Competition for Library Services  – Dr. Larry Nash White

• Not only provider
• May not be best
• Not First provider (14th in OCLC Survey)
• We compete with each other (libraries)
• Staffing: poaching & book publishing

Competitors: (Options)

• Bookstores (Physical and online)
• Mom & Pop
• LSSI – outsourcing lib services (public, small academic, special libraries and they do it well)
• E-Books
• Social Networking: .. is this replacing “library as place”
• Google: 99 cent chapters on horizon – idea maps – time maps (check out) .. also repackage existing services for new markets
• (Slide: Visual Of Hundreds of 2.0 icons)
• iTablet
• Espresso Machine: Books on Demand (500,000, Million by 2010 books on it)
• Redbox VD rental .. total automation
• Flexible flex screens

There are competitors we cant see …

• Day Care
• Lack of time to go to the library
• Entertainment
• SEE .. “The Hidden” chart in ppt

Potentials:

• Walmart sells more books than Amazon, B&N and BooksaMillion combined
• Kiosks – that print out paperbacks and provide e-copies

Competitive Responses:

• Respond like a business
• Expand performance assessment
• Include competitive scanning /and intelligence
• now service environment
• innovate
• increases access, alignment and accountability
• value assessment!

“A Flat World Library” -  Biblioteca de Santiago (Chile)
See YouTube on Biblioteca

Never had a library .. had clear set of needs .. built strictly according to need

• Everything On wheels
• Don’t Shelve – RFID Tags,
• Wireless
• Power system portal
• Customer delivery
• Art Museum
• Customized Seated
• Open 120hrs week
• 270,000 Sq Foot Bldgs
• Audio/Voice and Touch Screen Workstations
• 4000 Volunteer

Anthropologist in the Library to watch