ALIA Information Online 2017 Conference, 13-17 February 2017 Sydney: Data Information Knowledge
This presentation (PowerPoint slides) accompanied the keynote address by the University Librarian Emeritus of Columbia University on the opening day of the conference.
Abstract: Information organisations, and in particular libraries, require new expertise, experience and entrepreneurial energy to be successful in the 21st century. What trends are provoking new thinking and new strategies? What new attitudes and skills are needed to be responsive to changing expectations, roles and opportunities. What happens when redundant and inefficient operations and ageing service paradigms are destroyed in favour of collective innovation, scale through aggregation, and a spirit of mutability? How do we achieve phyletic and not terminal extinction? How do we transform the field: in composition and structure, what we are and what we do; in outward form and appearance, how we are viewed and understood; and in structure and condition, how we do it? We must be virtual, engaged with our users and in our communities in ever more rigorous and effective ways; virtuoso, smart by always ready to learn; and virtuous, radically collaborative and always working in the public interest.
