Two points from Technoschism

Two points stand out in the notes I furiously scribbled during Stephen Abram's talk.

First, this quote: "Are we going to be there, or are machines enough?"

Second, after showing an amazing map of academic content depicting the cross-referencing that goes on between disciplines, he pointed out two areas that appear very isolated, with very little cross-talk to any other discipline. Those two disciplines? Computer science and library science.

Millenials suggest ways to improve libraries

Since my fellow bloggers have already done a nice job of describing 'Meet the Millennials' with Stephen Abram, I thought I'd just share the teens' responses to the last question from the audience. That question was "What can we do for you?"

Some of their ideas:

• Expand collections for a wider selection of books for their age range
• Have more digital e-books (not audio books, but digital texts)
• More interaction with people in libraries; less focus on technology
  
• Brighter colors, more attractive and vibrant-looking facilities
• Designated spaces for teens to hang out

And finally, the most popular suggestion: get rid of overdue fines, and instead move to a system where you can only borrow a book after you return the book you have.

Every single panel member was incredibly poised and well-spoken. If you're reading, panelists, thank you!

Technoschism

When I listen to Stephen Abram I feel like a paper bag, the big kind that you get from the grocery store. When I walk out my bag is so full, it is overflowing and I’m thinking I can barely lift it. I’m inspired, but I’m not sure that I can absorb all the things that I’ve collected. I’m thinking I will have to spend a year to organize all these thoughts and I know that the next time I see Stephen at Computers in Libraries or another conference I will have the same feeling.

Then, he ends his talk with: Play.

Meet the Millenials (facilitated by Stephen Abram)

Besides the inexplicable fact that these 12-17 year-olds are listening to the very same bands that my peers were listening to when we were in high school (Bon Jovi, Pink Floyd, Queen, etc.) it was great to hear exactly what they think of libraries and life in general.

If you work with teens, or if you don't, you need to spend time listening to kids their age. There are too many stereotypes about teens being the troubled group in our libraries, but when you ask them questions about their lives in general, they are articulate, clear, and know exactly what they want.

When this particular group of teens answered that most of them did NOT have myspace or facebook accounts, people were surprised, and Stephen mentioned that he is used to working with older teens, assuming that it is an age difference. However, when I was in library school a few years ago, I recall this same issue coming up and believing that there is a big difference between the "normal" mainstream image of a teen in urban settings and the teens who live in small towns and rural environments.

Living in southern VT and working in western MA, I see a huge difference in both the interests of teens and the access they have to information and trends. They tend to be far behind their urban counterparts. This is not a bad thing, but it means that we all need to pay attention to our own communities, rather than assuming that all teens are alike, that they all want exactly the same thing, that they all listen to the same music, watch the same movies, wear the same clothes or read the same books. Thanks to big business and the corporatization of America, there certainly is the tendency for that to happen, but the information reaches different communities at different times, and that affects how the people who live there see the world.

Just think - one teen in this session said the closest Barnes & Noble is an hour's drive from his house. I'll bet his public library is closer.

But my favorite quote from one of the teens was (in talking about doing research for school projects) "...Books help because you can’t publish a book with false information."

Meet the Millenials -- facilitated by Stephen Abram

Meet the Millenials – Facilitated by Stephen Abram

2/3 girls, 1/3 guys, ranging in age from 12 to 16, all from the local Junior & Senior High Schools.

Music
The classics are back, in a large way, and most of these kids are finding out about this stuff online.
Creating techno on computer & textures/layers stuff in SecondLife

MySpace or IM?
Kids are still talking to kids in person
"Scrapbooking, except on computer"
AIM, in person, on the phone
Jabber, IRC (personal server), AIM
Use AIM for homework

Planning Saturday night
Gotta be in advance, but friends plan late
As it comes along, last-minute
Phone, IM, yelling across the street

Homework
"If the internet is down, I go to the library"
Savvy – understands that you need to double-check information
Yahoo, Ask (preview function like Snap), Google
Different search engines bring up different websites
Don't like Wikipedia because it changes ... "the words that were supposed to be there"
Anything you want to find is there – but sometimes they don't provide a quick summary
Too much dialogue and not enough information
Sparknotes – not instead of reading but to get more out of the book
Google as a fact-checker
They're still using books, don't give up on it yet
Books can be faster

Citation/Plagiarism
The kids mostly told us what we wanted to hear, but I think they were telling most of the truth – which was that they're citing things and not just copying and pasting.
Automated citation sites:
KnightCite -- http://www.calvin.edu/library/knightcite/
Son of Citation Machine -- http://citationmachine.net/

Checking multiple sources

• They do it. They rely on multiple sources – 'whatever ends up in the most places is obviously the right information.'
• They eventually go to the library, if they can't determine validity themselves.
• Not looking at the details, but the main points to compare sites. [Hmm, that could be a bit unnerving.]
• .edu or .gov means an educational/governmental institution and they're more reliable
• Names you recognize – NYT, Boston Globe, TimesforKids.com, cia.gov, Enchanted Learning, "organizations you heard of"
• Use an odd number of sites so you don't have a split vote

[I really wanted to see some more urban kids on this kind of panel. I know why they aren't here, but I'm sure we'd be hearing some different answers from city kids.]

Last book you read for fun
Maximum Ride, first & second books
Princess Frog, Secret Language of Girls
Hardy Boys
Hidden Life of Otto Frank
Enchantment: Life of Audrey
Dispatches from the Edge
Virtual Light
Pillars of the Earth
"can't remember" – They just don't get it : how Washington is still compromising your safety, and what you can do about it, David Hunt
Shade's Children
Where do they get it?: Friends & family, library (public & school)

Talk about the library
Southbridge – very organized,
Junior high library – stickers for organization, quiet & easier to think
Senior high library – the books are ancient and there's no selection
They go, but sometimes it's not as much fun as they'd like.
**Kids can tell when an institution puts money into the books; they are paying attention to this stuff**
A few of them were overdue in a serious way, so they can't check out books. No fines for kids, perhaps?
Lots of kids buy their books, the ones who blow through books get them from the libraries

Where do you get your books?
Barnes & Noble
Amazon
Libraries

[The Second Lifer kid does steampunk avatars; I'm so excited!]

Gaming
PS2, Xbox, GameCubes, Wii (Prince of Persia, Twilight Princess, Zelda)
Desktops -- WOW ("my dad plays and he's at level 35"),
"Second Life is more of a metagame"
NetStorm, "Evercrack"
Call of Duty 1 & 2, Medal Storm
Star Wars MMORPG
Sports games & racing games (girls & boys)
Still playing PS1 games
Nintendo DS (virtual pet games), SuperMarioBrothers
GameBoy (car games)
Sims (its the creation that's the fun)
2-week lifespan on games [here's a perfect lending opportunity!]
Solitaire on the computer
SuperSmashBrothers Melee
"I have to be active" -- so she likes games that get her up and moving

Better off, the same or worse off than your parents?
Dealing with being without your parents
Not necessarily better off, but you want to be in a better place
Wants to have her own business in interior design
Depends on what your parents do: dad's a prosthestist & mom works at UMass Medical Center
It won't matter: I just want to do the things that matter to me, "I want to be happy"
Geography: wanting to stay near parents
"Whatever, as long as I'm not homeless"
Make a lot of money, hopefully doing what I want to be doing
"Population is going too fast, so there won't be enough jobs for people. I'm hoping I can just work."

[It took to the end of the one and a half-hour session to get to the poop joke.]

Politics
Lots of votes for not being part of any party because they're all flawed
More important to see what ideas help us, makes our country better -- "It doesn't matter who comes up with it, or how much it's going to cost, just how much it's going to help us."
"I can't tell the difference."
"Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show" are the #1 & #2 shows for millenials.

About half YouTube watchers

Is the world going to be a better place?
Darfur - there's no stopping it
Environment - global warming
"One good thing about being a pessimist: you're always right or pleasantly surprised."
People are going to be just fighting to survive
They hear the information from parents, email newsletters, news, school
Fire In the Sky - Heinlein
Normal dinner conversation
Daily lives / scheduling
What did you learn in school?
What's going on in the world and what your opinion is about it.
Sports
Current events

How many kids actually have family dinners? Once or twice a week, almost every day, once every few months, holidays,

If we got rid of overdues, would you use it?
"You'd never get your books back"
It might be good to have it like Netflix: no fines, but you can't get the next one until you return the first one
More time to get through a book so you can actually finish it.
If there's a book you want, someone else might still have it and then you can't get it.
What about paying fines with credit cards? Research

Phones
Every single one of them has a phone

What can we do for you?
Can you increase the diversity of books?
More scifi
Wider selection of movies
Electronic books - text-based, not audio
Less technology, more human interaction
Historical novels
Cafe ("my mom told me to say this")
Brighter colors
Age-appropriate sections

Stephen Abram Interviews Millennials: Teens Talk About Libraries

Funny how all the teens that Stephen Abram interviews seem to love books as much as computers.

"I shouldn't go to bookstores. Everything looks good. Even the one's with hardcovers still look good."
"A book only lasts me a day. I use the school library, but I can't remember when I last went to the public library."
"I can't pass up a bookstore."
"I use Amazon.com, check out the back and front of the cover and read a chapter."
"My public library is very organized: They separate the romance from the other books."
"I go to the library because its quiet, to get a encyclopedia, "
"In the school library at my senior high, everything is new, lots of computers, but the books are old, paperbacks that are yellowing. People don't go there for the books"
"I don't go very much to the public library because I go "overdue" way too often."
"The last time I went to the library, my mother made me go."

Listening to the babel about how these teens use technology and do research surpasses most of the workshops at library conferences in the early years. Let's face it. We can't teach this generation much about doing research on the Internet.

These teens are actively learning, actively playing everyday. Actively looking toward the future.

Talking about playing games and researching on the Internet, the conversation was really lively and interactive...the conversations about using the library seemed a bit patronizing. One of the participants even stumbled over the word: "microfiche" She was a library employee.

Perhaps the attendees of this panel aren't the ones we need to serve. Those that have to compete with this group might be our target audience.

Yet, despite their prowess in finding information and using it, they are still concerned about their future. They are not sure whether things will be better for them than their parents.

"The world may be getting worse."

How do they get their political information: Utube, comedy shows, etc. Dinner conversation usually isn't: "How about that Bush Mom?"

Among some of these best and the brightest from seemingly typical American families, who seem to embrace their computers, Amazon.com, bookstores, and gaming more than their libraries at this stage of their lives, there was a haunting statement: "I will vote when I'm older."


Questions:

Librarian: And if there were no overdues? "We just won't return them. But they do like the idea of the "return one, then get one" policy of video stores.

Stephen Abram's Technoschism - Reflections

There will be more than enough posts about exactly what Stephen Abram said in his talk about technology, relevance, and how they meet (or don't currently meet) in libraries. So here are just my quick bullet points of reflection and contemplation.

• "What librarians do best is context management, not content management": As Stephen often reinforces in his talks, we're not competing with Google, that's an apples to oranges comparison (especially when they're way too busy creating apps and taking over the online world). Librarians need to focus on creating a context for content, an environment for user interaction (as a sidenote, remember that Library 2.0 includes *offline* environment). We shouldn't be trying to reinvent the wheel (or besmirching the evolution of newly-evolved information management methods) on how to manage stuff.


• Nexthead, not texthead: Are you ready for the next extinction of file formats? Do you know what you'll do when DVDs go the way of the dodo? Have you explored the ideas of preserving content by uploading it to file sharing servers, or using PodZinger and Podscope to get searchable transcripts of podcasts and videos, so you have some version of the content when it disappears?


• Focusing on stuff that doesn't suck: Like, say catalogs. Patrons don't want OPACs, they want user-centered design in their online environments. So we should focus on creating great environments (in my mind, this means either shirking bad OPACs and creating better ones with the help of vendors or via creative Greasemonkey scripting, or going out to services like LibraryThing and uploading our catalogs to be where our users are), and spend less time complaining about the shortcomings of an antiquated utility.


• Stop giving people information from a firehose: Stephen's talk took me back to my usability roots, with the reminder that we need to get better at user-centered design. No more showing patrons 300 ways to do something or 300 resources in a section, but more of really providing focused, customized information. This means getting to know our users, and not just sitting behind the desk and not making eye contact.


• Get social: Go where everyone is online, make an account, and play. My Caveat: Do not try to force a use of the social software stuff into the library if it doesn't fit; assess your needs, and figure out if a branch in Second Life or an account on Facebook is right for your library. But, the benefits of being in social software environments is understanding the culture, which equals understanding a section of your patrons.


• Do that 23 things thing: Not sure where to start? Go to 23 things. 15 minutes every other day can get you to a place where you'll start to get it.

Keynote Speakers Stress

Briefly reading the blogging efforts of my cohorts, I don't have much to add about the content of the speakers. What I do have, however, is added stress to my currently stressed-out persona! These thoughts are great--advocate! rebrand! connect!--I want to hit the ground running. I'm inspired, but the reality of having Windows 95 and broken (never to be replaced) computers is trumping ebooks and xml gadgetry. Don't get me wrong, I totally support the ideas behind Abrams slideshow, and advocate my head off at gatherings and in the media. I hope, though, that I can also come away from the conference with practical suggestions for these amazing inspirations.

Stephen Abram Links

The bottom line: learn to adapt! Here, Stephen shows smart phones from Apple and Google that are microcomputers with text, audio, video, camera and websurfing capabilities - devices that allow our users to bring data and stories to them, wherever they are.


Links to many of the tools and websites Stephen referred to in his Technoschism keynote address are bookmarked on del.icio.us:
http://del.icio.us/informationgoddess29/stephenabram

I'm also tagging conference links under "masslib07"

Want to start implementing the 2.0 things he shared? Go to Learning 2.0 and complete the 23 things course in just 15-20 minutes a day!

Technoschism - Stephen Abram

Stephen starts: Google serves many more people that all librarians around the world. But can Google understand the excitement of a child during story hour? Google cannot replace librarians (even as hard as they try). Do we let these search engines control how we serve our community?

Some New Technologies
e-paper
light keyboards
projector the size of sugar cube- project computer screen on wall
i reader from Sony
e-book reader for $99 with reflected light
cell phones - Google phone and i-phone

Go XML - dominant personal devices - website needs to be seen on small screen too

Community - Are we misaligned with the end users?

Stephen offered a story-
Many children's librarians love their children but are not so sure about their mothers. They drop off their children and rush out of the children's room. Librarians are assuming that they are running out to smoke. But do we really know what they are doing? Maybe they are single parents trying to improve their lives? Maybe they are running upstairs to do research for a college paper that they are working on? The moral here is not to assume anything about your patrons. But to be prepared to meet you patrons where ever they need you to. In one library the librarians held a research class during story hour and had great attendance for both.

Paths on website - do we design our paths for our end users? Use graphics instead of words

"You can't make it too simple"

Understand and follow- JSR168 portlet and RSS - by doing this you ensure that your website fits on portable devices.

Google -250 million books - may soon rent books for nominal fees (This should scare librarians!)

"Get our heads out of the book"
Publishing and purchasing of books is up. Reading is up. We need to worry about our roles as librarians and not just defend the paper books.

How should we find our information? Google offers sponsor pages and are not concerned with our questions. Librarians are specialists and will be able to give information without it being skewed by sponsors. How do we let our patrons know that their searches are skewed?

Google Local - free wireless (entire cities & towns), find local businesses, find the best price of an item when walking through a mall.

However, when books are searched...no libraries appear!

Google is reaching out to students but not professors or librarians.

These big companies are trying to overtake our place in our communities. How are we going to handle this? How do we create an environment...how do we meet our user's needs?

"Libraries are about sharing' - social networking is also about sharing...let's make these connections.

What happens when DVD's die (or any other library inventory)? We need to be prepared for streaming...

Library 2.0 - be ready!

Get social-

Myspace - get involved! Bee where your patrons are!

Facebook - 95% of college students at U of Toronto have one.

Patrons can manage all your social groups through these networking sites. For life!

Second Life - a library here might receive 5000 visitors an evening.

Reorganize - virtual users are much different that physical patrons. Are we meeting their needs? We need to reach our future voters. IM-ing is how this new generation communicates.

Play - reinvigorate how we play. Set aside 15 minutes a day to play with these new sites. This gradual learning will introduce new technology in an non-frightening manner. Have your librarians take a library 2.0 class.

Increase your capacity to adapt!

I have to say this speech was very entertaining and very quick moving. This may not come across in this blog because sometimes I was so busy listening that it was hard to go back and describe what exactly had been said.
So to summarize: as librarians we must change, get to know the new technologies, meet our patrons where they are, we cannot sit back and just expect the patrons to come to us. There are many exciting directions that libraries are moving in...Let's Go!

Out Front With Stephen Abram: A Guide for Information Leaders - is Stephen's book if this blog sounded interesting to you.

Technoschism: Stephen Abram

Technoschism: Reorganizing and Restructuring Libraries for the Real Future
Stephen Abram, Sirsi-Dynix

Slow change? My eye.
[While the technology rebooted, we discussed Google and how search engine optimizers manipulate the hits you get. News to me, which is sad. Must learn more about this.]
Library core skills is not information - libraries improve the quality of the question and the experience
Information Ocean, not highway. Exploration space, not a collection space.
We must be about more than the books, we must be about the entire experience.
"We librarians have to learn when we study something to death, Death was not the original goal!"

• Epaper & eReaders withfullsize screens
• Light-based keyboards & fullsize monitors
• Projectors the size of sugar cubes
• June 2007 - every cable and phone wire will have switched over to broadband
• iReader
• iPhone & other full-service phones (G3 standard)M/li>
Web on a credit card
• Everything is getting smaller - we need to get there in the first wave

We can't teach people to flush....how are we going to teach them Boolean logic?

• Advice #1: Go XML for Dominant Personal Services -- XML senses the device and changes to fit
• All that matters is: Community, Learning, Interaction -- he collected stories to create personas and there was no overlap between the stories the librarians told about what was important and what the users said was important
• Intention Paths -- is your library website a closed Swiss Army knife? Make sure that your website information such that it works
• You can't make it too simple

• Advice #2: Understand JSR168, Portlets and RSS
• 250 million books go online in the next five years -- what then? A chapter and paragraph-level economy on books, and how do we integrate ourselves into that?
• Get our heads out of the book -- books aren't at risk, librarians are at risk
• Get realistic about the role of reading in electronic environments

Stephen really serves Google, but only in the way of enlightening us. If half of what he says is true, Google knows all.]

• Advice #3: Geton the OpenURL and FedSearch Wagon -- give yourself and your users search options that don't harvest your information in the process of helping you search
• Let Google do the Who, What, Where, When questions. Librarians can focus on the How and Why questions. Let librarians focus on their specialties and expertises and promote themselves, let them become experts.
• What librarians do best is context management, not content management

• Advice #4: GPS & Broadband: Deal With It, Act Local?
• Google knows where your users are and can tailor their services to the local level.

• Advice #5: Be ready for advanced social networks
• Are you ready for Web 2.0/Library 2.0?
• Libraries are about communities and environments, not single-functions like the social software
• We need to create environments and provide information that delight our users
• We need to have a discussion about this, not about making OPAC suck less
• Use del.icio.us and wikis to share and preserve the knowledge of reference libriarans

Get your texthead to nexthead: What is your strategy for dealing with the death of DVDs, CDs, cassettes, etc.?

Types of learners: experience learners, visual learners, audio learners, text learners. How do we support the full range of learning, of learning styles?

• Advice #6: Get social
• BiblioCommons -- Canada's answer to all of this.
• We have an entire generation socially networking for life. We need to be out there -- facebook.com seems to be one of the strongest contenders.
• Ning.com has a Library 2.0 group.
• ActiveWorlds and SecondLife virtual worlds getting thousands of questions a night, -- there is a huge library presence: teaching, answering questions, book discussions.....everything that we do in Real Life we do there.
• Magazine Content, News Content...it's all becoming social. How do we insert ourselves into the social content map?

• Advice #7: Get political
• Become an advocate in all the places that we are being social
• These millenials will be voting on our bond issues in the next ten years, we NEED them

• Advice #8: Reorganize
• E-learning
• Information Commons
• Learning Commons
• Community Integration
• Reference Cowboys
• Virutal Operations and Branches -- your virtual visitors are completely different than your in-person visitors

• Advice #9: Get Conversational
• Instant Messaging reference *works* -- Thomas Ford Memorial Library gets 50% of their total reference through IM
• Cha-Cha
• IM is better than email for reference

• Advice #10: Increase our HR ability to adapt
• Everything is a toy...play with them -- we learn through play
• Use the PLCMC Lerarning 2.0 model as a structure to play in
• "information literacy" courses are like "ugly salons"
• Use the same list as a checklist of things you can do
• The culture of the library changes as this happens
• Build a petting zoo in the library so that the public can learn to play on these technologies

Brains have changed in millenials (3rd shift in brain mapping). We need to shift our ways of providing services to match their brains.

SchoolRooms -- built based on reports on how millenials think. User-centered design.

Are you ready for Imagineering the Library? Are we ready to be the purple cow?
It's the staff that distinguishes us from the search engines? People live in the foothills of the information ocean, and libraries can be there.

Change for our users in the context of learning and community.

[Wow, Stephen Abram is wonderful. I'm glad I've finally gotten the chance to see him speak.]

Conference Session Schedule Change!

forwarded from Michael Colford, Conference Committee:

I just wanted to let you all know about a major schedule change for the Massachusetts Library Association Annual Conference on Wednesday, May 2, 2007. Please adjust your personal schedules accordingly if you will be attending the conference on Wednesday.

Technoschism: Reorganizing and Restructuring Libraries for the Real Future will now take place on Wednesday, May 2, 11:00 a.m., as a second keynote address. Vice President of Innovation for Sirsi/Dynix, Stephen Abram, will discuss our changing demographics and newest innovations in social networking, tagging, portals, and persona development, as well as the three emerging trends in the environment: technology, community focus and teamwork

Meeting the Millennials is a new program meeting in Cheshire/Danforth at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 2. Stephen Abram, will interview a group of 10 - 15 teens about their attitudes about life and libraries. Come hear first-hand how the next generation to hit adulthood deals with the world and their quest for information.