Dempsey, Lorcan. (April 2006). “Libraries and the Long Tail: Some thoughts about Libraries in the Network Age.” D-Lib Magazine, Volume 12 (Number 4). Retrieved June 26, 2007, from
Dempsey provides an effective analysis of the current library system through the lens of Chris Anderson’s work, The Long Tail, and concretely argues that the library sciences has fallen short of fully absorbing the most relevant premise of Anderson’s argument, namely, the essential backbone of bridging the gap of supply and demand and lowering transaction costs is found within a network environment. And without such an environment, the library system cannot fully take advantage of its vast supply and untold reader demands.
Essentially, the author argues that it’s not enough for the content to be present; instead it needs to be findable and available immediately to its consumer. In turn, the system needs to reshape its organizational structure to better connect readers to books. Then, the aggregation of supply and demand will increase discoverability and lower transaction costs.
In following this argument, the author challenges the library community to do three things to close the gap of supply and demand and fulfill the premise of Anderson’s Long Tail approach to information economy. First, it must consolidate the multiple discovery tools available in the current system and streamline discoverability by offering a tool that searches the whole library community and delivers all the resources available. Second, the library system should look to mimic Amazon and host their inventory in large facilities that can increase delivery time and save on transaction cost. And, third, utilize transaction behavior (i.e., holds, book requests, etc.) to help the system evolve and adapt over time.
July 10, 2007 at 5:57 am
I would like to share a recent experience that directly relates to Dempsey’s article.
I ordered my books for this class online a little later than I should have. I had not thought about the shipping time and needed to start reading “The Long Tail” before my book arrived in the mail. I thought about going to the local library to check the book out for a few days, but then remembered that as an employee of Microsoft I have access to the company’s private library collection. I jumped online to the internal library website and began my search. I was surprised by the many different results I received and the amount of information displayed on the screen. Some of the options included the book, the book on tape, discussions on the book, and an electronic copy of the book. What do you think I chose? Other than needing to download an earlier version of Adobe Reader (free online) to be able to read the electronic version of the book, it was just so simple. I had the entire book on my computer within a few minutes and no longer needed to make a trip to the local library (saved me $ on gas!). In addition to my search results, the system also included some data on the products. For each physical item, I was able to see how many available copies the company owns, how many were checked out, and, if they were “sold out”, how many people were on the waiting list.
My experience with this library interface and overall system addresses many of the concerns Dempsey raises about libraries and has the potential to be a long tail model for other libraries. First and foremost, it successfully matched supply and demand: the tool is accessible to the market that it serves, employees are made aware of the service from day one, and it delivers the products in a very efficient and timely manner. Second, the library collects data which tells them about employee interests (consumer behavior), giving them the opportunity to better cater to demands. For example, there were 25 copies of the physical book available for use. All of them were checked out and there were three people on the waiting list. (This one’s a keeper!) Third, the D2D chain is strong. What I mean by this is that I was able to discover a way to get what I want, easily locate the item, submit the request with a click of the mouse, and it was delivered to me immediately. Finally, since the network provides a very well connected system, the transaction costs are most likely low.
Though localized to a specific market, it appears that Microsoft’s network library system defends Anderson’s argument in “The Long Tail” by bridging the gap between supply and demand, while also reducing costs.
July 10, 2007 at 5:30 pm
I work part-time at the Digital Initiatives department at Suzzallo Library at the UW. When reading The Long Tail, I somehow only focused on existing brick and mortar industries or companies that provided online products. Libraries as an “industry” that could be analyzed in terms of demand and supply never crossed my mind.
After reading Dempsey’s article, however, I’m struck by one thing – perhaps the long tail is more easily applicable to newer, more digital industries. In other words, as Anderson analyzes Rhapsody, Netflix, Amazon and Google, I now realize that all of these companies never had to transition from a traditional brick and mortar business model to a digital one. They were born digital.
I looked at the auto industry in one of my blog posts as one where I was unable to find the long tail. Dempsey’s paper on the library as an industry is another that is unable to reinforce Anderson’s long tail theory. This paper goes one step further, providing the key reasons (transaction costs, data aggregation, inventory, navigation and demand) for why the long tail doesn’t apply as yet to the library system.
I think all traditional businesses face the same or similar sets of issues – the transition to keep up with technology and the digital age will be far slower for a well established, more traditional industry. It will therefore take far longer (if at all) for Anderson’s long tail analysis to be applicable to these industries.
July 10, 2007 at 9:52 pm
I can’t help thinking that Dempsey’s article underestimates libraries just a little. Libraries are making changes to make content more accessible. Of course, this article was written over a year ago, and many of these changes could be attributed – directly or indirectly – to the efforts of OCLC. Perhaps Dempsey is right on target.
Corey’s example is a great illustration of how libraries are bridging the gap and making materials available. Other examples I’ve seen include the “check UW holdings” link available in the UW Libraries databases. If the full-text article isn’t available, one click will show if it’s available in another database or in the library stacks. Meta-searching is becoming more frequent as well. For instance, the system I work for has an interface that searches the local collection, plus the library databases and neighboring system catalogs.
One area I think libraries are still lacking is with readers advisory and recommendations. There are resources, but it’s often still a multi-step process. Patrons have to interact with a librarian, or consult resources that aren’t integrated well with the rest of the collection. What’s stopping libraries from implementing a Netflix-like recommendation system? “Patrons who checked out Harry Potter also checked out…”
July 23, 2007 at 9:40 pm
I hadn’t really considered how Long Tail applies to libraries, but the article clearly ties the two together. Great choice of topic, Justin.
Thoughts from two perspectives, one as a student, and the other as an educator at an institution which was recently mandated by our accrediting body, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU), to improve our holdings:
As a student, I’ve begun checking out required-reading books from the UW library instead of buying them; this is mostly because technology books go obsolete pretty quickly (I have an extensive technology book library because of my job, and at least once a year have to do some major pruning to keep it updated). I’ve had good success with the UW interlibrary loan program, and am impressed by how easy it is and how many libraries belong.
Dempsey’s article focuses on books, but online access is also important, and here I’ve found it takes patience and sometimes several tries to access content. A bewildering array of online sources show up in search results, and some lead to dead ends, even when properly logged in from off-campus (I haven’t had much experience accessing from on-campus, since most of my research takes place at home). As Dempsey sketches out how borrowing transactions occur, these fall in the “discovery” category. He acknowledges the issues with discovery: “A user has a range of discovery tools available and may not always know which is the most suitable. . . One approach is consolidation: fewer but larger pools of metadata . . . another is ’syndication’, moving the metadata to where it might more readily rendezvous with the reader.”
This leads me to my second observation about my own campus library issues: how to update the collection and teach students to use the resources. Our print collection is woefully inadequate. Our library director previously worked at the Gates Foundation, is technology-savvy, and heavily favors improving online resources instead of building up the print collection. I understand the rationale: it’s much cheaper and more up-to-date.
But there is a fair amount of online literacy training that needs to take place for our students to effectively use the resources. I’ve had the luxury, as a grad student, to spend 90 minutes with my campus librarian, who showed me several tools for online research, and another 60 minutes with Jessica, our UW librarian. I still often find the research process daunting and frustrating. Many of our students at LWTC have never used technology like this before, are ESL, or not college-ready. Significant training will need to take place to enable them to use the resources.
So: Long-Tail economics certainly applies to libraries. There is much room for improvement in meta-search capabilities, and student training to use the resources.