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Riding the Long Tail: Libraries
Confront the World of Infinite Content Supply and Demand |
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27 June 2005 |
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Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine,
unleashed a global debate with an article last December on
"The Long Tail," the huge portion of content that's thought
to be of residual value to companies catering to mass
audiences but turning out to be both powerful and
profitable to a wide range of audiences. Companies like
Google and Amazon prove out this model every day on the
web, but so do corporate librarians who focus increasingly
on the bulk of content in their own organizations beyond
the reach of commercial services. The future for librarians
serving local communities can be found in looking at both
online and corporate models for tips as to how to manage
the content that matters most to highly contextual
audiences. |
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If you made
it through high school math you probably remember your old
friend the
exponential curve. Looking like a water slide from a
parent's worst nightmare exponential curves have a lot of
drama, emphasizing the soaring highs of the mathematical
formulas used to create them and then shooting down
precipitously to the "long tail" of the curve, that flat,
dangly part trailing off into horizontal insignificance. But
focusing on the tall part of an exponential curve can be
misleading. If you line up your vertical and horizontal axes
just so under a "garden variety" exponential curve and chop it
right up the middle of its vertical ascent you notice a funny
thing: there's just as much area under the "long tail" portion
of the curve as there is in the tall part. Tall it may be, but
there's more drama in the height of an exponential curve than
there is substance.
Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of
Wired Magazine,
noted
in an article last December that this phenomenon seemed to
have great relevance for media companies and other content
purveyors. When
a popular book on exploring Mount Everest being sold on
Amazon.com had recommendations based on audience feedback
to try
an older book on the perils of mountain climbing the
almost-out-of-print recommended book started to soar in sales
and for a time doubled the sales of the newer book. The
infinite online bookshelves of Amazon allowed them to expose
the "long
tail" of seemingly unpopular content that could become
relevant and highly saleable in an instant if it could be
placed in the right context, much as eBay finds a market for
the most arcane of doo-dads. Chris noted that this phenomenon
was seemingly widespread for the content industry as sector
after sector discovers that there's lots of money to be made in
providing valuable context for "long tail" content.
Several months and a book deal later [book developing on his
weblog] Chris finds himself at
the forefront of a quiet but growing "long tail" revolution.
Publishers and managers of content collections are generating
their own long tail of discussion about how content out of the
spotlight may be becoming more valuable than highly touted
media sources in an era of infinite supply and highly
contextual demand. The recent
OCLC Symposium in Chicago on "the long tail" at this year's
ALA Conference engaged about 370 librarians and vendors
with a stimulating panel that included Chris, myself,
Nancy Davenport, President, Council on Library and
Information Resources (CLIR) and
Chuck Richard, Vice President and Lead Analyst at Outsell.
Chris' presentation demonstrated how "the long tail" is
probably going to produce more profits than
high-visibility media in the years ahead as it fattens up with
obscure and "obsolete" materials, while the rest of the panel
weaved the story of "the long tail" into a greater context for
library services. There was far too much excellent material
presented by this panel to capture here, so for now a few small
thoughts as to what the panel flushed out:
- We kind of knew this, but now we really have to
know. As I noted in a
news analysis last April the economics of content became
untethered some time ago from manufacturing models. But the
realization sinking in to the minds of librarians and other
content collection managers is how pervasive the effect
of "the long tail" is for professionals needing to get their
arms around content purchases. Library collections have
always balanced the popular and the obscure, but popularity
tends to win the battle of the budget. If content value in an
infinite online collection is mostly about audience-driven
context established through search engines, portals and
online stores, then the value of libraries spending lavishly
on huge quantities of popular content in anticipation of very
contextual demand becomes highly debatable. This has profound
implications for budgeting, facilities, staffing and
collection management.
- Focus on the finite. The good news about "the long
tail" is that it is likely to free up librarians to do what
they do best - manage finite collections of content with high
levels of expertise while leaving to others the managing of
massively popular content and specialized collections beyond
their focus. Rather than focusing on easily reproduced
content available commercially in electronic formats
librarians can focus on obtaining and preserving truly rare
content that is most important to their local patrons' needs.
The rest can be "borrowed" or licensed on a far more global
level with lots of contextualization from local librarians
and community enthusiasts to enhance its local value.
- Focus on local content creation and preservation.
If community librarians are worrying about what they'll do in
the "long tail"-driven vision of collection management they
need look no further than their corporate brethren to
understand where their skills will be best applied. Corporate
information professionals now focus at least as much on
integrating a company's own content as they do on external
commercial sources, with very powerful results for those
organizations. Community librarians need to look at their own
communities as sources of content and content services much
more actively and encourage content production and
generation. Where's the history of your local Web sites
stored? Who, as Nancy Davenport pointed out, is creating
online archives of local histories? Who is teaching local
patrons how to publish online in ways that make their content
most useful? Who will benefit locally when someone needs a
print-on-demand publication or wants to purchase a book on
loan? The "long tail" needs to get fatter wherever content
services reside to gain maximum benefit for focused
audiences.
For those approaching the challenges of "the long tail"
there should be comfort in knowing that most communities
desperately require their services to help stimulate their
vitality and competitiveness in new ways. Libraries have always
been highly valued resources, but never more than now as the
need to apply their skills to a broad and long tail of local
content production and consumption becomes apparent. It may
look like a steep drop down the curve to that long tail, but
think of the speed that you'll have once you're riding it.
-
John Blossom
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