Are Libraries the Manx of the Long Tail Economy?

Manx

The Long Tail is driven by individuals, individual preferences, individual opinions, individuals having the tools to create and accomplish things that before took the financial backing and marketing support of corporate entities. The individual undoubtedly benefits from the Long Tail, but the corporation/business that can harness the power of those preferences, tools, and opinions are the ones that profit. If libraies are to be any kind of player in a Long Tail economy, they have to learn how to leverage the power of the individual with their institutional systems. Remember, libraries may not be in direct competition with retailers, but retailers and their processes have a direct impact on the function and purpose of the library. Bottom line, getting libraries anywhere near being new producers, new markets, and new tastemakers is engaging individuals in their quest and taking a lot of that quest online. The true power of the Long Tail takes place not in a building, but in a constructed community. If a library is to be successful, then, it needs to extend outside its walls and into the community. Let's take a brief look at where libraries can contribute in each of the areas.

New Producers: Let's face it. When you think innovation you don't think library. But in a niche driven culture, libraries can, individually, postion themselves as new producers. They can create innovative programs, using Web 2.0 tools, that can draw in patrons and redefine who the library is within their community. Do this over and over again and you can have a revolution. The key here, though, is not to use technology, but to engage and involve others with that technology. Individual libraries don't need to concern themselves with world domination, but they do have to be concerned with community domination.

New Markets: Libraries have tried to harness the power of aggregation with inter-library loan systems, but they need to seriously embrace technological advances. As material is digitized and print on demand becomes more common, libraries need to have a plan to incorporate these technologies into their offerings. Further, I think there is a new market where libraries can dominate: Information is easy to get nowadays. Navigating that information and deciding which information is valid and meaningful to you is not. Libraries can lead the way in information navigation--if they fully understand the technology and market themselves to their communities as such. Why isn't every library in the world offering up their experts at every school, continuing ed class, senior center, and coffee shop in the country?

New Tastemakers: While libraries may not have the database power of Amazon, they do have a database and a community of people with opinions. Of course, the library has an absolute commitment to protecting the privacy of its patrons so any information culling would have to be done extremely sensitively, but perhaps libraries could take a page out of Amazon's book and have pop-up recommendations added to their search function. Even seeking opinions from people as they circ materials, put a slip in books that direct people to a website to give their thoughts on the book/movie/music they just borrowed. Part of the slip can be set up for manual entry as well to include those not familiar/fond of the internet. The review can be attributed or anonymous. Get that program going and market it, create traffic to the site, spark interest and see where the community takes it.

I feel the need to stress that libraries are not ever going to have the Long Tail that internet retailers have, but in an individual driven Long Tail economy, libraries can extend their tail further into their community (and surrounding communities) than they ever thought possible. The challenge is this: engage your community or lose it to an interactive, responsive corporate system.