Futurist… For when “I make shit up” is too long for your business card.

— Chris Cormack (@ranginui) May 5, 2014

Happily though this was not one of those come and listen to someone lecture you on what he (and it is pretty much always a he) thinks the future is going to be. I have science fiction books for that, and they are a lot more enjoyable.

This was instead a day of guided group discussions, which I think resulted in some actually useful outputs. While these kind of days are always a mix of frustration and useful discussion, I think that by the end we had more of the latter. This was due to the people in the room, but also due to the desire of the organisers for the day to result in some concrete outputs. Which meant we were pulled back on track a few times when it felt like we were going in circles.

I am not going to say that I think the day has resulted in people having a clear idea of where libraries are going to be in 2025 but I think that it resulted in some ideas, and some more ideas how to get there.  I am not going to try to summarise them all here, I am sure there will be much better write ups than mine.  But I  will list some of the takeaways I had. First of all from my kids

In our group we consistently returned to the role of Libraries being all about people, and that equitable access to information is a major driver. We talked a lot about the need for better collaboration and cohesion in the sector. Funding of course was mentioned more than a few times as something that will be a major influence on what libraries are like in 2025. We also talked about training, and how to bring in and keep new workers.

This happened 

In a room with id estimate 70% women there’s a lot of guys talking #fol15 — Chris Cormack (@ranginui) July 30, 2015

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Then I learnt about the 3rd man rule, to paraphrase “If two men have just spoken, don’t be the third one” which is a great rule.

Karaitiana had some great advice (as always)

Want to be more responsive to Māori but don’t have frontline Māori staff? Make partnerships with Māori community and local Iwi #FoL15

— Karaitiana Taiuru (@ktaiuru) July 31, 2015

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAnd as always happens, I managed to get myself an impossible job

I just assigned Death to DRM to @ranginui

— pooh (@wendypooh) July 31, 2015

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It was near the end of the day when I went into full on random blurt mode.

Hire some designers and UX people #fol15

— Chris Cormack (@ranginui) July 31, 2015

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Don’t pay vendors to lock down your data #fol15 (im just gonna tweet random blurts )

— Chris Cormack (@ranginui) July 31, 2015

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You are not free tech support for amazon, Sony, apple etc #fol15

— Chris Cormack (@ranginui) July 31, 2015

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Be Open, just don’t talk open #fol15

— Chris Cormack (@ranginui) July 31, 2015

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Cath chipped in too

I’d love to see #Koha right across NZ #FoL15. Putting it out there.

— Cath Sheard (@KiwiLibrarian) July 31, 2015

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAll the random blurting may have resulted in this

Actually, I think you got called “wanker” twice https://t.co/75rPJzzT8u

— pooh (@wendypooh) July 31, 2015

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Or it may have been this

Icing on the #fol15 cake was drinkies with @jransom @ranginui @wendypooh @Michael_J_Parry and @librarykris Libraries are in good hands.

— baruk (@feddabonn) July 31, 2015

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Finally I’d like to leave you with this image, which came from one of Wendy’s typos, but I think it works as it is

But I still think the idea has some merit, so here is a snippet of the unfinished, rough edged, cut down for youtube, thing I was going to present

Massive thanks to Andrew Caudwell who writes Gource, without which this would not be possible.

It’s running circulation data with 1 minute = 1 day, but it’s equally interesting running a bit slower. There is a lot more I wanted to do, like using the actual book covers, visualising more data, like acquisition, and cataloguing .. tracking an item throughout its life. All of which is easily doable, just with more time.

Anyway, I hope people get something out of it.

From the website

Instead of borrowing a book, you can borrow a person for a 30-minute chat. The ‘Books’ are people you may not normally have the opportunity to talk to. Many of them may face negative stereotypes or prejudice within our community, and all of them have personal stories and experiences to share.