Black Swans in the antilibrary.

In his book "The Black Swan" Nassim Taleb begins with an account of Umberto Eco's library. This library contains 30,000 books and the significance of this collection is not that Eco has read them all but that it is a research tool for future reading. "Read books are far less valuable than unread ones.... Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary"

I don't think that a librarian would ever make this distinction but the idea of the importance of unread books - of unknowns - is central to The Black Swan.

Taleb's idea is that our lives are dominated by Black Swan events; that is events which are extremely rare but have very high impact. These events can not be predicted in advance because they are completely different to anything that has happened before. Afterwards, these events are subject to intense scrutiny and explanations are developed which appear to show how they could have been predicted, but this does not prepare us for the next Black Swan. He seems to suggest that none of the unread books in the antilibrary would enable us to predict these events although some of the books (including presumably his own) can help us to deal with the effects of Black Swans on society.

Taleb also claims that information is bad for knowledge. More knowledge does not mean that you make better choices, only that you are more confident in the choices you have made. This echoes Eliot's line about "Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

So a mixed message for libraries! What you don't know is more relevant than what you do know so libraries are important. However the events that will have most impact are unknowable and providing people with more information does not necessarily help.

The profession is faced with its own Black Swan in the shape of the Internet. The development over a few years of a system which (potentially) offers every individual the ability to find any information they want instantly from their home or office (or mobile device) could not have been anticipated and is having a massive impact - modified only by the fact that the potential and the reality are very different. So how do we cope?

In the announcement of the Skills Exchange milestone (last posting) Stephanie Taylor makes the point that the Skills Exchange concept is very different from that of an email list:

"The Skills Exchange is all about creating a sense of community, which of course an email list is not. The email list does not really lend itself to discussion, which is why many descend into little more than announcements of events. They also tend to be narrowly focused. So if your interests are broadly based, you end up with little more than a cluttered inbox, adding to information overload! If you remain so narrowly focused, you miss the big picture of trends and developments in the sector. Again with The Skills Exchange, the idea is that all the debates can take place in one place, making it easy to monitor sector developments."

This is fundamental to dealing with Black Swans - and even grey cygnets, their less traumatic offspring. You don't need more information. You need to step back and think, and the best way of doing that is to talk to other people. Librarians are very good at doing things right but we need to focus on doing the right thing. Forums such as the Skills Exchange, CILIP communities and the SINTO wiki are an ideal tool for this. Librarians claim that they have less time to get out of the library and network. They don't even have time to spend an hour or so on the computer networking. However they are making a grave error if they think that keeping their noses to the grindstone is helping their users or their employers in the long term. Stop what you are doing and look for Black Swan in your organisation. Help your manager, and your manager's manager to look for Black Swans. That is your job - after all you are the custodian of the unread books.

SINTO and you

This week I have been involved with two events. On Tuesday we ran the first of two Promoting Reading courses with Anne Harding. This attracted children's librarians from public libraries and school librarians. Then on Wednesday the Career Development Group Y&H ran Your Guide to Chartership at Sheffield Hallam.

At both events I was able to say a few words about how SINTO could be of help to individual librarians. SINTO is of course a co-operative of library services and much of what we do is aimed at organisations - but I do like to remind people that SINTO can help them as individuals with their own Continuing Professional Development. This applies to staff who are on the CILIP Certification or Chartership route and also to anyone who is revalidating or generally wants to develop their professional skills.

There are two main areas where SINTO can help. First there is the programme of training and CPD events. We run events that are related to the training needs of librarians (as identified by our Training Group), are reasonably priced and are local. Information is available on our website.

Some concern has been expressed about SINTO marketing courses directly to individuals rather than through the libraries. There is an understandable concern that SINTO might raise expectations which the library is not able to afford and that individuals might ask to go on courses that do not fit in with the training needs of the organisation. However, all professional staff should have their own Personal Professional Development Plan (PPDP) and be using this to identify their training & development needs. They should be activley looking out for seminars and events (as well as other training opportunities) and discussing this with their training officer or line manager. There is not an open ended commitment for your employer to meet all your needs especially if these relate to your future career progression rather than the immediate needs of your job, but there should be a dialogue. In addition many individuals accept that they should invest in their own CPD and may want to purchase training for themselves.

The second area where SINTO can help is in the use of Web 2.0 tools to develop a community of practice. The value of the SINTO wiki and blog is that they provide a wider view of the profession. In the Chartership seminar several speakers stressed that Chartership candidates needed to show a breadth of professional knowledge and understanding of the wider professional context. A common reason for failure was that candidates appeared to be too parochial and not aware of what was happening beyond their own library. And this applies to more senior professional staff as well. Everyone should be aware of what is happening in other sectors and at a regional or national level. The SINTO wiki provides a forum for librarians to share information and engage with others while in my blog I try to provide a local perspective on general professional issues.

Individuals are very welcome to use these tools. Contributing to these sites can be used as evidence of professional commitment. You don't have to speak on behalf of your library service; although you should always be acting in a professional manner in anything you do say. Make it your New Year's resolution to get involved with your local community.

Community of practice

I have had a rush of comments to my blog recently - well three to be exact!

Mark Clowes of Sheffield Hallam University picked up my posting about the radio programme on Dewey. He says
"if you're interested in the tension between formal classification systems like Dewey and the new folksonomies of Web 2.0 I highly recommend you read David Weinberger's excellent book "Everything Is Miscellaneous - the power of the new digital disorder". This is a useful reminder as I have been meaning to read this book for some time. If you check out Mark's profile you will see that he contributes to a number of specialised SHU blogs.

S Gibson posted a comment to an old posting about libraries and the Deaf community. He says" At the moment, for me and for many members of the Deaf community, the library is not Deaf friendly and hence many Deaf people do not go to libraries at all. This needs to be addressed". Mr Gibson publishes e-books for Deaf people in English and British Sign Language. SINTO is planning to repeat the Deaf community awareness raising course in the new year.

Finally Sheila Webber commented on the photograph I used in my posting Bottom of the league, saying it made her smile. This is praise indeed as Sheila's blog on Information Literacy which was recently featured in Information World Review (October 2007) is well known for its pictures. Today's picture is of the Amazon rain forest - or possibly the Winter Gardens in Sheffield.

Feedback is nice and I also hope that it indicates that my blog and the SINTO wiki are developing a local Community of Practice for SINTO members. I think that is possible to define a SINTO community that links together librarians from different organisations and sectors united by their common geographical location. Of course, in today's virtual world people can take part in communities of interest with others anywhere in the world and a community based on geography might appear to be old-fashioned. However I believe that a local community is of value. Our users are, on the whole, located in this region and it would be a pity if we had close links with professional colleagues on the other side of the world yet none with colleagues in the same city. A local community can also encourage serendipity. We may unexpectedly encounter a new idea by networking with colleagues from different library backgrounds which we would not get from subject specialised communities.

In other words, whoever you are, all your comments are very welcome..