Workshop 4 | Futures Thinking for Libraries in Service of Science and Society: Lessons from Charleston Trendspotting

Workshop 4 | Futures Thinking for Libraries in Service of Science and Society: Lessons from Charleston Trendspotting

Room: Tassos Papadopoulos – Room 202 (2nd Floor)
Organised by Charleston Trendspotting Initiative
Speakers: Leah Hinds and Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe

The Charleston Trendspotting Initiative is a community-engaged process for cooperatively and collaboratively exploring social, policy, economic, technological, and educational trends and forecasting the impacts of these trends on scholarly communication, publishing, and academic libraries. Together, we examine the trends, discuss possible outcomes and effects on the information industry, including best-case and worst-case scenarios for outcomes of these trends on various timelines, and consider responses to these impacts.

This workshop shares the results of the first five years of trendspotting work. Participants will explore key trends, impacts, and implications as well as how different futures thinking methods lead to different affordances. The session will include multiple foresight activities including The Futures Wheel, Headline from the Future, and Backcasting to enable attendees to experience the range of approaches and the benefits of futures thinking.