Research project BL/31/FWI22 (Research action BL)
Summary
Objectives of the networking
The TTHINC projects aims to exchange know-how about the transformation of the organisation of a traditional institution to enable a quicker anticipation on the digital innovation and the quickly changing customers’ needs. The most important challenge for libraries is not the instalment of one or other technological innovation, but the degree of flexibility to adapt its traditional mission and customer service to this disruptive context, focussing on the transformation of necessary competence (HR), the automatisation of processes (marketing, communication, managing the collection, acquisition and consultation) and a user-driven approach.
The potential outcome of this project is twofold. On the one had we aim to empower the participants to become agents of change within their organisations (short to mid-term objectives). On the other hand this project aims to identify crucial managerial challenges in the field of digital transformation for national libraries which could become the starting point of a structural collaboration on international level (long term objective).
This initiative could therefore be considered as a steppingstone towards more extensive programs such as Creative Europe. Within this framework a follow-up could be more than likely. It is crucial that we identify key challenges and build a solid network in an initial phase in order to move to the next step which is to scale up and invite other national libraries and heritage institutions in Europe and beyond.
As big data, automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning… are hot topics in society in general, impact in terms of scalability could be quite large. We are deliberately choosing to focus on organisational aspects of national libraries, therefore aiming on sustainable outcomes that could have impact on the model of today’s national libraries in general.
- Project partners
- Royal Library of Belgium (KBR), Coordinator P1
- National Library of the Netherlands (KB), Partner P2
- British Library (BL), partner P3.
Long term perspective regarding institutional research cooperation
How does tomorrows’ National Library in Europe looks like? What skills does its staff need? How do these institutions stay relevant in a digital age? How do they continue to create value for their users? This project seeks to find answers on very specific questions on an organisational level, no academic research but hands on results to shape the heritage institutions of tomorrow.
With three National Libraries we deliberately wish to keep the network small as this is uncharted territory. In this initial phase we aim to deep dive into the vast subject of digital transformation and identify and find answers on key managerial challenges. An expected outcome of this initial phase could be the drawing up of a more elaborate project within the Creative Europe framework to challenge these findings within a much larger network of European national libraries and heritage institutions. This project should be seen as a preparatory exercise to broaden the network in coming years through follow-up programmes such as exchange programmes between European heritage institutions, conferences or summer schools.
