My vision is of a system that provides a rich substrate of core services borne of strong library values including appreciation for human potential & equal access to resources as well as the best librarianship has to offer – discernment of authoritative sources, expert reference, etc. This central foundation (the NPL) would nurture & support a rich network of local libraries that exude, preserve and strengthen what makes their communities special and distinct.

Then, the best stuff coming out of the local affiliates (Cecily’s point about marvelous exploration and experimentation) would be incorporated into the NPL and become a resource for all participating libraries (Tim’s point about education and collective experience.)

Think of consortia. Many consortia band together for economic reasons and find that their member institutions face similar issues beyond economic constraints. Best practices in this instance arise out of a shared context. While standardization may be the means, the end is a toolkit stocked with tools from your neighbors who have dealt with the same problem you now face.

The UK manager is brave and perhaps imaginative. But with only so much time in the day and the challenges mounting all the time, why wouldn’t we avail ourselves of our collective experience? After all, that’s the basis of education: sharing what we and others before us have learned. It’s why I come into work everyday.

When I look at my library, and when I look at all of the changes we’ve seen over the last few years, I see a remarkable creativity, a willingness to experiment, and a kind of flexibility that I never thought possible. When I go to conferences, and when I talk to other librarians, I hear examples of similar approaches. Perhaps I’m just fortunate, but I don’t see evidence of the kind of stasis you’re writing about in this post.

Back when I was working in the UX field (in corporations), a manager once said to me “best practices are for people who lack imagination.” While a certain amount of that is true, best practices become conventions for a reason: they’ve proven to work across a wide variety of situations. Think of how ubiquitous the “logo that links to the home page” convention is across websites. But even when faced with using best practices to help make a decision, I think most of them look as guidelines to follow, not as hard and fast rules.

Or maybe I’m just feeling a bit more optimistic about libraries than you were when you wrote this post?