Content Cafeterias: Libraries Getting Locked-In
More and more librarians are expressing distress over the aggressive behavior of academic publishers. It seems a new level of pushiness has accompanied the commodification of intellectual contributions which are getting prepared, one could say sliced and diced, and served up for consumption. Can we prevent the library from simply becoming the content cafeteria supplied by only a few select provisioners? One way to subvert this is to avoid getting locked-in by the content providers with which we deal. They use lock-in because it is good business for companies. Even so, a good first step toward leading a more cooperative approach is for librarians to get a better understanding of the concept.
The concept of “Lock-In” is not new to the business world but is something of which librarians and faculty need to be aware. The model in the globalized marketplace of just producing a good product seems no longer viable. Apparently, a well-designed business model these days needs several struts. Lock-In is just one of them. Zott & Amit (2010) describe a four-wheel drive: 1) Novelty = “Adopt innovative content, structure or governance,” 2) Lock-In = “Build in elements to retain business model stakeholders, e.g., customers,” 3) Complementarities = “Bundle activities to generate more value,” and 4) Efficiency = “Reorganise activities to reduce transaction costs.” Each one is semi-autonomous but needs to work well with the other three to get traction.
Librarians, therefore, can focus on the one where they have the most leverage. Sorescu, et al. (2011) states, “Lock-in refers to business models that emphasize retention of activities and actors.” Openness is an important way all libraries can resist this. Openly disclose what things cost, foster open content, promote open access, support open source solutions, and open wide the portfolio of content acquisition streams.
Let’s face it, universities and libraries make decisions based on what’s in the best interest of doing business, too. The problem is that the way of doing business in the name of ease, expediency and efficiency is to close-off options for competition and by extension freedom of expression and ideas. Librarians need to start talking with their administrations about adopting an open-business model. “An open-business model examines the creation of value between stakeholders, rather than simply considering the value created within the boundaries of a single firm” (Coombes & Nicholson 2013). This can take shape in lots of ways. We may no longer seal business deals with a handshake, but extending our hand in friendship to as many others as possible is a better way to do business.
Works Cited:
Coombes, Philip H., and John D. Nicholson. 2013. “Business Models and Their Relationship with Marketing: A Systematic Literature Review.” Industrial Marketing Management 42 (5): 656–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2013.05.005.
Sorescu, Alina, Ruud T. Frambach, Jagdip Singh, Arvind Rangaswamy, and Cheryl Bridges. 2011. “Innovations in Retail Business Models.” Journal of Retailing 87 (July): S3–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2011.04.005.
Zott, Christoph, and Raphael Amit. 2010. “Business Model Design: An Activity System Perspective.” Long Range Planning 43 (2–3): 216–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2009.07.004.
Embrace Your Identity
In the summer of 2016 the first floor of our library was renovated and collaborative study spaces were an integral part of the design. The first semester we were open, fall 2016, students flocked to our new spaces and settled in to new habits, or maybe old habits.
A library is a space typically known for quiet, not noisy collaboration and group work (although it happens). Administrators encouraged collaboration with the architecture and seating spaces, but students have yet to embrace this concept. We created special signage letting students know that collaboration, and dare I say it… noise was and is encouraged on the main floor. Also noting that quiet space is available upstairs. However, the students didn’t seem to embrace this. They associate the library with quiet and have told us if they want something noisy they will go elsewhere.
This held true for first finals programming we did in 2016. We collaborated with the Lebanon County Library Libraries and brought some of their STEM robots to campus letting students test drive them in our new open floor plan.
While some students enjoyed something different, many felt it was too distracting leading up to finals. We heard time and again that the library was their place to escape the noise and chaos surrounding them in other spaces and the library was their quiet place to focus on academic pursuits. In response to this, we have made a conscious effort to be respectful of students the week before finals (when all their papers are due) and during finals by having the entire building go, drum roll please…. quiet.
Students on the social media committee have become quite adept at creating meme’s (using free meme generators) to celebrate our early quiet hours based on whatever finals theme we have selected.
Our new strategy is finding new and quiet ways of helping overburdened students de-stress. Crafts, coloring, dot-to-dots, bubble wrap, Sudoku, word searches, play dough, and candy giveaways on a limited budget have been our recent mainstays.
However, we are always searching for new and fun, quiet and inexpensive activities to brighten our students’ finals periods. If money was no object, I would love to host a silent disco at the library. So far the expensive price tag and knowledge that they would prefer to do a puzzle here stands in my way.
Photo credits in order of appearance:
- Bentz, Maureen, “It’s beginning to look a lot like #finals…,” Instagram, 2018, https://bit.ly/2QtHint
- Lebanon Valley College. “Lebanon Valley College-Reader’s Club,” Oversize Photograph Boxes, Lebanon Valley College Archives Photograph Collection, circa 1931, Annville, PA.
- Bentz, Maureen, “De-Stress at the Library 2016,” Facebook, 2016, https://bit.ly/2nES8WR
- “Finals,” Facebook, 2017, https://bit.ly/2MQanDV
- Bentz, Maureen, “Finals,” Facebook, 2018, https://bit.ly/2OA4vz1
C&CS Code For Her available for viewing
Thank you to Carmen Cole and Joss Pena for their presentation of their Code for Her project at Penn State. Video is available below. Thank you to Ronalee Ciocco for moderating today’s session.
This is also the last program of the year from the Connect & Communicate Series. Thank you so much for our presenters for being willing to do these sessions. Thank you to the team members for all their hard work this year. And thank you to the CRD board and PaLA for supporting us with the Zoom software.
We are hard at work organizing sessions for Spring 2019. In the meantime, have a great holiday and we’ll see you in the New Year!
C&CS Session: Deconstructing Environmental Conflict is available
Thank you so much for those who were able to finally attend our session, Deconstructing Environmental Conflict with Sharon Radcliff of CSU-East Bay. Due to the California fires, the session had been rescheduled several times before we could finally have it.
The session is available on the C&CS blog page, in the members section of the PaLA page, and linked here:
If you have any feedback for Sharon or the C&CS team, please also fill out this evaluation form here: https://goo.gl/forms/H2VPSe7jJOZXhHKw2
Five Tips for Letting LibGuides be Your “Voice”
Your library’s LibGuides are an intricate part of your advertising scheme to attract and disseminate information for your students. In the Springshare’s October 2018 issue of SpringyNews, the author offers five creative pointers for making your library’s LibGuides proactive in drawing the attention of your students. Refine your ‘voice’ and let your LibGuides do the talking for you!
The first tip is not to come across as a salesperson with a crafty pitch about how awesome the library’s resourceful tools and programming can be for its patrons. This can dissuade your students from wanting to delve any further into what the library has to offer and that necessary human connection can be lost. Instead, weave your LibGuides into a story of how you personally discovered a problem and the action you took to fix it. Was your library’s website not accessible? Did your library not offer adequate interlibrary loan services? When you discover a problem which your students are encountering, you can construct a LibGuide which helps to explain the problem, showcases the steps taken by the library to address the issue, and also provides context by conveying just why it was in need of resolution. Further, you can promote your library by putting the spotlight on your students, especially if your library was significant in assisting that student with an obstacle or question. Create a LibGuide which capture’s the attention of your audience with an engaging narrative that communicates the feelings and emotions which the patron felt. These measures will open the receptivity of your patrons and will come across as being more genuine and less cold.
The second tip is to make sure your LibGuides URLs are as descriptive as possible, and not as short as possible. Shorter is not necessarily better. There can be a tendency to think that in order for the URL to be friendlier to use, it has to be shorter, right? The answer is no. Web resources are much more likely to be clicked on when patrons can decipher what the website contains via the URL. Therefore, keyword use in a URL is a ranking factor! Try these five tips for creating descriptive-friendly URLs:
- Match your URL to the title of the LibGuide.
- Omit stop words: and, or, the, but, of, a
- Use dashes (-) and not underscores (_) to separate your keywords.
- Always use lowercase.
- To avoid making your URL appear spam-ish, omit keyword repetition.
Location is the third tip for spicing up your LibGuides. Be where your students are, whether that be inside Blackboard, Canvas, or Desire2Learn. Put your content where students will not overlook it! Students are going to spend a good chunk of time each week looking through their courseware tools. What better way to catch their attention than by creating LibGuides for their particular courses to appear right as they log in to their courseware tool page?
Who is reading your LibGuides blog? Did you know that there is a way to track the actual individuals who are subscribed (and who are not subscribed) to your blog? Knowing this information is helpful in tailoring your blog posts and delivery. Springshare gives the following instructions on how to retrieve this information:
From inside your LibGuides Blog (either at the guide-level or the system- wide level) go to Blog Management > Subscribers > Export the List of Subscribers.
Lastly, the fifth tip to making your LibGuides pop is to create a “#TrendingNow” LibGuides widget. Your students are far more likely to delve into material if the subject matter is current and relevant to them. Do not make the topic too broad, such as a popular music LibGuide, but rather take a current trending album and break it down. Obviously, these #TrendingNow LibGuides will have a relatively short shelf life, so use tags to organize these particularly “in-the-moment” guides. Once they are considered “old news,” just simply remove the tag. Additionally, you can display all of your #TrendingNow LibGuides in one place by creating a guide widget. Follow these steps:
Log in to LibGuides > Tools > Widgets > Guides > filtered on tag = TrendingNow > change sort order to Date Published (newest first).
Embed this #TrendingNow widget on your library’s homepage, blog, and LibGuides A-Z list!
