From: Peter Potter <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2017 13:07:55 -0500

Isn't this part of what we mean when we talk about the
"entrepreneurial library”? Not a new concept, I know, but surely one
that deserves a fresh look at a time like now when libraries are so
keen on producing stuff via publishing offices,  “maker spaces,” and
3-D labs. Rick Anderson wrote a good post about this in SK last year:

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2016/06/08/vitamins-painkillers-and-the-entrepreneurial-library/

Peter Potter
Virginia Tech


On Jan 26, 2017, at 8:26 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2017 19:42:34 -0700

Tony, you provoke a story.  When I was first introduced to the staff
at ASU I told them what I still tell them.  Think about how you would
proceed if the library were a business that monetized every
transaction:  every search, every consult, every web page served,
every circulation transaction, every ILL, whatever.  (Then I
interrupted myself to reassure them that, no, we weren't going to
monetize everything!)  But think, I said, what you would do in that
case to push product.  What would you do to maximize revenue from
transactions?  Whatever the answer to that question might be:  that’s
what we should be doing.  We're not in it for the money, but we're in
it because we believe we have The Good Stuff, the high quality,
curated, peer-reviewed, significant, factual, truthful, provocative,
cutting-edge stuff and we believe that it's in our users' interest for
us to be as successful as possible in helping them find what they need
in order to be amazingly successful in their academic work.

We've all got a long way to go to make that happen, but I strongly
believe it's what we have to do and who we have to be.  We're doing a
major building redesign now and we're going to put special collections
on the main floor.  A nineteen-year-old coming into the building to do
their calculus homework is going to see something that's new to them
and that piques their curiosity into coming back and going for more:
the equivalent of putting the cosmetics counter at the entrance to the
department store from the mall.  If we push product successfully,
we'll be valued and valuable for a long time.  Fail in that mission
and we all lose.

P.S. wouldn't it be interesting if more publishers and vendors thought
the same way about the products they push to libraries?

Thanks for the prompt,
Jim O'Donnell
ASU