April 4, 2012, 1:19 pm
This project has been in the works for a long time. I think
that the initial seed was planted during my time at Georgia Tech. It
simmered while I was out in California. And
it crystalized as soon as I arrived in
Blacksburg.
I thought this document would be a one-pager that I could finish over a
weekend, but it grew into something much more involved.
I’ve been fascinated with
startup culture
for a long time and as I considered all the changes happening in
academic libraries (and higher ed) the parallels were quite stunning.
No, we’re not developing new products to bring to market, and no, we’re
not striving for an IPO payday, but we are being required to
rethink/rebuild/repurpose what a library is and what it does. The next
twenty years are going to be an interestingly chaotic time for the
history of our institutions.
Here’s a snippet that frames the paper:
The media and pop culture provide us with romanticized
visions of dorm room ideas becoming billion dollar IPOs. And indeed,
that does happen sometimes, but startups are more than rags to riches
stories. In concise terms: startups are organizations dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty.
This sounds exactly like an academic library to me. Not only are we
trying to survive, but we’re also trying to transform our organizations
into a viable service for 21st century scholars and learners.
This paper is a collection of talking points intended to stir the
entrepreneurial spirit in library leaders at every level. I think it is
also useful for library science students as they prepare to enter and
impact the profession. My intention is for this to be a conversation
starter, not a step-by-step plan. The future is ours to figure out and I
hope that this captures the spirit of the changes ahead.
Think Like A Startup: a white paper to inspire library entrepreneurialism (3.96 Mb) PDF
