2012 Best Practices for Government Libraries

Location Independence
Mobile phones and portable access to the
internet have grown dramatically over the
past several years. According to Android
Blog and Flurry Analytics
[http://getintoandroid.com/blog/2012/01/m
obile-computing-adoption-rate-faster-thanpcs/
], more than 500M smartphones and
tablets have been activated since 2007.
They estimated that 1 billion devices will be
activated by end of 2012. In comparison,
800M PC’s shipped between 1981-2000,
which makes mobile adoption four times
faster than PC adoption.
16
BEST PRACTICES 2012
The Device shipments 1995-2010 Figure 2 - Morgan Stanley Device Shipments
chart
is from a Morgan Stanley report
[http://www.morganstanley.com/views/perspectives/tablets_demand.pdf] discussing
tablet demand for potential investors. They noted that 80% of all device shipments in
2010 were mobile devices, of which 16M were tablets. Fueled by the rapid adoption of
iPads, Kindles, and Nooks, an estimated 62M tablets were estimated to ship by the end of
2011 and forecasts for 2013 exceed 100M tablets. Given that 150M desktop PCs shipped
in 2010, some were calling this the beginning of the “post-PC era.”
Web site usage through mobile devices is currently a small percentage of overall usage
but these purchasing trends point to an increased desire to access the Web anytime and
from anywhere. Are the services being offered by libraries able to interact smartly in this
environment? Are libraries moving towards “mobile first” and “responsive design” when
designing their next web site?
Custom Services
A hallmark of special libraries is their focus on meeting the specific needs of the
customers in which they serve, rather than the general needs of the public. For the past
decade, librarians have been “embedded” into research or work groups, especially at
media companies and in medical settings. In addition to performing traditional library
services in a focused manner, these “informationists” can also provide a variety of custom
services, depending upon the needs of the organization. Some examples include
bioinformatics consultation and training, systematic review assistance, document
translations, technical editing, and creation of Web-based products.
A new service with strong potential is in helping the organization to define and defend
their value and ROI. Especially focused in scientific and research environments where
measuring a return on investment has been more difficult since research, especially basic
research, does not have a direct or short term output or outcome. The increased
competition for research funding and a decrease in available research funding have
stakeholders calling for more scrutiny over research spending and encouraging more
collaboration across geographic and disciplinary boundaries.