4 Very Different Futures Are Imagined for Research Libraries

By Jennifer Howard in the CHE — Several thoughtful comments about this post are here.

Research is moving online, and more and more users have moved away from thinking of the research library as the gateway to it. In the brave new digital world, librarians have to figure out new ways to engage with communities whose interest they used to be able to take for granted.

It’s difficult to determine how to revamp what you do and position your institution for long-term survival if you have no idea what kind of future you’ll have to operate in. So the Association of Research Libraries prepared four scenarios that describe what the research environment might look like in 2030. Previewed at the group’s annual meeting last week in Washington, D.C., those scenarios are being made public today.

The four story lines do not try to lay out what libraries themselves will need to do to be relevant 20 years from now. Instead they seek to describe the broader research environment in which libraries’ “future users” might be operating. Libraries are encouraged to imagine how they might fit into that environment, said Karla Strieb, the association’s assistant executive director for transforming research libraries. The scenarios come with a long user’s guide and are meant to be used in a variety of ways, said Ms. Strieb. Those include organizing workshops and strategic-planning sessions along with more free-form exercises— “stretching your thinking and looking at the future differently,” she said, and “understanding the dynamics that are playing out around us.”

The elements that make up the scenarios came out of a two-day workshop involving 30 representatives from the library association’s North American membership. Most were library directors, along with a couple of what she calls “provocateurs” who specialize in technology and culture. A strategic-consulting specialist helped guide the process.

The ARL 2030 Scenario Set Released with User’s Guide

For immediate release:
October 19, 2010

For more information, contact:
Karla Strieb
Association of Research Libraries
202-296-2296
karla@arl.org

Washington DC—The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has released The ARL 2030 Scenarios: A User’s Guide for Research Libraries. The package, which contains the “ARL 2030 Scenario Set” and an accompanying user’s guide, is the product of a project to promote visioning and scanning activities among research libraries. ARL’s “Envisioning Research Library Futures: A Scenario Thinking Project” employed a scenario planning process to develop four scenarios for 2030, which answered the question, “How do we transform our organization(s) to create differential value for future users (individuals, institutions, and beyond), given the external dynamics redefining the research environment over the next 20 years?”

The “ARL 2030 Scenario Set” is a rich description of four possible futures. Each future scenario presents a particular exploration of many critical uncertainties in a way that considers the dynamics that might unfold over a twenty-year time frame, as well as synergies and interactions between uncertainties. As a set, the four scenarios are designed to tell widely divergent stories to explore a broad range of possible developments over time.

The “ARL 2030 Scenario Set” was developed for ARL members to use to enhance organizational planning for their local institutional setting. The scenarios were created by representatives from member institutions to ensure their usefulness to ARL members seeking to engage in a rich strategic conversation on the futures of research libraries.

In addition to the scenario set, the guide identifies several strategic implications of the scenarios for research libraries, and also provides extensive resources for library leaders, planners, and facilitators to help them use the scenarios for visioning and planning. The guide includes seven designs for workshops and two sample process maps that illustrate integrating scenario planning into an ongoing strategic planning process.

As ARL Executive Director Charles B. Lowry states, “The scenarios push your attention away from the false security of prediction to a balanced consideration of risk. They open largely unexplored avenues that can lead libraries to strategic change.”

Further resources, including a discussion list and information about a webcast scheduled for November 4, 2010, are available from the project website at http://www.arl.org/rtl/plan/scenarios/usersguide/index.shtml.  The Guide is here–http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/arl-2030-scenarios-users-guide.pdf