In the 21st Century the librarys technological infrastructure is not necessarily dependent

on organizational planning and tightly coupled content for collaboration with its end-users.
Instead, the librarys website has the potential to operate in the public sphere, acting in concert
with its end-users, and allowing them to more easily collaborate with libraries and share
information with social networks in virtual communications. What does this mean for library
websites? More specifically, what does this mean for the librarys stakeholders? It means many
things to many different users because the way in which users engage with content today is
different depending on the value of the content to the user and the adaptability of the content to
each end-user. Put another way, it means . . . that in a world of knowledge freed from physical
constraints information doesnt just want to be free. It also wants to be miscellaneous
(Weinberger, 2007). How users choose to engage with and retrieve information in the
communications ecosystem is not necessarily defined by physical collaboration, but more likely
by spontaneous collaboration in virtual communications (Shirky, 2008). How does this new type
of collaboration work in reality, and more specifically in libraries?
The dialectic about how content is delivered and shared in the public sphere, advocates
that library websites are no longer static sites or silos of information. Instead, topical
conversations about what library websites should be doing in the 21st Century revolve around
incorporating responsive design into its Software-as-a-Service (SAAS) solution (assuming this is
a budgetary option) to provide end-users with the types of services that nimbly meet their mobile
and interactive needs. The current buzzword in web design today is adaptive content.
According to Karen McGrane, a content strategist and user experience designer, Adaptive
content is about adapting ourselves to adaptive content (2012). In other words, the future of
information architecture is a movable one; that is, one that can be chopped up and displayed

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everywhere (McGrane, 2013). McGrane points out that chunking out content from the
beginning, instead of repurposing website design, provides multiple sizes for mobile phones and
iPads, meaningful metadata, and content written for reuse (2013). Given that the mobile phone
and iPad are ubiquitous and convenient tools, it makes sense, now, that these tools should be
flexible enough to match the social capabilities and future potential in the communications
ecosystem.
The public radio organization, NPR, tapped by major innovators in the website design
community as the lulu of adaptive websites, has been very successful in shifting its digital
strategy from a design focused one to an adaptive strategy called COPE (Create Once and
Publish Everywhere). NPRs COPE strategy has received recognition from innovators within the
web design community because it has been successful at producing adaptive content for its endusers. Statistics indicate NPRs page views have gone up 80% since their organization
implemented the COPE strategy (McGrane). Zach Brand, NPRs senior director of technology
and strategy, in a NPR SlideShare presentation about its COPE Strategy, shares McGranes
adaptive content platform, Flexible content is design agnostic (Brand, slide 40, 2011). In other
words, write for the chunk, not the page (McGrane, 2013).
McGrane suggests a semantic content should be written and structured for reuse, not for
where the content will live on the web. A noteworthy insight from McGrane proposes that
truncating content will not resolve the challenge of fitting content into a mobile screen. Without
a content strategy, the content becomes undifferentiated blobs, rather than meaningful structured
chunks (McGrane, 2013). Assigning the right metadata to content allows web designers to
prioritize the level of importance of content as well as allow end-users to easily retrieve the
information they want. However, the standards of web design are predicated on designing for

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context and the aesthetics of web layout (McGrane, 2013). While aesthetics do play a major role
in the end-users experience, the ideas gleaned from McGranes insights offer a new standard for
content management, which, according to her, will provide a more streamlined and fluid
experience for the end-user. If information wants to be freed from blobs, allowed to be
spontaneous, and retrieved and shared in a miscellaneous manner, then the type of structured
content McGrane envisions in the near future suggests that organizations should consider
incorporating adaptive content into the workflow of web design.
In an interview conducted with Gloriane Peck, the website manager for Harold
Washington Public Library (CPL), I was able to gather a snapshot of the effects of its users
social media behavior with the librarys website and how their behavior has influenced changes
to CPLs website. Anticipating new needs in its end-user services, in particular adaptive content,
CPL launched a new website in 2014 that focuses on responsive design and collaborative
services. Pecks observations about services for its end-users echo McGranes ideas about
adaptive content. Peck was quick to point out, We were looking for ways to chunk out content
and display content on every device (Peck, 2015). Peck noted that CPLs patrons consistently
asked for a mobile application that would allow them to easily and quickly view the librarys
website. CPLs users also asked for a more interactive experience with the librarys website,
such as reading and posting book reviews as well as checking on the status (holds, fines, etc.) of
their accounts. Feedback retrieved from surveys and website feedback indicate that end-users
were not happy with CPLs previous website because it wasnt like Facebook or Pinterest (Peck,
2015). Peck also offered, We want to chunk out content, like NPRs CMS, we want to be
responsive to our users needs (Peck, 2015). In doing so, the website does seem to offer a more

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personalized experience, with features that resemble the Pinterest meets Amazon type of user
experience.
While NPRs adaptive website is in one sense a broad stroke of what is to come in the
future, it is also setting a current standard that some libraries, especially larger libraries like CPL,
are taking heed of and incorporating into their websites. CPLs website, which is hosted by the
content management system, BiblioCommons, has incorporated some types of adaptive content
into its structure. As noted above it is offering many of the services Peck was seeking for its
users and echos trending memes about adaptive content. The response from its users is positive
and Peck shared one library patrons approval, I feel like clicking on everything because it is
new and interactive. A recent CPL patron survey indicates that 91% of the patrons surveyed are
using the librarys website and 79% were very pleased with CPL (CPL Strategic Plan, 20152017). According to Peck, CPLs mobile phone application, which was high on their users list
of wants, is being utilized at an optimal level.
As demonstrated by CPLs patrons and McGranes insights, mobile phones are the
among the preferred tools when communicating, sharing, and collaborating. According to Clay
Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, the tools of technology, specifically mobile phones
and social media, have made coordinating events spontaneous. Previously, coordinating events
required a great amount of collaborative effort and expense, which required organizations to
absorb the costs associated with planning in the work environment (Shirky, 2008). Shirky
suggests there is a burgeoning shift from organizational planning to a more collaborative effort in
the public sphere to absorb technological infrastructure as a means to coordinate and collaborate
through social media (Shirky, 2008). He also suggests the equilibrium of power distribution

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within the institutional infrastructure has shifted into the hands of the users who have become
contributors, not passive recipients, in communication ecosystems (Shirky, 2008).
As a way to express the idea of coordinating in congress, Shirky utilizes the power law
distribution to demonstrate how this translates into relevant statistical data. In the power law
distribution, a pattern of predictable imbalance has the potential to be the great equalizer of
access. The shape of this, often referred to as the long tail or the 80/20 rule, is a pattern that
shows up in social media frequently. Surprisingly this imbalance drives all types of social media,
such as Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, and blogging communities. According to Chris Anderson,
the ambassador of the long tail model, this imbalance actually allows for greater variety and
collective user participation, free marketing, and consumer demand for untapped services and
products (Anderson, 2009). It also reduces the traditional costs associated with organizational
planning because of the unlimited shelf space of the Internet and what Anderson calls the zero
marginal cost of digital distribution (Anderson, 2009). Viewed from this perspective, the power
law distribution can allow for technological infrastructure to be absorbed more spontaneously by
the masses (Shirky, 2008).
The observations shared by Shirky and Anderson reveal the value that spontaneous
collaboration can incite in the public sphere. In relation to libraries, spontaneous collaboration
has the potential to support democratic participation, which is the touchstone of librarianship.
The effect of this type of plurality in social constructs also has the potential to accelerate access
to information, encourage spontaneous discovery, and allow for untapped resources or new ideas
to surface in the public sphere. During my interview with CPLs website manager, as noted
previously, Peck frequently mentioned that blogging, tagging, reviews, and sharing content is
important to its librarys users. According to Peck, CPLs user behavior does share some

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resemblance to the social patterns presented in the power law distribution. Noteworthy, and
relevant to the dialectic about spontaneous communication, is CPLs crowdsourcing project,
which enables its patrons to access and interact with book reviews from 250 other
BiblioCommons libraries. Another BiblioCommons library, New York Public Library, is
utilizing sophisticated crowdsourcing projects, which allows its users to digitize the NYPLs
archive of old New York restaurant menus (2015). It operates similarly to Wikipedia by giving
its users the option to correct misspellings or fill in missing data.
Larger libraries like CPL and NYPL certainly have an advantage over smaller libraries in
that their budgets (or foundations) are able to financially support more sophisticated CMSs like
CPLs and NYPLs. During my interview with Peck she explained to me that CPLs $1 million
web redesign was not paid for with the librarys budget. Instead, the Chicago Public Library
Foundation absorbed the cost for the redesign. Peck proposed the financial upside of investing in
a CMS, like BiblioCommons, is that it requires a smaller staff to manage the website. Pecks
department operates with a team of four people, which has reduced the cost of managing the
website. It has also freed up her time to focus on training her staff, updating content, evaluating
statistics, organizing surveys, and most importantly focusing on the librarys users experience.
In addition Peck, said she has also found time to encourage and train her staff in the art of
blogging, which she describes as a conversation with the public.
With all the innovative and practically free tools replacing old ones in the marketplace,
the question why do we have organizations at all? is an important question to circulate in the
dialectic about how the new communications ecosystem affects libraries now and into the future.
The transaction costs associated with organizations often become too expensive to manage and
as a result the markets outperform the firms (Shirky, 2008); and a decentralization of labor is a

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consequence of the way in which the public sphere is using new social media and mobile tools.
This shift can be seen in the publishing, and newspaper industry too, where copyability and the
reuse of content is fundamental to supporting these industries, whether they have come to terms
with this or not. Consider Spains Spanish Newspaper Publishers Association (SNPA) dilemma
with Google News, which was recently published in an article, Spanish Newspapers Want
Google News Back. According to this article, SNPAs new legislation mandates charging
Google for any use of its published content. In response, Google News shut down its search
service in Spain and the result has been quite damaging to Spains newspaper revenue. As John
Biggs, author of the above article, noted The Internet is like a delicate rainforest ecosystem
(2014). The repercussion of removing Spanish newspapers from the communications ecosystem
was certainly a painful realization for SNPA when they realized the majority of the traffic to its
news is, indeed, generated by Google News.
While the newspaper industry, nationally and internationally, may be fumbling over how
to navigate the new virtual communications, some libraries have started to heed the call for
adaptive strategies; these new adaptive strategies are being embraced by library users because
the technological infrastructure is being absorbed by the masses (Shirky, 2008), making it easier
for participatory democracy in the public sphere. It seems to me, then, that these new social
media tools are in many ways aligning, albeit unintentionally, with the librarys core ethics and
goals: to provide equitable access to information, to provide lifelong learning, and to encourage
the spontaneous discovery that leads an individual onto a path of innovation.
The information users are seeking now is not necessarily going to be indexed like the
printed book (Weinberger, 2007). Instead, as the marginal cost of technological infrastructure
becomes less expensive, the future of organizing information is likely going to be ubiquitous,

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miscellaneous, and spontaneous as suggested by Shirky and others. If information wants to be

free in this manner, then the sinew for this technological revolution may very well hinge on the
congress of the public sphere. And perhaps this new technological revolution, is not so much a
revolution, as it is a tale of the unexpected discovery that happens when the user chooses to act
in concert.

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References
Anderson, C. (2009). Free: The future of a radical price. New York, NY : Hyperion.
Biggs, John. Spanish newspapers want Google News back. (2014).
Retrieved from echcrunch.com/2014/12/14/spanish-newspapers-want-google-news-back/
Brand, Z. (March 14, 2011). NPR API: Create once publish everywhere (PowerPoint Slides).
Retrieved from SlideShare website: http://www.slideshare.net/zachbrand/npr-api-create-oncepublish-everywhere
Chicago Public Library. (2015). Chicago Public Library 2015-2017 strategic plan, 7.
Retrieved from https://www.chipublib.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2014/06/CPL-strategicplan-2015.pdf
McGrane, K. (2012). Vimeo. Adapting ourselves to adaptive content. Retrieved from
https://vimeo.com/56705945
New York Public Library. (2015). Whats on the menu? Retrieved from http://menus.nypl.org/
Shirky, C. (2008 ). Here comes everybody. New York, NY : The Penguin Press.
Wienberger, D. (2007). Everything is miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder.
New York, NY : Holt Paperbacks.

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