Technological advancements are transforming the operating context at break-neck pace, and we are concerned about the preparedness of VCSEs, if they are to future-proof their vitally important work and ensure it remains relevant in the face of changing needs, new service delivery channels and opportunities to deliver social impact. In particular, we are concerned to ensure VCSEs are supported to appreciate and engage in the development of intangible (data) and intellectual property assets going forward as per other sectors.

To date, the Government’s efforts have concentrated almost exclusively upon the scope for closer working with HEIs and the private sector to unlock the potential for greater efficiencies and economic growth harboured by technological advancements in respect of data. Indeed, with the exception of investments on the part of NESTA and the Nominet Trust, policy makers and major funders have been all but silent when it comes to working with VCSEs to innovate in the context of our increasingly digital society. Common Futures is a socially conscious business working to uncover where the potential for taking this work forward might lie.

We have contributed to the development of national policy and practice in respect of public open data to benefit VCSEs. We’ve spear-headed cutting-edge work with VCSEs that are grappling with personal and organisational data collection, sharing, analysis and deployment to improve service design and address social problems through the Our Digital Community programme. We’ve also engaged directly in prototyping of our own in the course of working with Locality. Increasingly, our work points towards data deployment by and for VCSEs as a vitally important area of activity that would benefit from being investigated more thoroughly: Making Transparency Work for You 2014

Some of you will know that we’ve been working with the Creative Coop and Guifi.net since 2010 to help the Lyme Regis Development Trust become a pioneer where digital asset and enterprise development is concerned.

Well, the Digital Lyme effort continues to go from strength to strength – so, we love that they featured in the Daily Mirror only last week! #powertochange

We were thrilled to learn that our Common Libraries initiative was short-listed for an international OuiShare Award, in recognition of its contribution to the sharing economy, and amongst so many trail-blazing peer-to-peer endeavours from right around the world. Check out this short intro – and, if you like what we’re doing, please don’t forget to vote for us!

And, if you’d like to find out more about the project / get involved – visit: http://www.commonlibraries.cc/ or say hullo via @commonlibraries

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Communities and Local Government has jointly commissioned William Sieghart to produce an independent report considering the current structure and role of public libraries, including community libraries, in England as well as identifying any opportunities for future delivery.

Interested parties were invited to submit evidence to help inform the Panel’s considerations in respect of the following areas:

1. What are the core principles of a public library service into the future?
2. Is the current delivery of the public library service the most comprehensive and efficient?
3. What is the role of community libraries in the delivery of a library offer?

With the democratisation of the means of production and reproduction, as well as the exponential growth in information as “data”, we are minded to think that we must explore what role libraries might meaningfully play in the 21st century where harnessing information for social and economic benefit is concerned.

In our submission, then, we stated that the core principles and organisation of a public library service in future should be:

• Third Spaces – locally rooted social capital factories, accessible to and welcoming of all, that bridge the online/offline divide and encourage literacy as well as STEAM skills development to nurture contemporary creative endeavour.

• Read/Write Oriented – facilitating the consumption, production and re-mixing of information, knowledge and know-how (including, data).

• A National Library Service underpinned by an Open, Enabling ICT Infrastructure – to facilitate access to information, knowledge and know-how on an anytime/anywhere basis.

• Enterprising Local-by-Default Library Services responsive to User Needs and Interests – to nurture digital inclusion as well as access to/production and re-mixing of information, knowledge and know-how in a trusted and supportive environment.

• A Locus for Citizen Interaction with Contemporary Culture, Public Services, Community Activities, Open Government and E-Democracy.

Download Our Submission in full.

There is a growing trend internationally toward the co-location and affiliation of libraries with hacker and makerspaces – for example, in the United States, where Chattanooga Public Library has spear-headed calls for libraries to adapt to reflect our increasingly ‘read/write’ world, and in relation to innovative UK-based projects like St Botolph’s Waiting Room, with its Give-Get Library in Colchester and partnership with Essex Libraries.

The current 10-year Strategic Framework for Arts Council England identifies Resilience and Sustainability as a key goal in the context of austerity, recognising that the arts and cultural sector must be able to adapt to changing circumstances, without compromising its core values and the quality of its work. The Arts Council also recognises that the sector must learn from examples of organisations that have successfully developed new sources of income.

Common Futures has worked with the Carnegie UK Trust, The Creative Coop and Colchester School of Art to develop an innovative business model in relation to St Botolph’s Waiting Room. Together, partners have developed a ‘borrow/barter/buy/bespoke’ approach to business integration for library-hack-maker spaces, which is designed to help maintain the ethos of a library where its function to ‘facilitate access to all’ is concerned, in addition to introducing an income generation dimension to operations.

We are therefore pleased to announce that we will be taking steps to prototype an income generating Library-Hack-Maker Space Network with international reach with a grant from Arts Council England over the coming weeks and months. The project aims to better understand the potential for library-hack-maker spaces, and affiliations between libraries and hack/maker spaces, to enhance the resilience and sustainability of libraries in future. It will involve Common Futures working with representatives from 4th Floor Chatt and St Botolph’s to support four prototypes in the first instance.

In Where Good Ideas Come From [2010], Steven Johnson describes seven patterns of innovation: the adjacent possible, liquid networks, the slow hunch, serendipity, error, exaptation (a shift in the function of a trait during evolution) and platform building. Whether he’s describing the limitations imposed upon our thinking by the sheer number and range of ideas we encounter over time, the dense and diverse social networks in our cities that lend speed and impetus to innovation, or the importance of trial, error and luck – his patterns resonate with us as we move to explain the origins of our ‘library-hack-maker’ space in St Botolph’s, Colchester.

It is important to explain why we are now doing what we are doing – how we are ‘envisioning the library of the future from the ground up’ – because government and key stakeholders like the Carnegie UK Trust are engaged in parallel activities, as the value of our public libraries is called into question against a backdrop of austerity and digital disruption, and we ‘the users’ would wish to become fully-fledged ‘contributors’ to our libraries going forward. So, this account of our thinking and doing process over a number of years is intended to serve as a first contribution to the Waiting Room’s Give-Get Library – it goes without saying that we are incredibly grateful to all concerned.

Download On the Origins of St Botolph’s

We’re just back from the International Community Wireless Summit in Berlin, which we attended with Lisa Quick who heralds from the Digital Lyme initiative, and we’re absolutely thrilled to have encountered so many kindred spirits exploring the potential for mesh networks to transform telecommunications in community hands along the way.
   
Check out the action via Storify whilst we collate our notes and prepare a more detailed summary – you might also like “Free Networks – a Global Survey – a User Built Infrastructure held as Commons“.

We were incredibly fortunate to visit the Carnegie UK Trust in Dunfermline to hear Nate Hill from 4th Floor Chatt outline contemporary approaches to library service transformation in the US this past week.

The 4th floor is a public laboratory and educational facility with a focus on information, design, technology, and the applied arts. The 14,000 sq foot space hosts equipment, expertise, programs, events, and meetings that work within this scope. While traditional library spaces support the consumption of knowledge by offering access to media, the 4th floor is unique because it supports the production, connection, and sharing of knowledge by offering access to tools and instruction.

With links now forged to St Botolph’s Waiting Room in Colchester, we’re on our way to building a genuinely global movement for read/write change!

We were delighted to be invited to debate “What is a Digital Society?” with representatives from BT at this year’s Culture Tech in Derry~Londonderry, which continues to celebrate City of Culture status this year.

   
We are particularly grateful to Helen Quigley and the Inner City Trust for hosting us throughout!!!