Counter productive

Twenty-five years ago I was at the QEII Conference Centre in London for the launch of IT82, a government programme designed to alert people to the potential of ICT.  Last week I was back at the same venue, chairing the annual CILIP RFID in Libraries Conference – and the lesson I learned from IT82 twenty five years ago was the same as the message I heard at the RFID  conference a few days ago: that technology is only used if it is useful.  It doesn’t matter how brilliant the technology is – it won’t be used (or it shouldn’t be used) unless the investment can be justified in terms of business strategy and customer service.

This was the third annual RFID in Libraries conference and we’ve moved, in that time, from a focus on the technology to a focus on integrating RFID into the library’s core activities – although, as one speaker said, we now need to go beyond using RFID to do the old things in new ways and consider how RFID can help us to do new things that we couldn’t do before.  As the research (commissioned by CILIP for the Conference and previewed in Gazette) demonstrates, RFID can deliver goals which are transformational as well as transactional.

So discussion at the Conference ranged widely: the need for RFID vendors and LMS suppliers (and smart-card developers) to get together so that library applications can be fully integrated; implications of RFID for the use of library space as well as for better stock management and improved customer service; and the need to get buy-in from library staff for the big cultural change that follows when RFID means a fundamental shift in staff roles and behaviours.

One symbol – perhaps the main symbol – of that fundamental shift is, of course, the removal of the library counter – the physical barrier between staff and customers which is counter productive (hence the witty title of this blog report) to good customer service.  Instead, post-RFID librarians roam the library taking their help to (as the newsreaders put it) “where you are”.

Listening to all of this, I was struck by two thoughts.  One is how good the library community can be at making use of ICT.  I read a 12-page supplement in the Times a couple of months ago, which described RFID as “the latest development in connectivity between computer networks and the real world”.  Well, it might be “the latest development” for readers of The Times but librarians have been working with RFID for years – the first pilots were back in 1998.  We were exploring stock management systems and intelligent tagging devices well before the retail industry.

The other thought is how adaptable the library community can be when faced with transformational change in the way we work.  Over the years technology has taken us through several fundamental shifts in our primary role: from custodians to gatekeepers to mediators to enablers (from goalie to defender through midfield to playing up front?)  and we’ve taken these fundamental shifts in our stride, mostly.

So – a few things you don’t see in the traditional stereotype of our profession that you do see in real life.  We’re change-adept, we’re good at technology, and we’re coming out from behind the counter to work side-by-side with our customers.  Perhaps the initials RFID could be used to describe our new roles and behaviour – as your Really Friendly Information Dispenser!