Future Directions in Digital Information: Predictions, Practice, Participation

By David Baker and Lucy Ellis

The last decade has seen significant global changes that have impacted the library, information, and learning services and sciences. There is now a mood to find pragmatic information solutions to pressing global challenges. Future Directions in Digital Information presents the latest ideas and approaches to digital information from across the globe, portraying a sense of transition from old to new. This title is a comprehensive, international take on key themes, advances, and trends in digital information, including the impact of developing technologies. The latest volume in the ‘Chandos Digital Information Review Series’, this book will help practitioners and thinkers looking to keep pace with, and excel among, the digital choices and pathways on offer, to develop new systems and models, and gain information on trends in the educational and industry contexts that make up the information sphere. A group of international contributors has been assembled to give their view on how information professionals and scientists are creating the future along five distinct themes: Strategy and Design; Who are the Users?; Where Formal meets Informal; Applications and Delivery; and finally, New Paradigms. The multinational perspectives contained in this volume acquaint readers with problems, approaches, and achievements in digital information from around the world, with equity of information access emerging as a key challenge.

• Presents a global perspective on how information science and services are changing and how they can best adapt
• Gives insight into how managers can make the best decisions about the future provision of their information services
• Engages key practical issues faced by information professionals such as how best to collect and deploy user data in libraries
• Presents digital literacy as a global theme, stressing the need to foster literacy in a broad range of contexts
• Interrogates how ready information professionals are for emergent technological and social change across the globe

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Oct 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9780128221778

Book preview

Future Directions in Digital Information

Predictions, Practice, Participation

First Edition

David Baker

Lucy Ellis

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

List of figures and tables

List of figures

List of tables

Foreword

Preface

Contributors

Author Biographies

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

1: Future directions in digital information: Scenarios and themes

Abstract

1.1: Introduction

1.2: COVID-19

1.3: Environments and ecosystems; digital disruption and paradigm shifts

1.4: Collections and services

1.5: Users, usage, e-valuation

1.6: Discovery and convergence: Improved quality and reduced cost

1.7: Digital and information literacy

1.8: Digital divides

1.9: Training, education, and development

1.10: Ready for the future?

Part One: Strategy and design

2: Current research information systems and institutional repositories: From data ingestion to convergence and merger

Abstract

Acknowledgments

2.1: Introduction

2.2: Institutional repositories

2.3: Current research information systems

2.4: Convergence

2.5: Merger

2.6: Data quality

2.7: User acceptance

2.8: Future perspectives

3: Effective strategies for information literacy education: Combatting ‘fake news’ and empowering critical thinking

Abstract

3.1: Introduction

3.2: Delivering learning

3.3: Learning environment

3.4: The creative use of pedagogic tools

3.5: Information provision

3.6: Information literacy

3.7: Ethical literacy

3.8: The continuum of digital risk in HE

3.9: Conclusion

4: Designing library-based research data management services from bottom-up

Abstract

4.1: Introduction

4.2: Literature review

4.3: RDM planning at HKUST Library

4.4: Points of reflection

4.5: A service design framework

4.6: Conclusion

Part Two: Who are the users?

5: The power of accessible knowledge: Universities, suppliers, and transparency in the information age

Abstract

5.1: Introduction

5.2: The potential of digital text

5.3: The reality of digital text

5.4: Unearthing the reality, part 1: The 2016 Ebook Accessibility Audit

5.5: Unearthing the reality, part 2: The 2018 ASPIRE project

5.6: Community building—Purpose and process

5.7: Light touch survey

5.8: Statistically significant

5.9: Positively oriented

5.10: Staff development

5.11: Publishers

5.12: Platforms

5.13: Website

5.14: ASPIRE awards

5.15: Conferences, journal articles, and blog posts

5.16: Lasting impact

5.17: Building a sustainable future for the ASPIRE project

5.18: Conclusion

6: Who is the online public library user?

Abstract

6.1: Introduction

6.2: Background information

6.3: Method

6.4: The online public library user—Results and discussion

6.5: The online public library user’s reading

6.6: The online public library user vs the public library visitor, and their different types of Internet activity

6.7: Conclusion

7: Digital culture: The dynamics of incorporation

Abstract

7.1: Introduction

7.2: Caught in between cultures

7.3: Practice, evidence, and impact

7.4: Digital information and family relationships

7.5: Projections

7.6: Conclusion

8: Information behaviour in an online university

Abstract

8.1: Introduction

8.2: Related work and theoretical framework

8.3: Digital Visitors and Residents framework

8.4: Objectives and research questions

8.5: Methodology

8.6: Results

8.7: Discussion

8.8: Conclusions

Appendix

Part Three: Where formal meets informal

9: Mobile technology and use of educational games in HE

Abstract

9.1: Introduction

9.2: Mobile learning in education

9.3: Use of games in education

9.4: Educational use of games in Library and Information Science

9.5: Conclusions

10: The evolving role of library collections in the broader information ecosystem

Abstract

10.1: Introduction

10.2: The current information environment

10.3: Strategy 1: Transforming purchasing

10.4: Strategy 2: Reevaluating and improving discovery and context tools

10.5: Strategy 3: Deeper integration with the curriculum

10.6: Conclusion: Balancing the bought library collection

11: Social media as a professional development tool for academic librarians

Abstract

11.1: Introduction

11.2: SM and academic libraries

11.3: How SM is used for professional development

11.4: SM in the workplace

11.5: Gender differences in SM usage

11.6: Age and SM usage

11.7: Research questions

11.8: The participants

11.9: Data collection and analysis

11.10: Results

11.11: Discussion

11.12: Limitations

11.13: Future research

11.14: Conclusion

Part Four: Applications and delivery

12: Closing the digital skills gap: Working with business to address local labour market policy

Abstract

12.1: Mapping the landscape

12.2: HE policy

12.3: Evidencing the skills gap

12.4: Reacting to the labour market

12.5: Institutional context and initiatives

12.6: Opportunities and challenges in co-designing interventions with employers

12.7: Contextualization and engagement

12.8: Visioning the future

12.9: Conclusion

13a: ‘It's all online!’ Creating digital study resources for orchestral musicians

Abstract

13a.1: Orchestral beginnings

13a.2: Advances in technology

13a.3: The website

13a.4: Music readers

13a.5: Legal issues

13a.6: Conclusion

13b: Library acquisition, delivery, and discovery for a creative university

Abstract

13b.1: Introduction

13b.2: The printed book at UAL

13b.3: Acquisitions and bibliographic activity

13b.4: Trends in e-content

13b.5: Shifting formats

13b.6: Conclusion

13c: Digital transformation trends in education

Abstract

13c.1: Introduction

13c.2: Student and staff digital experience

13c.3: Traditional vs technological learning

13c.4: Value for money

13c.5: Emergence of new technologies and pedagogies

13c.6: Google and education

13c.7: Google Scholar

13c.8: Google and digital literacy

13c.9: Role of social media in education

13c.10: Web 2.0

13c.11: Use of technology in special education

13c.12: Conclusion

14: Transforming reference work into teaching: From a librarian to an information literacy-oriented university professor

Abstract

14.1: Introduction

14.2: Dynamics of change for librarians

14.3: Career change

14.4: Information literacy, its practice, and instruments to assess initiatives

14.5: Instruments employed from a librarian’s perspective (2013–17)

14.6: Results gathered as a librarian

14.7: Instrument employed from a teacher’s perspective (2017–19)

14.8: Results gathered as a teacher

14.9: Conclusion

Part Five: New paradigms

15: Envisioning Education 4.0—A scenario planning approach to predicting the future

Abstract

15.1: Macro trends in libraries and information science

15.2: Education 4.0—The future of teaching and learning?

15.3: Introducing scenario planning

15.4: A scenario planning approach to Education 4.0

15.5: Summary and conclusions

16: Data-driven modelling of public library infrastructure and usage in the United Kingdom

Abstract

16.1: Introduction and context

16.2: Objectives

16.3: There are no data for libraries on a national scale

16.4: What is a model?

16.5: Libraries as cultural retailers

16.6: Analytics for libraries: Descriptors for a model

16.7: Developing a library’s model

16.8: The Newcastle Libraries model

16.9: Model testing

16.10: Scenario testing

16.11: Performance indicators

16.12: Planning and policy implications: Future data requirements

16.13: Future work

17: How can the specific skills of the librarian in a digital context be used in the future?

Abstract

17.1: Introduction: the profession in its societal context

17.2: Research question

17.3: Summary of articles

17.4: Interviews

17.5: Results

17.6: Librarian skills in a digital society

17.7: The overall picture

17.8: Discussion

17.9: Conclusion

17.10: Outlook

18: The user as a data source: The advance of surveillance capitalism

Abstract

18.1: Introduction

18.2: Research questions addressed

18.3: The use of extended library services

18.4: Should libraries find inspiration in the methods of surveillance capitalism?

18.5: What is surveillance capitalism?

18.6: The early digital dream

18.7: ‘The fiasco of the web’

18.8: Surveillance and behavioural modification

18.9: Surveillance capitalism and libraries

18.10: ‘Reunite supply and demand’—From mass to individual consumption

18.11: User-to-user mediation in the participatory library

18.12: Associated inconveniences

18.13: Do library users need or demand more pro-active digital services based on surveillance?

18.14: Platform-conscious vs entertainment-focused users

18.15: Needs of inspiration vary within the eight library user segments

18.16: Summary

Conclusion

19: Future directions: Emergent process; constant invention; sum total

Abstract

19.1: Introduction

19.2: COVID and beyond

19.3: Accessibility

19.4: Envisioning the future

19.5: Strategy and design

19.6: Who are the users?

19.7: Where formal meets informal

19.8: Applications and delivery

19.9: New paradigms

19.10: 20 Absolute truths

19.11: Endnote

Appendix: Delphi questions

Index

Copyright

Chandos Publishing is an imprint of Elsevier

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Copyright © 2021 David Baker & Lucy Ellis. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Details on how to seek permission, further information about the Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangements with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions.

This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be noted herein).

Notices

Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-12-822144-0 (print)

For information on all Chandos publications visit our website at https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals

Publisher: Glyn Jones

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Cover Designer: Miles Hitchen

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List of figures and tables

List of figures

Fig. 2.1Architecture of a CRIS.

Fig. 2.2Dataflows of the ZORA repository, University of Zurich.

Fig. 2.3CRIS with IR functionalities.

Fig. 2.4Workflow of data cleansing.

Fig. 4.1Number of RDM publications in Lens.org.

Fig. 4.2A bottom-up design approach for RDM services.

Fig. 5.1The criteria for the Ebooks Accessibility Audit.

Fig. 5.2The range of testing criteria for the ASPIRE project.

Fig. 5.3The average publisher and platform ASPIRE scores.

Fig. 5.4Average publisher scores across the ASPIRE criteria.

Fig. 5.5Average platform scores across the ASPIRE criteria.

Fig. 5.6The 2018 ASPIRE website homepage.

Fig. 5.7The ASPIRE awards. From left to right: Georgia Parks (Red Globe Press), Alistair McNaught, Vanessa Boddington (VitalSource), and Jo Greig (Policy Press, part of Bristol University Press).

Fig. 5.8The ASPIRE awards. From left to right: Alistair McNaught, Tash Edmonds (ProQuest), Jessica Wykes, James Atkinson, Anne Watson, and Dita Krauz (City University).

Fig. 5.9The new ASPIRElist page on the textBOX website.

Fig. 7.1Age of respondents.

Fig. 7.2How well digital gadgets are used for accessing information.

Fig. 7.3Level of competence in the use of digital resources, generally.

Fig. 7.4Devices used the most for accessing digital information.

Fig. 7.5Platform most preferred for learning and research.

Fig. 9.1Distribution of disciplines and courses. As shown in Wu et al. (2012a,b, p. 824).

Fig. 11.1Frequency of reported social media platforms.

Fig. 12.1Computer science degree design process.

Fig. 13a.1Home page of the musicians’ website.

Fig. 13a.2Second level with access to PDF practice parts for each program.

Fig. 13a.3Third level with access to individual parts.

Fig. 13a.4Access to reference recordings of the repertoire for each program.

Fig. 13a.5Access to program folder containing mp3 recordings.

Fig. 13b.1UAL catalogued records and items 2016–19.

Fig. 13b.2UAL system and staff-created records and items 2016–19.

Fig. 13b.3UAL purchased e-books and serials 2016–19.

Fig. 13b.4E-book and serials usage, print borrowing, footfall 2016–19.

Fig. 15.1Example 2 × 2 matrix for YouTube scenario planning.

Fig. 15.2Student mobility and digital disruption on the path to Education 4.0.

Fig. 16.1Distribution of public libraries in the United Kingdom, a national view.

Fig. 16.2Public library provision in England per head of local authority (LA) population.

Fig. 16.3A demo libraries model system. (A) A hypothetical neighbourhood with five libraries. (B) We are using the building height to simulate the amount of each library’s resources available for the community (e.g. no of titles, Wi-Fi provision, workspaces). (C) The simulation generates the catchment area of libraries, based on population and accessibility of each library’s resources. Each colour represents a different catchment area of a library, whilst extrusion represents accessibility to that library. (D) Assuming cuts in funding, we close the smallest library and reduce the number of resources in the largest library. The model calculates the effects of closures by highlighting the areas where the remaining libraries take additional strain and also highlights that a certain population has no longer access to library provision (blocks shaded in black).

Fig. 16.4(A) Absolute number of library users in the local authority of Newcastle per library. (B) Absolute number of users, aggregated per output area (OA).

Fig. 16.5System for the residential zones-OA (i) in CityEngine.

Fig. 16.6(A) Newcastle libraries in CityEngine with output areas (OA) and the surrounding local authorities. (B) Catchment area of libraries in Newcastle using a calibrated model. (C) Observed data for the absolute number of library users for Newcastle Libraries within the Newcastle City Council. (D) Results of a calibrated model run for the users of the Newcastle Libraries within the Newcastle City Council.

Fig. 16.7(A) Current users for the EE library. (B) Scenario where deprivation increases in Newcastle (low-income users find the services and Wi-Fi provision of the library more attractive, whilst other accessibility decreases for the users outside the catchment area).

Fig. 16.8Scenario where the number of titles and provision of facilities is cut in half, for the main City Library, whilst two of the main libraries which serve the west side of Newcastle (Outer West library and High Heaton library) are closed completely, leaving significant segments of the population without library access (areas illustrated as black).

List of tables

Table 3.1Comparing blended and traditional access to case study courses.

Table 6.1Correlation between educational level (independent variable) and online public library use (dependent variable).

Table 6.2Correlation between age (independent variable) and online public library use (dependent variable).

Table 6.3Correlation between place of residence (independent variable) and online public library use (dependent variable).

Table 6.4Correlation between gender (independent variable) and online public library use (dependent variable).

Table 6.5Correlation between public library visits (independent variable) and online public library use (dependent variable).

Table 6.6Relation between printed book reading (independent variable) and online public library use (dependent variable).

Table 6.7Relation between e-book reading (independent variable) and online public library use (dependent variable).

Table 6.8Relation between audiobook reading (independent variable) and online public library use (dependent variable).

Table 6.9Result of two binary logistic regression analyses: (a) relation between information searching online (independent variable) and online public library use (dependent variable), and (b) relation between information searching online (independent variable) and public library visits (dependent variable).

Table 6.10Result of two binary logistic regression analyses: (a) relation between social media use (independent variable) and online public library use (dependent variable), and (b) relation between social media use (independent variable) and public library visits (dependent variable).

Table 7.1Faculty of respondents.

Table 7.2Pearson correlation of age and competence.

Table 7.3Use of mobile devices to access learning resources.

Table 8.1Motivations and barriers for using information resources.

Table 8.2Strategies for coping with information overload.

Table 14.1Types of instruments used to evaluate IL initiatives.

Table 14.2Examples of instruments used as a librarian.

Table 14.3Examples of instruments used as a teacher.

Table 14.4Descriptives of the four groups.

Table 14.5Descriptives of the four groups by topic and divided by students with or without a thesis experience.

Table 16.1Indicators for the Newcastle Libraries model.

Table 17.1Search matrix for systematic search.

Foreword

Technology will be a huge agent of change in the coming years in a variety of ways. Higher bandwidth and advances in mobile technology will continue to raise the expectations of anything, anywhere, with anytime accessibility. Expectations are manifested in a significant shift by users from hunter/gatherer, searching for information, for whatever need, in a variety of physical entities, to the harvester, expecting to find all they need from the convenience of their networked device. We will see more remote and virtual working, as social distancing becomes a normal practice. There will be improvements in information delivery services and digital meeting and sharing applications.

Digital and social media have already had an impact on organizational priorities and behaviours. Until now, they have tended to be adjuncts to traditional roles and expectations. Institutions of all types managing and disclosing information for users have to maintain, protect, and develop their collections and be accountable for their actions. Organizations will have to review how they balance their priorities between the physical and the virtual.

However, we should not automatically assume that technology is the solution to every problem: the danger of technical rationality—the extent to which seeking technological solutions dominates future research programmes. Technology is a key component, but research programmes should begin by considering carefully what is the core of the problem faced: problem setting rather than problem solving. The dangers of technical rationality and the need for policy frameworks for the future call for radical change both in the overall management and funding of research programmes and the behaviours and attitudes of institutions. This should take place within limits to set aside organizational identity and accept the value of collective action and advocacy in research and innovation with the aspiration that it will offer services that better meet the future needs of audiences of all types.

The fixed stoic image of a library is no longer fit for purpose. It must be made flexible, modernized, and more accessible to meet the needs and demands of today's users. The sector must not shy away from nontraditional development and collaboration. If technology can perform menial tasks, then this frees up staff to specialize in research and other aspects of the profession, leading to a more useful and efficient front-line service overall.

There should be new approaches to change management. By tradition, library and information services have had a duty to collect, care for, and exploit their collections in whatever form over time. Radical, disruptive change brings with it a significant risk. The incremental approach to change management is likely to be retained for aspects of service management and delivery. However, within the turbulent landscape of the Internet, while rapid change in service propositions has similar risks, there will be occasions when, to deliver effectively, quicker responses to outside forces will be needed. Those leading the innovation and change may sometimes need to operate more as entrepreneurs than conventional public service managers. Flexibility and open-mindedness are key when it comes to developing new approaches. If it does not work, try something else. Different ideas should be explored and monitored to help achieve success.

What will be called for is a far more collaborative and coordinated approach to innovation, where risks can be shared and where ideas can be incubated, and risk managed. It will be necessary to find ways for local institutions to give up some of their independence in service innovation for the greater good for truly effective service development in the digital landscape. Curated and trusted resources should be promoted and advertised by libraries since these are stable and authoritative. By relying on these resources, but managing them internally for delivery, risk is then diminished.

Policy frameworks for future research management must be considered. At the present time, there are only small levels of collaboration to find solutions that might offer service improvements across all or a cadre of institutions. Where technical innovation does take place, it may well have little impact on similar organizations elsewhere. Given increasing user expectation that ‘everything’ should be accessible anytime, anywhere—the shift from hunter/gatherer to harvester—there will need to be policy frameworks in place to ensure that research and innovation delivers maximum value through cooperation and coordination.

While demonstration of value to the user will be essential, it is highly likely that the scale of use and success will continue to be significant. The future of public funding looks now more uncertain than ever and institutions wishing to protect (and grow) their budgets will have to show value at scale. This will be important in the exploitation of Internet technologies where the possibility exists to reach the widest possible audience. The question of value comes in, which can still be captured online. It will become less about the numbers, especially as user numbers drop when people bypass the library completely in search of online information. Instead it will become more about the quality of the information that the people are using and the uses to which they put this information. Numbers will still play a role, but this will be vastly diminished when it comes to justifying services and projects.

Convenience and point of demand will continue to be the drivers of technological innovation. The ‘learning for life’ that technology offers presents the greatest opportunities for increased value to individuals and to society at large. Learning literacy (LL—known more formally as heutagogy)—assisting users to understand how they maximize personal benefit from the knowledge and information they find—will become significant: how to interpret, how to test reliability and encourage the value of what they find in ongoing learning journeys, whether in formal education or in everyday life. Supporting LL, understanding the exchange relationship between the online collection resources and the user and modelling the value delivered must be the core activities for library and information services.

Successful delivery of online resources will call for new relationships with users in terms of both the design of new systems and the constant monitoring of how services are received and revised in the light of experience. Success will depend on an organizational shift towards constant monitoring and engagement. It is important that information ethics underpins everything that libraries do, especially if they are offering user training in digital literacy, which should include citizens’ rights and duties and training in the good and ethical use of information. They should regularly question their practice and ensure that users do the same. In a world where other digital competencies and websites are questioned, libraries need to set the best possible example of good practice and use data responsibility, so users can learn from their example.

The key factors in future strategies must include making clear how both the virtual and the physical are managed to deliver best value and engagement with collective research and innovation. There should be a preparedness to change significant parts of delivery priorities as external demands change. Sometimes success will require speedy action, sometimes not. Balancing radical change with the traditional incremental approach but ensuring that at all stages the processes of development, innovation, and research engage with current users and potential new audiences will be important.

How can technology be used by all, not just those who are used to it? This includes both users and staff to ensure no one gets left behind. The development of online services should work with the development of in-person resources rather than as a separate thing. It is important to think about those who do not visit libraries in person but do have access to personal technology.

A clear mission and purpose must underpin everything a library service does. Practices and ways of working must evolve to meet both user demands and new technological potential. This should lead to an appraisal of the institution within its environment to establish the external pressures, changes, and opportunities it will face through time. The institution must remain confident in its fundamental purpose and when necessary be fleet of foot, acting like an entrepreneur in responding to external change. The critical challenge of digital projects is the speed of change that can and does take place.

Libraries will continue to collect and enable access to quality sources of information. They will retain authority, organizing and enabling effective search and retrieval for end users, curating, acquiring, and delivering quality information sources for different user groups. They will save users time and effort, provide reassurance about information quality, provide guidance to users on how to make good choices about information, how to use information appropriately, and how to create and disseminate their own content in an appropriate and safe manner.

Libraries are safe places; spaces for comfort and well-being. These characteristics guarantee users the confidence to explore information freely and openly. This is at the basis of the development of ideas that in turn will foster new knowledge for society. They have an indirect impact through education, with a population who are better informed about the world and able to conduct themselves responsibly in the digital environment and more able to make social connections. If libraries continue to focus on free and open information, open buildings, and free services, then they will remain essential.

The Delphi Group

Preface

Lucy Ellis, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom

David Baker, http://davidbakerconsulting.co.uk, David Baker Consulting

In Act I Scene 5 of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the deadly Lady Macbeth reads letters from her husband telling her of the witches’ prophesy that he will be king. These, she describes ‘have transported me beyond/This ignorant present’. She prepares herself to conspire with that prediction, and like an electric shock to the soul she declares: ‘I feel now/The future in the instant’. The darkness of the ignorant present is held up for stark contrast with a categorically different kind of ‘present moment’ as something containing, in a blinding instant, the course of a fully formed evil monarchical history.

You could say that, for Lady Macbeth, the future is already happening.

The title of this book is Future Directions in Digital Information and we ask our readers to judge if the future is in the ‘instant’ of the words that it contains. While Part Five of the book deals with ‘New Paradigms’ and thus answers the explicit brief of predicting the future course of specific aspects of digital information, we contend that future directions are inscribed into the work of all authors by virtue of the fact that they describe their present labours in a field that is characterized by extraordinary levels of vitality. The pace is so fast that the tools, techniques, concepts, and theoretical apparatus in information science and librarianship are becoming the future in the present moment, a situation understood by Lady Macbeth.

By invitation, 34 leaders in the field have contributed chapters for this book, representing work carried out in Australia, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Mexico, Nigeria, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. This multinational perspective will be valuable to the reader as it gives an understanding of the organizational characteristics and constraints that information specialists are working with in different countries. Equal access to resources and services remains a challenge in an unequal world. For those who are differently abled, library and information services have to recognize the rights of all to be included on the same terms.

Contributing authors are those delivering digital information services and systems and their papers represent the views and behaviours of subject specialists and academic communities. All are information managers and are required to select, collect, and provide high-quality access to content, facilities, and applications. All are knowledge managers, able to detect and respond to changing information behaviours.

The Chandos Digital Information Review Series, of which this is the latest volume, aims to be a summary of the key themes, advances, and trends in all aspects of digital information and explores the impact on the information world. The two Chandos series that sit alongside it are Advances in Information and the Information Professional Series. Digital Information Review captures the key themes, advances, and trends. It is about the process of adding things together, a methodology for identifying the matters of our time, and the ways of thinking that define us. One such summative methodology can be found in the Delphi study that underpins Chapters 1 and 19 of this book.

The 19 chapters of the book are divided into five parts and a brief overview of each is given here. Chapter 1 introduces the purpose and aims of the book and provides an overview of the content of each chapter in terms of methodological approach and what they tell us about the future of digital information. The discussion of the key themes is reinforced and augmented by the results of the Delphi exercise and by selected thought pieces both of which are presented in text boxes. Thought pieces were commissioned to provide stimulating statements, reflections, predictions, ideas, and viewpoints—sometimes contentious and always pithy—about the future directions digital information is taking. The texture and discourse style of the book is further varied and invigorated by the presentation of the results of a Delphi study conducted specially for this purpose. ‘Delphi is a qualitative method of forecasting by developing expert consensus about a topic through a series of anonymous mailed questionnaires…The Delphi method has been employed in technological forecasting, planning, and a variety of other areas’ (Baker, 2004, p. 82). A virtual team of nine panellists—from a wide range of backgrounds relating to digital information provision—was selected (see Acknowledgments).

The Delphi panel embraced a wealth of knowledge, skills, and experience in the field of libraries and information science (LIS). The panel comprised members from Europe, Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. It included a mix of senior figures and newly established talent in higher education (HE), public libraries, national research and teaching associations, publishing and consultancy. Three panel members were library directors at major universities, one being simultaneously a chair of an academic libraries’ consortium; one member was a research support librarian and one member a head of acquisitions. The group has amassed substantial experience in both writing for publication and in reviewing premier scholarly journals. Membership and leadership of the major professional associations was represented, alongside specialisms in museums and archives, digital, shared, and data services. One panellist was an experienced advisor to the UK Government, whose work included guidance on digital strategy development and as the lead of a museums and archives development agency for the sector. Many panellists continue to work on research projects of global interest and significance including information literacy, audience analysis and modelling in digital content, digitization strategies, and ICT developments in public libraries. A number of other professional commitments are shared across the panel, notably, research support for the Association of Commonwealth Universities: scholarly communication, professional development and training, demand-driven library acquisitions, and finally e-book and streaming media library acquisitions.

A series of questions were developed according to the main themes of this book and are shown in Appendix: Delphi Questions. The answers to these questions were collated and turned into a series of statements, which were then sent back to the participants for further comment. These responses were then summarized and analyzed. A by-product of distilling the mass of data that came out of the process is the ‘20 Absolute Truths’ about the future of digital information, which can be found at the end of Chapter 19.

Part One: Strategy and Design showcases the best in institutional responses to challenges brought about by the increase in digital capability and expectation. Joachim Schöpfel and Otmane Azeroual describe the human dynamics that have brought about a merger of Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) and Institutional Repositories (IR) systems based on an overview of recent papers and surveys and with a comprehensive range of examples to illustrate the challenge for the library. A gloriously architectural and technical treat is in store for readers, made tractable by a good narrative. Adapting to CRIS is good news for librarians where the ‘key is metadata, and metadata is part of academic librarians’ core competencies. Their expertise with unique identifiers, standard protocols, and data formats is required for the development of both systems, and they will seize the convergence and merger of IR and CRIS as an opportunity for their future development on campus, as a central part of the research service environment’. Deeply committed academic librarians are also at the centre of Gabrielle Wong and Diana Chan’s chapter, which takes a radical democratic view of the design of library-based research data management services. It was the Library at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology which was equipped to cultivate and broker a new level of trust and reassurance between the research community and the institution in its ambition to implement research data policies and mandatory workflows. Traditionally, the researchers ‘did not need or want help’ in managing research data, but through advocacy and expertise the Library was able to build ‘support and services emphasizing the value of RDM [Research Data Management] as good practice for research management and academic integrity’. Andy Phippen, Emma Bond and Ellen Buck’s chapter provides a wake-up call regarding how institutions should respond to information literacy education. The authors highlight the significant risk to reputations when digital literacy, good identification of authentic sources, and awareness of fake news is assumed to exist among a student population en masse. The rot can set in before university starts where ‘ad hoc and poorly defined critical digital literacy education in schools result in students frequently bringing poor critical thinking to the online environments’.

Part Two: Who are the Users? comprises four chapters dealing with the characteristics, behaviours, and attitudes of users. There is much we can learn from these discussions about the extent to which users are ultimately the centre of our universe and whether this undifferentiated term is as widely used as it is to reflect a necessary lack of regard for the type of information service being provided. Information specialists are mandated to deliver the right interventions and services at the right time to users whose expectations of digital access and citizenship are at an all-time high. How much user data is effective? Should we be worried about hyperutilitarianism and is there an alternative universe where the experts are creating the users and their appetites?

The quality of accessibility statements is brought to the fore by Huw Alexander and Alistair McNaught, who write about the application of a librarian-based crowdsourcing methodology to the real world of e-book publishing. Their work provides much novel information for users and for the first time provides a measure of the success of ‘accessible content’. Katarina Michnik’s empirical study in Sweden also provides new information about the online public library user; that is, the user who uses online public library services. Who are these people and are they like anyone we already know? We find out that today’s online public library services may not be effective in targeting public library nonusers and/or people with low reading skills and information literacy. Moving to Nigeria, a chapter by Stephen Akintunde highlights the importance of cultural context for information user behaviour. In anthropologically informed research which takes into the account the impact of changing kinship structures, we see a clash of cultures which has consequences for users of digital information in higher education (HE). Akintunde stresses that technology and digital information can be employed as a strategy for social transformation and national development in Africa. Finally, to complete this part of the book, Eva Ortoll, Josep Cobarsí, Agustí Canals, and Lynn S. Connaway explore the real issues of online behaviour in an online university. Through a series of focus groups, a variety of user voices is heard, including different approaches to the distinction between human and digital sources of information. Student and faculty alike are shown to be affected by information overload, which affects their behaviour in hitherto unknown ways.

Part Three: Where Formal Meets Informal focuses on the current scale and significance of engagement by the formal information world, as found in universities, with the commercial world. Is digital information as the dominant paradigm showing this to be a false dichotomy? The use of social media, mobile phones, and off-the-shelf resources is nothing new, but what exactly is happening now, and are we in a greater position of trust and acceptance than before?

Evgenia Vasilakaki and Valentini M. Papaconstantinou present their research on mobile technology and the use of educational games in HE. There is no doubt that the increasing interest in the use of games is because of their essential characteristics, which provide an architecture for learning. In HE, games are starting to be integrated into the curriculum in order to achieve learning outcomes, presupposing that the line between ‘where the fun stops and the learning starts’ has been delineated. The authors review the growing relevant literature describing the level of acceptance of, and preference for, this alternative and/or complementary method of teaching and learning. Social media, as another phenomenon associated with the informal world, is the subject of investigation by Daniella Smith as a professional development tool by academic librarians. Social media appear to offer substantial numbers of professionals an economical way of updating skills. What exactly is professional development and furthermore ‘What does professional development conducted on Twitter look like?’ Much useful data is generated, linking demography and social variables to the use of social media and social media in a library context. In his wide ranging and widely referenced chapter, Mark Dahl considers the formal and informal ecosystem of information in which academic libraries are already operating. In addition to contributing to the conceptual debates, he designs an enlightened and informative plan for how libraries ‘might use their purchasing power to support open access, select book and journal content bundles with compelling value and leverage demand-driven purchasing’. This chapter will serve as a valuable reality check for those making high-level decisions.

Part Four: Application and Delivery is rooted in the practicalities and creative endeavour of forming necessary bridges from the old order into the new. Catherine O’Connor presents a case study of civic policy designed to generate local digital skills and its relationship to the university agenda. She explores the question of whether HE is the right environment in which to gain these skills beyond the infrastructure it offers of validation, approval, assessment rigour, marketing, programme launch, and funding. A compelling case is made where a co-designed university programme meets the requirements of both specialist content and general digital skills content relevant to the local labour market. Importantly, the work enables students to visualize a digital future for themselves. In a completely different industry context for a librarian, Matthew Naughtin describes an orchestra’s seismic cultural transformation as brought about by the advent of digital access to, and sharing of, sheet music. As the librarian of the San Francisco Ballet’s orchestra, Naughtin is in a position to observe and describe cultural and copyright issues that can be traced back to Monteverdi and Mozart. In another different type of context, this time an arts university, Karen Carden makes the case for the primacy of the printed book despite the growing demand for digital resources. Shifting formats is the topic of her chapter and she describes the special type of bibliographic activity undertaken by library staff in a creative setting. Sayeda Zain charts a host of transformative digital trends in education covering a comprehensive area of application including special education, new technologies, new pedagogies, and value for money. In the final chapter of Part Three, Juan D. Machin-Mastromatteo contributes an autobiographical chapter about his transition from reference librarian to full-time teacher of information literacy, discussing many salient issues, complexities, and trends along the way, not least those around a career change. Written from the heart, it reports his own work developing instruments to assess the success of IL initiatives and includes practical advice on where and how to use them.

Part Five: New Paradigms comprises four chapters dealing with the identification and modelling of upcoming predictions in the use and value of digital information. Martin Hamilton’s chapter presents a scenario planning approach to the implications for information professionals of the cutting edge of Education 4.0 and up-to-the-minute digital developments, while propounding a new legal realism in its control of ethical standards. What could the future of education look like for libraries, those who run them, and their patrons? The vivid description of future scenarios for universities includes how libraries would operate as a service within them. Imaginative and futuristic analyzes are carried out. These look at areas such as digital disruption plotted against student mobility, as conceptualized by the author. The next chapter—‘Data-driven modelling of public library infrastructure and usage in the United Kingdom’—describes a collaboration between the Alan Turing Institute and the British Library. Flora Roumpani, Maja Maricevic, and Alan Wilson argue that there is poor availability, understanding and use of the public library sector’s data. The use of techniques stemming from mathematical modelling, and which are based on ‘theories of systems of interest’, is described in detail, and drives future planning and development. How can a data-driven model be built which can be used, for example, to understand the effect of closures of libraries? Understanding the demand for a library in an area and whether that may change if a library is closed, is the key factor leading to the design of a simulation for the effects of closures in that area. Anja Toft Ingwersen, Mai Aggerbeck, and Signe Nielsen ask how the specific skills of the librarian in a digital context can be used in the future. Far from librarians and information specialists becoming observers of an asteroidal landscape run by machines, what will really be in demand globally will be these professionals’ abundant nonroutine cognitive skills. A scoping review of the literature and personal interviews are presented as the basis for these conclusions. In the penultimate chapter by Carl Gustav Johannsen, researchers as users come under the spotlight; this is a group whose role has fundamentally changed especially in the light of a shift already identified by Johannsen where the needs of research administrative units have been prioritized among the main concerns of the academic library above and beyond providing services. This chapter aims ‘both to consider the use of bibliometric data by research management units at universities and to move one step further and investigate to what extent a new phase of digitization, linked with notions like surveillance society, surveillance state, and surveillance capitalism, has influenced public and academic libraries’. Chapter 19 completes the book by summarizing the main themes of the book, which will have a bearing on the future directions of digital information provision, access, and management. Through presentation of the Delphi material and thought pieces, plus additional commentary, the chapter provides tools with which service leaders can update their knowledge and influence and shape the debate.

We hope you enjoy this book. We anticipate the content and the message to have relevance and scope for a diverse but focused readership of a perhaps unsurprisingly large number of professional groups.

Descriptive variety in human communication

When we think of digital information, we most often think of it as textual, as opposed to numerical or visual. Textual information falls into the category of written language as distinct from spoken, or its nonspoken correlate, signed language. While writing and speech are different forms of language, they both share the attribute of being characterized by variation. When I was a student of Linguistics in the 1990s in the United Kingdom, variation was the dominant paradigm that covered all the branches of the discipline including phonetics, phonology, syntax, grammar, semantics, pragmatics, and the interdisciplinary subjects such as psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Looking back, this educational paradigm was political; you did not consider any variety of anything to be superior or more worthy of study than any other—every variant has equal value and status. There is more than one way of saying the ‘same’ thing; variety is everything (but what does it signify?) and we conduct our research to find out if its outputs are categorical or gradient in nature. Even standard English or its spoken equivalent, Received Pronunciation, was just another variety, albeit with special characteristics to do with it being a standard form.

A major source of variation in spoken language is the pronunciation and dialect variation that represent a region. Written language has less recourse to this and is more restricted being standardized in its grammar, organization, and vocabulary. Having said that, the linguistic variables used in both spoken and written dialects are correlated with social variables such as age, ethnicity, class, and gender of the writer or speaker. Another form of variation in written language is that it can be handwritten or typed. Written language that is typed betrays much less of the person behind the keyboard than the person behind a quill pen and much less still than someone speaking that language. Or does it? With the rise in digital information will we lose an enormous amount of descriptive variety in human communication? In one way, yes, but perhaps not in the sense that we have the technology to record and preserve a great sample of human experience like never before in the form of digital text.

Consider that we also preserve variety in the use of register in typed language—varieties determined by the particular purpose or formality of the social context of use. Contrasting registers are evident in this book, notably between a formal academic register adopted in the chapters and the more informal, although ‘consultative’ register used in the thought pieces and the Delphi commentary.

Reference

Baker D. The Strategic Management of Technology: A Guide for Library and Information Services. Oxford: Chandos; 2004.

Contributors

Mai Aggerbeck     VIA Library, VIA University College, Aarhus, Denmark

Stephen Akintunde     University of Jos Library, Jos, Nigeria

Huw Alexander     textBOX Digital Ltd

Otmane Azeroual     German Institute for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW), Berlin, Germany

David Baker     Plymouth Marjon University, Plymouth, United Kingdom; David Baker Consulting

Emma Bond     University of Suffolk, Ipswich, United Kingdom

Ellen Buck     University of Suffolk, Ipswich, United Kingdom

Agustí Canals     Catalonia Open University, Barcelona, Spain

Karen Carden     University of the Arts London, London, United Kingdom

Diana L.H. Chan     Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Josep Cobarsí     Catalonia Open University, Barcelona, Spain

Lynn Silipigni Connaway     Director, Library Trends and User Research, OCLC Research, Dublin, OH, United States

Mark Dahl     Aubrey R. Watzek Library, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR, United States

Lucy Ellis     David Baker Consulting; University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom

Martin Hamilton     Principal at martinh.net, Digital Innovation Consultancy

Anja T. Ingwersen     VIA Library, VIA University College, Aarhus, Denmark

Carl Gustav Johannsen     University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Juan D. Machin-Mastromatteo     Autonomous University of Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico

Maja Maricevic     The British Library, London, United Kingdom

Alistair McNaught     McNaught Consultancy Ltd

Katarina Michnik     University of Borås, Borås, Sweden

Valentini Moniarou-Papaconstantinou     University of West Attica, Athens, Greece

Matthew Naughtin     San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco, CA, United States

Signe Nielsen     VIA Library, VIA University College, Aarhus, Denmark

Catherine O’Connor     Leeds Trinity University, Leeds, United Kingdom

Eva Ortoll     Catalonia Open University, Barcelona, Spain

Andy Phippen     Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, United Kingdom

Flora Roumpani     The Alan Turing Institute, London, United Kingdom

Joachim Schöpfel     GERiiCO Laboratory, University of Lille, Lille, France

Daniella LaShaun Smith     University of North Texas, Denton, TX, United States

Evgenia Vasilakaki     National Library of Greece, Athens, Greece

Alan Wilson     The Alan Turing Institute, London, United Kingdom

Gabrielle K.W. Wong     Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Sayeda Zain     Mont Rose College, London, United Kingdom

Author Biographies

Mai Aggerbeck is a Contact Librarian at VIA Library and is associated with the Health Education in VIA University College. Since 2002, she has been teaching information literacy in the following Health Education programmes: Nursing Therapy and Occupational Therapy. Additionally, she has been teaching PhD students in systematic mapping of a research area combined with publication of research and the issues regarding copyright. From 2020 her area of interest has been the development of the Academic Library, with a special focus on how we can create a better relationship and a greater integration with the educational environment to define new roles and institutional frameworks. This need for re-examination of the library content is based on new learning strategies and new ways to create, collect, and achieve knowledge based on the technological improvement. The result of this can be found in the outcomes of various projects and articles.

Stephen Akintunde is Chairman, Nigerian University Libraries Consortium and immediate past University Librarian, University of Jos, Nigeria. He has been a member of the Steering Committee, Supporting Research Community, Association of Commonwealth Universities. He is a reviewer for Information and Learning Science, and Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication. He is a recipient of Outstanding Reviewer in the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence and has published in international journals such as International Information and Library Review, Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, Library Management and African Journal of Academic Librarianship. He has held leadership positions in the Nigerian Library Association and is a member of professional associations such as the American Library Association and the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.

Huw Alexander is the Managing Director of textBOX, a specialist image description company. Huw has worked in the publishing industry for more than 20 years. His passion for promoting accessibility has developed over the last decade through listening to the stories and issues of users and content providers. textBOX was launched in 2018 and he now describes things for a living.

Otmane Azeroual is a researcher at the German Institute for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW) in Berlin, Germany. After studying Business Information Systems at the University of Applied Sciences—HTW Berlin, he is doing his doctorate in Computer Science at the Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg and at the University of Applied Sciences—HTW Berlin. His areas of research include database systems, information systems, data quality, business intelligence, big data, open data, cloud computing,