insecurities of students – no matter whether they are freshers or advanced students. In Singapore, for example, the libraries use “peer advisors” to dispel the fears of the new students taking part in an online semester for the first time with a peer-to-peer learning programme.

Christine Okret-Manville from the Université Paris Dauphine-PSL Bibliothèque in France writes:

„To help our readers make the most of all these resources, we put a series of tutorials for self-training online (bilingual). We quickly put up virtual training sessions. […] In this difficult period, we had to show an especially supportive behaviour towards one another to manage adapting quickly to unusual work conditions. Yet it gave us an opportunity to increase and diversify our services, introducing virtuality where we didn’t use it enough or at all yet, and giving us new leads to expand our activity.“

And also Corey Seeman from the Kresge Library Services in Michigan can gain something from new digital solutions beyond the current lockdown:

„Library instruction and consultations via Zoom will likely continue. One of the challenges we would have is finding a space that could work for meetings. By using Zoom, the need for space mostly goes away.“

In an international online poster session organised by Koç University (Turkey), many ideas were presented on how to stay in touch with employees but also with students – from motivational emails to online pet therapy with various animals.

Lesson #5: Digital first is measurably worth it

Many libraries from the EconBiz partner network had already made a large quantity of electronic resources accessible even before lockdown. Propelled by COVID-19, they once again improved their digital services and found solutions for even more accessible e-media. Christine Okret-Manville from Paris:

„Our priority has been to extend the size and availability of our electronic collection: we offered remote access to the financial databases which were only available on site, tested new textbook databases and other sources. We dedicated a section of our website to resources publishers could open freely during that time.“

Vasiliki Mole from Koç University in Turkey also reports on the considerable efforts – both to enable students to access electronic media as well as to create enthusiasm for new possibilities.

„Sometimes, the comfort zone of years’ old practices is hard to overcome, as it creates a somewhat stiff acceptance of a new perspective. A rather difficult issue we have finally come to a point to change, has been the traditional print textbooks and their replacement with online publications.“
Deborah Wallace from the Harvard Business School’s Baker Library (USA) emphasises that the effort pays off in very clear indicators:

„As a result, almost every one of our services and information product use volumes have increased. For example, Baker Library website use by MBA students +73% and alumni +43%, database use +76%, Working Knowledge, readership +51%, and Books@Baker participants +90%.“

You can read about the experiences of the individual EconBiz partners in detail here: Digitalisation in Libraries: To What Extent has Corona Given a Boost?

About the EconBiz partner network:

The EconBiz partner network is an international network of libraries and research institutions focusing on economics studies. Its mission is to enable top research in economics and business studies through easy access to quality subject information in combination with state-of-the art search-features. The network promotes the transfer of knowledge and cooperation among members worldwide. Its mission is to enable top research in economics and business studies through easy access to quality subject information in combination with state-of-the art search-features. The network helps to promote the service on an international level and to enhance the visibility of research output and conferences in all partner countries. It also provides a forum for the discussion of topics relevant to the partners. Answers to questions as well as partners for joint projects can be found through the network.

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Further articles by Doreen Siegfried

This article also appeared in the 2020 ZBW Annual Review “Open” (PDF) that highlights developments at the ZBW, among other things: Research Data Management, Open Science and organised knowledge.

This text has been translated from German.

The post Digitalisation in Libraries: 5 Lessons from the Corona Crisis for the New Normal first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

Digitisation in Libraries: To What Extent has Corona Given a Boost?

by Susanne Daalsgaard Krag, Aida Maria Ismail, Vasiliki Mole, Rajen Munoo, Christine Okret-Manville, Tamara Pianos, Corey Seeman, Claudia Sittner, Klaus Tochtermann, and Deb Wallace

Together with the partners from the EconBiz network, we set out to find the effects of the corona pandemic on digitisation in (digital infrastructure) institutes, libraries and workplaces around the world. The international EconBiz partner network started in 2012 and has 40 partners in many different countries.

So, how did the institutes from across the globe experience the changes? Are there differences across regions, countries and continents? To find out we asked the partners from the network: What innovation push towards digitisation has the coronavirus triggered in your institution? What was the state of digitisation in your institution at the beginning of the corona pandemic? What was your highlight? What was the biggest challenge? How did you solve it? What was your biggest learning? What is the biggest “life hack” that your institution has taken away from the corona crisis in the area of digitisation?

The result is an exciting wealth of experience from partner institutes from Singapure, France, Germany, the USA, Denmark, Malaysia and Turkey. Thanks to their shared experiences, it becomes possible to look beyond our own corona plates and shows which creative solutions have been found in other parts of the world.

COVID-19 learnings at AU Library / The Royal Danish Library
by Susanne Dalsgaard Krag, Denmark

COVID-19 learnings at AU Library / The Royal Danish Library

by Susanne Dalsgaard Krag, Denmark

COVID-19 came like a thief in the night, and changed all our lives. From one day to another, all the libraries closed down, including The Royal Danish Library. We all needed to find other ways to do things. It has been an exciting voyage and looking back at almost a year of corona pandemic, one can see the results of a true disruption.

Denmark is a highly digitised country. Almost 99% of the population have access to internet connection, which showed to be a very great advantage during the shut downs. At the university libraries we have been preparing for the digital change in quite a while, but in March 2020 we were forced to take a huge step into the digital age, like the rest of the world.

Up to the pandemic we had been training skills in edu-it and virtual meetings, but without the big break through. Now suddenly these skills came into use, and most of the staff are now fully comfortable in online teaching and guidance, and a very big number of digital learning objects have been prepared and published on the homepage. The creativity has been exceptional. We have learned to use the virtual environment to compensate for the social distance, and we can make break out rooms, change virtual background, chat and raise hands in Zoom and Teams. We learned a lot about, what works, and what doesn’t.

The Royal Danish Library has 800 to 900 staff members spread all over the country, and the pandemic has taught us to work together across departments and across the country in a way we would never have imagined. You can mention a lot of different things, we have learned during the pandemic, but I guess this is one of the biggest advantages, and something we will carry into the post pandemic world, which we all look forward to welcome.

More Online Meetings and Events, online-connectedness
and future café at the ZBW
by Klaus Tochtermann, Germany

More Online Meetings and Events, online-connectedness and future café at the ZBW

by Klaus Tochtermann, Germany

Digitisation and digital skills were important topics and working from home was an option for many colleagues at ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics long before the corona pandemic. Nonetheless, there was still a huge push towards using more digital tools and platforms during the first months of the pandemic. In March 2020, many employees got Zoom-accounts and were able to organise virtual events for up to 300 people. This option was used widely for many different kinds of events. By the end of October, all 270 ZBW-employees were entitled to get WebEx-accounts to organise their own virtual meetings and to use WebEx-Teams for chats etc.

Huge conferences organised by the ZBW were quickly moved to online formats and had even more participants from more countries than in previous years (for example the SWIB – Semantic Web in Libraries, the YES! – Young Economic Summit or the upcoming Open Science Conference).

In order to support social interaction of the employees an internal platform is used to share experiences in dealing with the situation from life-hacks, instructions on keeping your neck-muscles in shape to uplifting thoughts and new hobbies. Since many ZBW-employees mostly worked from home, it was feared that the feeling of connectedness and common purpose might suffer. In order to battle this, the directors launched a 30 minute “future café” which is offered every other week – talking about a specific topic with a question and answers section. Many people from both ZBW-locations in Kiel and Hamburg attend these short meetings – which would be difficult to achieve with on-site-events.

During the first shutdown – when the library was closed for a couple of weeks – students were supported with motivational letters up to five times a week. ZBW services offer special corona-related pages on information access or research or a topic page within the EconBiz Author Profiles.

Since teaching at the universities had to be moved online within a couple of weeks as well, professors asked for support in online instruction methods, so the ZBW organised two online panels and gathered some best practice solutions (German).

The pandemic was and is very challenging for many people but it also opened a number of new opportunities and boosted creative online solutions.

Pandemic Pains Pivots Possibilities at Singapore Management University Libraries
by Rajen Munoo, Singapore

Pandemic Pains Pivots Possibilities at Singapore Management University Libraries

by Rajen Munoo, Singapore

I am currently Head, Learning and Engagement at Singapore Management University Libraries (SMU) – comprising the Li Ka Shing and Kwa Geok Choo Law Libraries. The Libraries serve six schools with an enrolment of around 10,000 undergraduates and postgraduates. Being a city campus where space is prime, SMU Libraries always had a digital first approach where over 90% of our collections and resources are digital. A robust systems infrastructure of various online applications supports the research, teaching and learning needs of the community.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ever-changing directives from various agencies, our priority was collaborating with campus partners in order to comply with the health and safety protocols. To meet this challenge we put in place a business continuity plan that pivoted our digital strategy and also became a catalyst for change.

Our highlights were the various creative ideas implemented by the SMU Libraries team such as:

  • pick-up-and-go access service, quickly sourcing e-textbooks and Open Educational Resources (OER) and reaching out to faculty to navigate copyright compliance;
  • a knowledge portal of the gratis access to databases provided by vendors during the pandemic;
  • redeploying student assistants to extend the virtual “Ask Library” chat service beyond normal library hours to optimise the value-add of library staff and continue to provide work opportunities for students with the physical libraries closure.
  • Our Library Peer Advisors also stepped forward when the freshmen orientation moved online to curate Online Learning is Different! Succeed in Online Learning a peer-to-peer learning programme that comprised workshops and hacks to help quell the anxiety of new students across the university taking an online semester for the first time!

    Stakeholder involvement and communication to ensure no one was left behind, was the biggest learning for the leadership team especially in a service-oriented profession.

    Our biggest “life hack” was upskilling – to ensure that all staff were “vaccinated” with digital skills to be resilient and agile by providing them with opportunities to learn, unlearn and relearn through continuing professional development opportunities in this VUCA.

    Onward in the spirit of #OneSMULibraries …

COVID-19 and Dauphine-PSL library: Pushing electronic resources
and self-training to the fore
by Christine Okret-Manville, France

COVID-19 and Dauphine-PSL library: Pushing electronic resources and self-training to the fore

by Christine Okret-Manville, France

In the library of Université Paris Dauphine-PSL, we had already gathered a large amount of electronic resources in pre-coronavirus times. But the lockdown forced us to pause and think, to come up with ideas to improve our virtual services.

Our priority has been to extend the size and availability of our electronic collection: we offered remote access to the financial databases which were only available on site, tested new textbook databases and other sources. We dedicated a section of our website to resources publishers could open freely during that time.

To help our readers make the most of all these resources, we put a series of tutorials for self-training online (bilingual). We quickly put up virtual training sessions. We promoted our questions and answers module to maintain contact with our readers. Eventually, through Twitter, Facebook, internal mailing lists and the website, we fed our followers with a regular flow of information.

In this difficult period, we had to show an especially supportive behaviour towards one another to manage adapting quickly to unusual work conditions. Yet it gave us an opportunity to increase and diversify our services, introducing virtuality where we didn’t use it enough or at all yet, and giving us new leads to expand our activity.

Jaws: how Koç University Suna K?raç Library fought against the pandemic
and managed to hunt the beast down
by Vasiliki Mole, Turkey

Jaws: how Koç University Suna K?raç Library fought against the pandemic and managed to hunt the beast down

by Vasiliki Mole, Turkey

Koç University (KU) is one of the leading universities in Turkey, distinguished by notable contributions to the elevation of education, knowledge and service both domestically and beyond. Suna K?raç Library, the main University library embraces and follows closely and consistently the University’s efforts to advance knowledge.

Koç University Suna K?raç Library has fought COVID-19 investing long working hours and determination to turn the situation into an opportunity to develop distant access solutions for its users. Among the highlights of the previous year are

The biggest challenge for us has been to see our efforts and adaptations having a positive result to the community. Sometimes, the comfort zone of years’ old practices is hard to overcome, as it creates a somewhat stiff acceptance of a new perspective. A rather difficult issue we have finally come to a point to change, has been the traditional print textbooks and their replacement with online publications.

Academia brings together the advantage of continuous improvement which benefits all related stakeholders, including the libraries. The current global state dictates that we should always keep our eyes open to new opportunities that will strengthen our profile and consequently will help us accomplish our primary goal: serving our users the best way!

Kresge Library Services and the Great Flip of 2020: Innovation & COVID-19
by Corey Seeman, USA

Kresge Library Services and the Great Flip of 2020: Innovation & COVID-19

by Corey Seeman, USA

Kresge Library Services supports the business information needs of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Back in 2013, we were a fairly traditional business library, with 70,000 volumes, seating for nearly 700 students, and over 100 service hours a week. During a large construction project at the Ross School of Business (2014-2016), the library space for print volumes and student study were removed completely. So we reinvented itselves as a digital only library (or as we call it – the ethereal library). From the time we moved out of our old library space, we were a mostly digital library and (though we did not know it at the time), very well suited for the challenges of a pandemic.

While our collections were virtually all electronic, we had a few in-person services only performed at the library. These included our exam and assignment review and handback service for Ross classes and course material pickup (for printed versions of cases and required readings). In March 2020, with the move to virtual classes, we pivoted easily to meet these new dynamics. We shut down the services that were in-person because there was no way to complete them effectively in a remote fashion.

We developed a number of hacks and changes that will likely be a part of our library from here on out:

  • We have long advocated for flexible scheduling, but we were able to expand our coverage by allowing people to work at different times. Giving flexibility to your team can lead to expanded hours of service for your patrons.
  • Meetings via Zoom will continue when normalcy returns! Typically, we would try to schedule team meetings for days when everyone can be in the office, but now we can be more flexible.
  • Library instruction and consultations via Zoom will likely continue. One of the challenges we would have is finding a space that could work for meetings. By using Zoom, the need for space mostly goes away.

Libraries will have a choice on the other end of this pandemic to keep the changes that have been implemented or revert back to their previous normal ways. The path forward will likely be a combination of these both, but it is important to embrace these changes as a way to a more modern library.

COVID-19 Inspired Innovation at Harvard Business School’s Baker Library
by Deb Wallace, USA

COVID-19 Inspired Innovation at Harvard Business School’s Baker Library

by Deb Wallace, USA

Baker Library sits at the scholastic, physical, and emotional “heart” of the Harvard Business School (HBS) campus. When the decision to move the majority of the School’s activities to online platforms was implemented on March 18, 2020, Baker Library leveraged its decade-long investment in staff capability development, digital collections, semantic search, and a content management/publishing platform to enable continued pursuit of the School’s mission to educate leaders who make a difference in the world.

To meet the research, teaching, and learning needs of our community of students, faculty, alumni, and staff, we repositioned services and created new self-service information products, including components of an internal information portal to enable just-in-time decision-making and the HBS COVID-19 Business Impact Center, an external-facing repository and newsletter that provides the latest research and insights from HBS faculty.

In addition to creating new products, we expanded our virtual reference and digital content delivery services, published 10,000+ digital surrogates of unique materials, and increased access to licensed databases and digital alternatives to print resources. We also created the HBS COVID-19 Community Archive to chronicle the experience and launched a collecting strategy to document this unprecedented time in American business through company records and websites.

As a result, almost every one of our services and information product use volumes have increased. For example, Baker Library website use by MBA students +73% and alumni +43%, database use +76%, Working Knowledge, readership +51%, and Books@Baker participants +90%.

Our greatest challenges are prioritising work, allocating limited resources, and sustaining our teams as they juggled remote work, child and eldercare, and related issues to the growing racial and political strife and healthcare crisis that the US continues to experience. I am indebted to the staff’s commitment to our goals, passion for our work, ingenuity, and entrepreneurial spirit. They are certainly the “secret sauce” of our ability to remain relevant to our community!

Students support SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic
by Aida Maria Ismail, Malaysia

Students support SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic

by Aida Maria Ismail, Malaysia

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the enforcement of the Movement Control Order (MCO) in Malaysia resulted in an unprecedented slump in economic activity. Businesses adopted digital measures to make up for the shortfall in traditional sources of revenue. As more business establishments digitalise, firms that are left out of this digital revolution will struggle to survive, let alone thrive. Although the prevailing wisdom is that COVID-19 has ushered in a pivot to digitalisation, there remain many challenges that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) face in doing so. Digitalisation is increasingly useful for SMEs to improve efficiency and competitiveness; despite they perform relatively poorly in digitalisation. Government and policy interventions can facilitate this process, and the university can assist in supporting SMEs digitalisation and survivalist.

The Malaysian education framework direction and way forward addresses the local community needs and issues. Through the ‘Service-Learning Malaysia – University for Society’ (SULAM) which was initiated by the Ministry of Education, students participate in a structured service activity that meets identified community needs. It is a course-based, credit-bearing educational experience. SULAM pedagogy supports humanistic and value-driven education as a key to strengthening the education system by integrating love, happiness and mutual respect.

Four classes of final semester students, Bachelor of Accountancy (Hons) from the Faculty of Accountancy Universiti Teknologi MARA Selangor involved in SULAM, in helping four SMEs’, managing the impact of the pandemic on business sustainability. In order to ensure businesses, remain resilient during this pandemic, students conducted a comprehensive business analysis in order to advise on sustainable strategy and mechanism. Elements of digitalisation were incorporated in the sustainability strategy and mechanism since this will ensure businesses remain competitive. Business model canvases (BMC) and business plans were among the documents prepared by students in helping SMEs getting assistance from the government economic stimulus package. According to the new standard, 90% of the implementation of SULAM took place via a digital platform.

As an advisor to this project, it was a valuable experience since I was able to see how students engage in activities that address community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning. It is capable of enhancing the sense of social responsibility, religious and racial tolerance as well as developing skills such as the ability to work well with others, critical thinking skills and creative, leadership and communication skills.

How the corona pandemic has advanced digitisation in libraries

The corona crisis caught us all cold. When suddenly all libraries and institutes more or less closed their on-site services, the first thing to do was to take stock. The result: many institutes had long since made the leap into digitisation or had almost done so. The staff had been trained and had the necessary skills to do their jobs digitally. Now the task was to apply the knowledge they had learned and to improve services that were not yet sufficiently digitalised.

Many libraries created extra websites with corona information and made collections accessible online that were normally only accessible on site. Communication with staff and users took on an important role, which in many places was solved with great personal commitment and creativity. Websites became more dynamic and social media and newsletters were perceived as even more important. The staff was the “secret ingredient” that made so much possible during the pandemic.

To compensate for the lack of social interaction, to keep teams together and motivated, and to keep personal contact with users online, tools such as Zoom or Teams were made available across the board and learned almost overnight.

The group of (often quite young) students was especially supported with a lot of understanding and compassion in the EconBiz partner institutes all over the world, for example with extended chat consultation hours, longer online opening hours or “corona letters” of encouragement. Self-training for a wide range of online and learning skills has been developed and offered to users.

In addition to all the challenges, the crisis was also recognised in many places as an opportunity to make a leap into the possibilities of digitalisation. And even if everyone is longing for a new normality right now, much of what was established and cherished during the corona period will certainly remain part of this new working world.

Note: Originally, another EconBiz partner institution wanted to share their experiences as well. Since they were under a ransomware attack they had more pressing issues than this blogpost. This may happen to any service we provide and shows how fragile digital services can be and that we all have to face many digital challenges in the future. When things work, we sometimes tend to forget.

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About the authors:

Dr Tamara Pianos studied Geography and English literature. After completing her doctorate in Canadian Studies and a traineeship as an academic librarian she worked at the TIB in Hanover. Since 2005, she has been working at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, where she is now head of Information Provision and Access. She is the product manager of the EconBiz portal and is responsible for information literacy topics.

Claudia Sittner studied journalism and languages in Hamburg and London. She was a long time lecturer at the ZBW publication Wirtschaftsdienst – a journal for economic policy, and is now the managing editor of the blog ZBW MediaTalk. Part time she works as a freelance travel blogger, speaker and author.

Prof Klaus Tochtermann is Director of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics . For many years he has been committed to Open Science on a national and international level. He is a Member of the Board of Directors of the EOSC Association (European Open Science Cloud).

Rajen Munoo has been employed at the Singapore Management University (SMU) Libraries for over 13 years now primarily in the role of working with a team of Research Librarians to design, develop and deliver learning programmes including information literacy classes and workshops for their respective Schools and the wider SMU community. His areas of interest are information and digital literacies, continuing professional development of library and information workers and pedagogy and instructional design.

Christine Okret-Manville has a PhD in History, a degree in Political Science and an Archivist-Palaeographer Diploma (Archive and Library Science). She holds the position of Deputy Director of the Université Paris Dauphine-PSL Library and is also in charge of the library services for researchers, and the management of the university repository BIRD.

Vasiliki Mole is a librarian with a B.A. in Library Science and Information Systems and an M.A. in Cultural Management. She has worked in Academic Libraries, mainly as an Instruction and Reference Librarian focusing on Information Literacy, Outreach and Research support. She is currently serving as the Head Librarian of the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED) Library.

Corey Seeman (personal website) is the director of Kresge Library Services (Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor). Corey has written and presented on customer service and change management within libraries, especially academic ones.

Deb Wallace is the Executive Director of Knowledge and Library Services and is a member of the HBS Senior Leadership Team. She manages a team of library, archival, technical, and research professionals in providing innovative products and services to meet the needs of the HBS and Harvard University communities.

Aida Maria Ismail PhD is Senior lecturer at the Faculty of Accountancy, University Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Selangor Malaysia. Her responsibility covers from teaching & learning activities, supervising research students, conducting research, publication and consultancy. Her area of expertise is ethics, governance and sustainability.

References Portraits:
Susanne Dalsgaard Krag© | Klaus Tochtermann: Sven Wied/ZBW© | Rajen Munoo© | Christine Okret-Manville: Patrick Dardinier© | Vasiliki Mole© | Corey Seeman: Bob Hebert/Wake Forest University Library© | Deb Wallace© | Aida Maria Ismail©.

The post Digitisation in Libraries: To What Extent has Corona Given a Boost? first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.The post Digitisation in Libraries: To What Extent has Corona Given a Boost? first appeared on Leibniz Research Alliance Open Science.