Research libraries are changing rapidly, responding to institutional priorities and reputation management needs, including growing support for managing a wide range of “inside-out” collections for global audiences. This creates new challenges, opportunities, and risks for library leaders and workers at all levels, as library work evolves.

The OCLC Research Library Partnership (RLP) convened members on 10 September 2024 to consider the ways libraries are changing, and the need for library teams to adapt and upskill—in other words, “futureproof”—their work. Helen Williams, Metadata Manager, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), shared insights from her experience facilitating positive change at her institution. Thirty-six librarians from 30 institutions in the UK, US, and Canada participated in the discussion.

Why futureproof?

Futureproofing is a term that describes efforts to make a product, system, or role unlikely to become obsolete in the future. When considering the work of her metadata team, Helen concluded that “. . . if we just kept doing what we were doing, within a few years’ time we would not have a lot to do.”

“. . . if we just kept doing what we were doing, within a few years’ time we would not have a lot to do.”

Helen Williams, LSE

Changes in both the scholarly communications and metadata ecosystems, and in collection development more broadly, mean that metadata teams in many institutions need to diversify their portfolio beyond metadata for print and electronic library collections. It’s not just about examining and changing work activities. A critical part of futureproofing library teams is communicating the transferability of core skills like metadata management and increasing their visibility so that stakeholders will understand and support teams in their evolving roles.

External catalysts of change

Helen described several factors impacting libraries, and in particular, her metadata team: 

• Alignment with institutional strategy. LSE’s 2030 strategy, published in 2021, has three priorities focused around education, research, and developing LSE for everyone.  More than ever, research libraries, and their component teams, must align with the goals of their parent institution, particularly in support of education, research, and impact. 
• Structural changes within the library. The LSE metadata team was previously part of the library’s Content and Discovery Group, charged with the management of scholarly content. This changed in 2020, when the metadata team became part of the Digital Scholarship and Innovation group, which offered a broader remit to develop digital services and explore new ways of supporting research, learning, and teaching in a digital environment.
• The pandemic’s acceleration of the digital shift in the workplace. When the coronavirus pandemic arrived in early 2020, Helen estimated that about 50% of her team’s work was spent on tasks that could only be completed on campus. This instantly became impossible, forcing a rapid pivot to work that could be completed off-site. Her team needed to do work that was visible, valuable, and in support of institutional goals.
• Evolving metadata trends and practices. Recognizing changing library practices, the team familiarized themselves with developments like linked data, persistent identifiers, and metadata as a service, and considered how to initiate change in these areas, using OCLC Research publications like Transitioning to the Next Generation of Metadata as a guide.

In addition to Helen’s list, our group discussion identified yet another:

• Resource scarcity. Resource constraints and even budget cuts can also catalyze change, as institutions must make difficult decisions about what to prioritize, and equally important, what to stop doing.

Changing library collections means changing library work

Changing library collections practices are also a critical driver of change for library teams. The pandemic accelerated the shift to ebooks from print, requiring less cataloging by metadata teams. And there has also been a steady shift from the previously dominant model of “outside-in” collections, where materials like books and journals are licensed or purchased from external sources and made available to local users. Instead, they have moved toward a new “inside-out” paradigm, which prioritizes the sharing of unique institutional materials (e.g., research and learning materials, researcher profiles, and digitized special collections) with external audiences. Inside-out collections have emerged as an important differentiator for libraries and their parent institutions (see previous OCLC research that documents these changing collections directions).

Increasing emphasis on research support

The LSE metadata team has responded to this collections reorientation, as it has shifted from primarily managing print and electronic collections to also actively supporting institutional research, teaching, and learning in a digital environment. This means greater collaboration with the Open Research Services team, working in partnership to manage research outputs and researcher identities, including:

• Research outputs metadata. Metadata librarians increasingly support metadata creation for a broad range of institutional research outputs, enabling greater FAIRness and discoverability on the network. This work usually requires working in close collaboration with new partners working in open research roles.
• Persistent identifiers. The LSE metadata team has assumed responsibility for the management of persistent identifiers (PIDs) for the library and campus, giving PIDs a stable institutional home. They have also worked with other library and campus units to support ORCID integration with the Current Research Information System (CRIS).
• Institutional reputation management. LSE has experimented with Wikidata as a method for making institutional outputs, such as theses and dissertations, more broadly discoverable to global audiences. As a result, LSE has partnered with the University of York to co-publish a Wikidata Thesis Toolkit, to help other institutions do likewise.

Maintaining can create resource challenges

Even as research libraries have increased focus on inside-out collections, outside-in collections must still be maintained, increasingly in partnership with other libraries in new collective collection efforts where multiple libraries collaborate to manage and share their collections as a unified resource. Collective collection efforts can create a renewed focus on print collections and their metadata, particularly due to the need to identify rare and unique items that would be candidates for retention commitments. One discussion participant at a large UK institution described how this effort has surfaced concerns about the quality and completeness of legacy catalog records, their inadequacy to support retention decisions, and the need to invest in metadata remediation to make the records fit for this new purpose.

This example highlights a core challenge for libraries and librarians: How do they adapt and upskill to support new initiatives while also maintaining legacy activities?

This is a crucial question because pursuing collective collection efforts requires considerable time, not only to address catalog metadata, but also to consider the stewardship of each physical object. Should it be on open shelves? Should it be shared with other UK institutions (and beyond)? Should it be digitized? As discussion participants acknowledged, this work is also largely invisible and underappreciated, as it may not be seen as aligning directly to core institutional priorities.

A newly published OCLC Research report, Stewarding the Collective Collection: An Analysis of Print Retention Data in the US and Canada, explores the maturity of shared print services and reveals that the majority of titles represented in WorldCat lack retention commitments.

Strategies for adaptation

Helen offered several strategies and tactics that she has applied at LSE to help her team adapt its work, value proposition, and collaborations, but are relevant to library teams everywhere:

• Articulate alignment with institutional goals. Helen leveraged a “purpose tree” (also called a “goal tree”) model which clearly defined the team’s mission, vision, and strategy, in alignment with LSE strategic priorities. Not only did this document outline a strategic direction for her unit, but it also articulated the value proposition of the metadata team to the library and campus. The purpose tree was used to increase awareness of individual contributions and to foster enthusiasm for the shared mission.
• Make the invisible visible. Transparency and visibility were crucial for building trust within the team and showcasing the value of metadata expertise to the broader institution. Helen shared the purpose tree with others in the library, receiving positive feedback from colleagues who appreciated the insights into the metadata team’s work and value proposition. This is also an example of developing greater “social interoperability“ with other units.
• Monitor global trends to inform skills development. Staying abreast of developments in the library, the institution, the global metadata environment, and higher education was essential for identifying areas for skill development and adaptation. For example, recognizing a shift in metadata work that requires the ability to bulk edit large sets of metadata, or to automate routine tasks, the metadata team joined the Library’s Data Shapers Community of Practice, sharing expertise with, and learning from, colleagues. Through this group they organized training on OpenRefine and SPARQL, investigated Python training options, and explored AI tools.
• Embrace a culture of experimentation. Helen encouraged her team to actively seek opportunities to step outside their comfort zones and experiment with new areas of work. This involved seizing opportunities to engage in new initiatives, both within and beyond the library. As part of this effort, the team cultivated and optimized new efficiencies in current areas of work to release capacity for new initiatives.
• Reposition the team as a collaborative partner. Helen strategically repositioned the metadata team as a collaborative partner, extending their reach and influence beyond traditional roles. She worked to transform existing relationships with other library teams from service provider to true collaborative partnerships as well as proactively conducting a stakeholder analysis to identify potential collaborators and intersections with metadata work across the library. Through these efforts, the metadata team was able to expand their portfolio and demonstrate the transferability of their skills to a wider audience. They assumed management of persistent identifiers for the library, engaged in collaborative cross-library working groups, and are exploring how to provide computational access to collections metadata in machine and human readable formats.
• Extend the library beyond the library. Research libraries are increasingly engaged in the university research enterprise, frequently in collaboration with other campus stakeholders. As a result, library expertise and capacities are being combined with those of other campus units, metaphorically extending the library beyond the library in new ways. For example, at LSE, the metadata team engaged in institutional projects that support institutional reputation management, such as supporting the global reach and impact of the widely respected LSE Blogs, and contributing to a website project for the campus. These collaborations increased the team’s visibility and demonstrated the value of metadata expertise in diverse contexts. Extending the library beyond the library is the topic of a current OCLC research project.

Futureproofing is everyone’s job

Participants had a lively discussion about the need for leadership at all levels of the organization, concluding that adaptation is everyone’s responsibility:

• Senior leaders must recognize the changing landscape and support experimentation and adaptation. This includes providing resources and support for a culture of experimentation and learning.  
• Individuals and teams must demonstrate a willingness to adapt, experiment, and develop new skills, which can also mean working in new knowledge domains and with new partners. This effort is rewarded with a much wider remit and skill set.  

I’m curious about how you, your team, and/or your library is responding to change and futureproofing library roles. Please share a comment or send me an email.