The Utopian Library

Helene Blowers, Director of Digital Strategy, Columbus Metropolitan Library

She blogs at librarybytes.com. See her presentation slides here.

Our focus is on knowing the realities of digital natives and keeping those realities in mind when planning library services.

“Joey” video on YouTube demonstrates the skills mastery of a child at only 18 months old.

Joey is a digital native and knows almost instinctively what to do with the iPhone. Some of our customers don’t have these skills and wouldn’t know what to do with a touch screen.

A “digital native” is someone who was born after 1980.

• by age 1, first PC was rolled out
• by age 3, cell phones introduced
• by age 9, the Internet happened
• by age 14, the Internet is here

Web 1.0 was about finding, searching, and accessing information
Web 2.0 is about connecting, sharing, and engaging with information. It’s not just about access anymore.

What are some of the digital natives’ realities?

• identity
  • their online identity is the same as their personal identity
  • identity is extremely important to digital natives
  • identity is how dNatives influence and assert their authority online
  • top five social networks as of January 2009: Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Flixter, LinkedIn
  • the scope of the user’s influence is visualized by social graphing tools such as the Facebook “Friendwheel“
• creativity
  • digital natives are cultural consumers who thrive on information and ideas to fuel their personal self expression
  • per 2007 Pew study, 90% of teens are online and their use of Internet is intensifying
  • nearly two-thirds of teens use the Internet to create content
  • No. 1 activity: posting messages
  • No. 4 activity: is uploading music (which they consider to be “sharing”)
• digital information quality
  • information quality control is shifting from authoritative to collaborative, with more responsibility required
  • how do we make our libraries accessible to digital natives? how to we get information to travel easily through their friends (their most trusted source of info)
  • In a study by the journal Nature, information errors are almost the same in Britannica v. Wikipedia
    • Wikipedia errors can be corrected immediately, by anyone
    • Britannica added editing capability via a site overlay that facilitates user contributions
  • collective control is a new way of gathering, sharing, and collecting quality information
  • most trusted sources of information among digital natives:
    • user reviews
    • vendor websites
    • paid analyst research
  • trusted media index
    • direct experience
    • word of mouth
    • dedicated online media
• safety
  • only .08% of all students say they’ve actually met someone in person from an online encounter without their a parent’s  permission
  • most teens ignore strangers who contact them online
  • 1 in 5 students and 1 in 3 teens are nonconformists who report breaking one or more online safety or behavior rules (to test their identity in an online environment)
• opportunity
  • digital natives can put their ideas and creativity on on the Internet
  • there are no barriers
  • the playing field is leveled
  • access is universal
  • connection is ubiquitous
  • libraries support this opportunity by providing computers and Internet connectivity
  • the opportunities are “all about me” (i.e., the digital natives; not “me,” ruth :-)
• piracy sharing
  • digital natvies don’t think of it as “piracy,” but rather “sharing”
  • 45% of people who use P2P file sharing do it regularly; only 3% think of it as illegal
  • content that is typically copyrighted is shifting toward a remix environment
    • Nine Inch Nails invites users to interact with their music to create and share new stuff: remix.nin.com
    • fan fiction
    • remix contests
    • movie parodies
  • “in the past you were what you owned, now you are what you share“
• privacy
  • “lifestreaming”: activity on social networks can be aggregated to show us what we’ve been doing
  • librarians as “lifebrarians”
  • digital natives can trace their lives online
  • in China, common birthday gift is a domain name!
• advocacy
  • what you do online can actually make a difference
  • your voice can create, stir, and make a difference
  • digital natives are leading their generation and creating their leadership potential

What does this mean for libraries? How do we apply strategies around privacy, quality of information, need for identity, and creativity?

Columbus Metropolitan Library has three focus segments:

1. young minds
2. virtual users
3. power users

What elements need to be present for strategies to support virtual users?

• engage
  • enable customers to connect with library staff, services, and with each other in meaningful ways
  • engagement is important to help our customers feel connected. it is an emotional need.
  • libraries need to make themselves into facilities of connection
• enrich
  • provide customers with a rich online experience that enhances their local experience and daily lives
  • we need to work toward the “active” (e.g., participating in a storytime is active. watching a storytime is passive.)
  • enrichment helps customers feel that they’re getting value
• empower
  • enable customers to personalize and add value to the library experience and allow the community to celebrate themselves
  • it’s not about the library. it’s about the community.
  • we want people to feel good about themselves.

Filed under: CIL2009, change, conference notes, libraries, library 2.0, technology