Stephen Abram

“Finding the Future: Library 2.0”

 Stephen talks FAST - my apologies for missing big gaps!

Stephen is the author of Stephen’s Lighthouse.

Pew had some predictions for 2020.  The agree that the Net is going to be “the network.”  They also predict that humans will remain in charge of technololgy. (whew) Other predictions:

* virtual reality wll be compelling enough to enhance worker productivity and also spawn new problems
* Tech “refuseniks” will emerge as a cultural group characterized by their choice to live off the network.
* People will wittingly and unwittingly disclos emore about themselves; gaining some benefits in teh process even as they loses some privacy.
* English will be a universal language of global communications, but other languages will not be displaced.

About MySpace - Yes, there are bad things on it. There are bad things everywhere, but it’s our responsibility to teach children how to use it safely.  (I paraphrase)

Interesting stat:  over half of users identify what they are going to read by using Amazon; NOT the library catalog.

Book publishing and sales are UP.  If we’re spending all our time protecting people from books, it’s not going to happen. We don’t have that kind of time.

Previous generations have endured much more change than we are. Consider: telephone, electricity, indoor plumbing, cars, etc.  We are actually experiencing a slow amount of change in comparison to what others experienced in the 20’s and 30’s.

“Isn’t this just the best time to be in libraries?” S. Abram
 We are doing things better than we did before. Our processes are BETTER.  Who wants to go back to filing cataloging cards or filing microfiche?  It’s better now. And we are in a position to put libraries at the center of the information world. We have opportunities. There are huge networks of people, systems, information, everything. Do we want to be on the edge somewhere? Do we want to create our own little network aside from the others? Or, do we want to be at the center?

Question we should ask, “What’s the best future for libraries”?

What libraries do best:
* We create an experience
* We improve the quality of the question
* We support community and learning

There is NO overlap in how librarians want to access information and how users want to access information.  That speaks volumes.  How are we designing services when we aren’t getting how users access them?

Advocacy:

We don’t say enough what we do and why it matters. We keep telling the same story over and over.  Is the community tired of “read”?

What are our users saying about our libraries?  Are we looking at their MySpace accounts to see what they say about us?  What about Wikipedia? How many of us have looked at our wikipedia entry?  Who wrote it?  What does it say about our library? Why aren’t WE writing our wikipedia entry?

How do we seperate ourselves from the rest of the information world?  While most users identify libraries with books; they still think Google is a replacement.  We need to differientiate ourselves from the pack.

Daily circ:

Amazon - ships 1.5 M books/day
FedEx - 5.3 M
Libraries - 11+ Million

Amazon and FedEx only ship out — we get it back!

Six times more people have library cards than licenses.

Why do libraries put their best sellers list on their websites?  How is it desireable to be in the waiting line (hold list) for the best seller?  Isn’t that like advertising a great sale at a store only to find out they only had 1 of that item in stock?  Why don’t we, instead, promote the other materials and increase the circulation of the good titles we have that are not necessarily on the current best seller list?

Younger generation (digital natives). There are more of them than the Boomers. They are smarter. They have higher IQs. Their brains are different. 

Studies show how they read things.  Their eyes move over a page (like a website) in a circle.  30somethings tend to move their eyes in more of an “F” shape on the screen.  Why not use this data to help design the things we want them to read?  Put the most imporant information in the spaces where they tend to look.

We need to stop teaching “information literacy.” It’s an insult to tell the smartst generation ever that they are illiterate. Maybe call it “advanced searching skills” or something else.  This generation is highly skilled in ‘net searching.  We don’t want to undo that, we are talking about an add-on skill for the generation. How to take their skills to next level. We can do that.

INFOHio (The Information Network for Ohio Schools).  They’ve created an online curriculum for Ohio’s K-12 education system.  Cooperative “school library and information network” that connects educational resources “with the power of information technololgy.”

MySpace:  15 million daily users. Average kids spends 20 min a day on it.   Create a link to your library catalog search. The kid can cut/paste it and make it part of their MySpace page so they always have easy access to it.  There are a lot of libraries that have created MySpace pages to reach their users. THey have links to safety information as well as links to resources at the library they’ll be interested in.

Facebook - similar to MySpace, but generally college users.

What if CDROM and DVD retire in 2012?  How will you handle the new non-containers?

Chacha.com - Search.. or search w/ a guide.  Connects user w/ a guide to help w/ searching.  Hmm…. I wonder where else someone can get that kind of help?