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5. Exercise:
Reversing assumptions
We brainstormed a list of assumptions about the MIT Libraries or academic libraries in general.
Common assumptions:
- We have books and we loan them out.
- We have internet access.
- We have quiet places.
- We have group study space.
- We provide instruction on how to use databases.
- We have digital images.
- We buy what we need.
- We have knowledgeable staff.
- We answer reference questions.
- We have a web site and a catalog.
- We work with faculty and staff.
- We have a good catalog.
- We are better than Google.
- Only librarians can provide the best answers.
- We maintain relevant and useful collections.
- We preserve things for the long term.
- We can digitize anything.
- We have text books for every class.
- We can find complete citations with only a little info.
We then went through the list and reversed each assumption. (sometimes more than one reversal)
- We have no books.
- We sell books or give them away. You can keep them.
- We have noisy places
- We have stand-up desks for working standing up.
- We have concerts, musics and lectures.
- We don't own anything.
- We lease our collections.
- We have no study space.
- We have treadmills for working out while reading/studying/using computers.
- All our collections are stored off-site and we provide things on demand only.
- We are like the Amazon Kindle store and provide materials electronically to ebook readers or iPods that each student is given when they come to MIT.
- Students teach us.
- We have databases that don't require instruction.
- We have no databases.
- We don't buy what people want, but instead buy everything that's published in certain areas automatically.
- We provide no instruction.
- We purchase materials on demand.
- We have digital images provided by our own community.
- We use Flickr for images.
- We provide drawing tools.
- We loan out cameras.
- We have robots/RFID to automatically grab items from storage on demand.
- We have staff that don't know anything.
- We sell knowledge.
- We outsource reference to a call center.
- We hire only temps.
- We have vending machines for books and other materials.
- Librarians don't stay behind desks, but circulate like cleraks in a bookstore.
- Everything is self-service.
- Librarians sit in departments.
- Everything is electronic.
- We use stuff from other libraries.
- We participate in world-wide consortiums. (local geography matters less)
- We throw away or recycle old materials and books. (instead of preserving everything)
- We give stuff away.
- We don't preserve materials because everything is already recorded by google/internet archive, big brother, etc.
- We let our users digitize what they want.
- We don't buy anything ridiculously expensive or that has DRM. (as a protest with other libraries)
- We colloborate with other libraries to revolt against publishers' business models.
- We don't handle textbooks or course reserves.
- We require full citations.
- Students answer each other's reference questions.
- We don't answer any reference questions.
- We forward reference questions to experts at MIT or the outside world.
- We collaborate with others at MIT (such as IST Help Desk) to have one place at MIT for all questions, no matter what the topic.
- We answer questions 24/7 in multi-timezones by collaborating with others around the world.
- We work for faculty directly.
- Librarians are assigned to departments and are managed by or report to someone in the department.
- MIT assigns a personal librarian to each new student, faculty, staff on arrival.
- We don't need a catalog, you can find things in other ways.
- We don't need a web site because all our stuff is embedded in other sites via RSS feeds, etc.
- Google is better than us.
- Even we use Google.
- Students provide answers.
- Anyone (not just librarians) in the library can provide answers.
- We dont have any collections.
We then talked about which one of these reversals might actually make sense. Certain themes emerged.
- On-demand collections.
- All self-service.
- Wider community involved in answering questions, not just librarians. Questions answered in a social network that we are part of.
- Embedded librarianship. (getting out of the library into people's lives)
- Library as destination: food, music, events.
6. Exercise:
What if libraries were like.....
Each person chose one of could choose from the following:
- Craiglist
- YouTube
- Flickr
- Paypal
- LibraryThing
...
A. Craigslist: what if libraries were like Craigslist?
Exercises were inspired by the book: Thinkertoys