Working With The "Long Tail"

Can libraries as a whole effectively utilize the "long tail" of our collections? Is it worth it? What would we have to do?

I think, again, we're trying to do this. I see it in the way we are attempting to make archival materials accessible online. At Rutgers, the collection policy states that we concentrate on collecting materials and manuscripts specific to NJ, and Rutgers, but there's a lot of overlap. For example, I processed part of a collection that was donated by Rutgers professor Angus Gillespie. This collection is ongoing, because Professor Gillespie has a few specific roles: current instructor, author, major player in the annual Folklore Festival, etc. If you view Professor Gillespie's work generally, his total collection is long tail; someone has to be interested in access to this particular person, in this particular time period. His concentration on folklore could be seen as a niche interest that might not necessarily guarantee shelf space in a university scrambling for space. However, once you create finding aids and electronically encode them so that anyone can access your collection materials, you're going to see far more use of those collections because you've made them available globally. You still have to find space - but you can now justify its use.

The finding aid for Angus Gillespie's papers will ultimately be available for search on Google. That's going to be a great help, as he's already become known for a small portion of his entire collection: a book he wrote on the World Trade Center prior to 9/11. These four boxes were the portion I processed, and it was easy to determine how valuable the interviews and ephemera Gillespie collected would be to future researchers. Now, rather than trying to track down all books on the WTC, they would have more rapid access to materials. But even if you didn't know this aspect of Gillespie's career, and approached him as an expert in folklore, you could determine it because of access to the entire finding aid. That's pretty cool.

Also, from an archival perspective, the use of encoded finding aids presents a chance to unify collections online in a way they are not currently organized. It could help institutions solidify present collections by physically aquiring them. It could point potential donors in the right direction. It could help researchers and library users plan collection visits in more logical ways, saving time and money. It would be convenient to have a better idea of what you'd find in a given collection. All of this is going to take time, money, effort, expertise - but better to bite the bullet and do it than turn away collections that will matter to someone. It's true we can't save everything - but I'd argue that it's harder to determine what to save when you're still trying to figure out what you have. Getting everything up online is one way to serve long tail, niche interests we may not have considered.

Libraries & Long Tail

Is the library world as a whole ready to benefit from Long Tail? Maybe.

I think librarians have known for a long time about the so-called ‘niche’ market, because they know their constituency. And to an extent, libraries already practice some elements of the Long Tail strategies discussed in the reading. For example, when libraries work as a consortium to buy bundled electronic journals for their patron’s use, they create access to a multitude of resources, save shelf space, and lower costs. Libraries have also offered podcasts and ‘rentable’ iPods, sparing some CD and DVD space while offering patrons a unique service.

But books are still an issue: the reason people come to the library, and the reason storage space is a problem. Libraries would need to adopt the same virtual shelving as Amazon, the same delivery system as Netflix, and the same downloadable service as iTunes to continue to serve growing Long Tail constituencies. They would largely need to rid themselves of objects, or rid themselves of the concept of ‘perpetually held’ objects. I am not saying that it could not work, or that discrete parts of discrete libraries do not make parts of this work already. But it would be tough to ask an archivist to reconfigure their special collection in this way. On the other hand, less space needed for books, more space available for archives… Could be a selling point!

We’re already reconfiguring what it means to be a librarian, and what it is we’re talking about when we talk about a library in 2008. Could we see the emergence of the library ‘superstore’? What will that look like?