Description
Design thinking, service design, participatory design, HCI design – these are all concepts that are growing in importance. Design has become a crucial contributor where established innovation processes have struggled and it is recognised as a tool for improving public services (see for example http://designforeurope.eu). One of the possible areas for design thinking is the development of new services in libraries. The main outputs of the project will be a joint methodology for the use of design thinking in libraries and the methodology for or engaging students in innovation projects in libraries. The methodologies will be used both by the academic staff and students of the Department of Information and Library Studies at Masaryk University and by the staff and students of the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo. In addition, the methodologies will directly serve the needs of academic libraries that are interested in improving their services.
Summary of project results
The project has facilitated launch of cooperation between two workplaces, which focused their effort on a similar issue - supporting and studying of design thinking implementation as a tool for innovation of library services. Both workplaces did not cooperate before 2016. This project helped to facilitate sharing of experience and carrying examples of good practice over. The main output of the project was meant to be a joint methodology for the use of design thinking in libraries that will serve scholars and librarians in the Czech Republic and Norway. It was published at the end of our project. The second important output was meant to be a joint methodology for or engaging students in innovation projects in libraries. The outputs of the project were introduced mainly at the conference Libdesign 2016 with almost 200 attendees.
Summary of bilateral results
The project has facilitated launch of cooperation between two workplaces, which focused their effort on a similar issue - supporting and studying of design thinking implementation as a tool for innovation of library services. Both workplaces did not cooperate before starting the project, which facilitated sharing of experience and carrying examples of good practice over, especially from the University of Oslo to Masaryk University. An integral part of the project was also the improvement of methodologies for design thinking in libraries and integration of students into the innovations of library services. Design thinking has a huge potential for innovations of library services and Libdesign conference showed that the potential spans to the innovation of public services in general. The project has contributed to mapping of good examples of use in both the Czech Republic and Norway while Norwegian libraries inspired especially the Czech audience. Both institutions are united by common academic and research interests - especially design thinking, design research, HCI. There are not much academic institutions which are interested in this kind of research topic. We are very lucky that we have had an opportunity to cooperate with people from Research Group for Design of Information Systems at Department of Informatics (University of Oslo). We have learned a lot from our colleagues from Norvay during this cooperation both at theoretical, as well as methodological level. Next cooperation: These days we are discussing the new forms of cooperation at the project level (considering the calls from European Social Fund) and we are working on further development of our findings from this project in a book chapter (IGI book - "Smart Technology Applications in Business: Global Perspectives” edited by Dr. Tomayess Issa et al. that will be published in 2017).