INTRODUCTION (pres. of info today)
Numbers: 1385 conference attendees (pre-registered), 102 exhibitors.
retronym – old word needs to be updated to retain it’s original definition. example, acoustic guitar, bar soap, regular coffee, snail mail, classical music, day baseball, etc.
beginnings: internet librarian… nancy mellon-nelson (?), in june of 1993 (computers in libraries). a transformation is occurring in libraries… librarians in front of pcs…. communicating around the world…. the internet is desirable and the demand is growing.
a retronym for non-internet librarian = unemployed.
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Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project
Highlights statistics and findings from Pew studies and talks about current trends in web participation
User typologies include fanatic content contributors to irritated sufferers from information overload – what are the implications of these differences on libraries and library services
confession: when originally questioned as to who would use the internet? did not mention librarians, since then has been convinced that librarians not only use the internet, but are at the top of the food chain.
speakers and blogs – pointed out the praise (and criticisms) that he has enjoyed from bloggers. sent up positive news from blogs up to administration to get support for new technologies. this is a great suggestion and even the negative comments illustrate that information markets are self-correcting.
8 hallmarks of the new digital eco
1. media gadgets are ubiquitous – look at home media ecology (how media finds its way into our lives) in 1975 and home media ecology now.
2. internet is at the center of this revolution. 73% internet penetration level for adults. 93% of teenagers. at least 50% of the population have broadband at home.
brodaband users are contenet creators
3. new gadgets allow us to gather info and carry on communication anywhere, anytime. wirelessness is its own adventure — wifi users are a different breed of internet users and view information differently than both wired usrs and non-unsers.
4. ordinary citizens are culture creators (publishers, movie makers, song writers, etc.). we are not broadcast to any longer. the audience are the performers.
55% of online teens have myspace and/or facebook
20% of online adults have these profiles also
facebook provides their social dashboard – media is part of the communication and community building process.
33% of college students keep blogs and regularly post.
54% read blogs
12% of online adults have a blog
36% of online adult read blogs.
blogs are becoming harder to track — they are more integrated into sites and harder to distinguish and separate as its own activity.
19% of online young adults have created an avatar and use it to interact with others.
9% of online adults have done the same.
15% have uploaded video to the web.
5. all content creators have an audience. (see blog reader statistics above)
note – those bloggers that are covered in the nightly news. most folks are journaling in some way.
young people are writing their blogs for their 3 best friends and their 2 worst enemies.
they don’t want you to read it! (parents, college admissions, employers)
6. information sharing and evaluation — rating products, people, and services online.
has become sort of an obligation to their community to review/recount their experiences.
tagging – helping to offer/organize information — 34% of online young adults have tagged content (cp. 28% adults)
7. information customization — 40% of younger internet users customize news and other informtion pages; ~half are on specialty listservs.
question — by creating filters/bubbles, how much of the previous “common experience” are they blocking out?
8. different people use these technologies in different ways — these stats are general, of course. men v. women, old v. young, etc.,
user typology determination –
what do you have? (assets)
what do you do with them? (actions)
what are your attitudes toward these technologies? (attitudes)
TYPES:
omnivores — 8%
have the most gadgets, make a lot of stuff, share a lot of stuff
late 20s, male dominant, diverse races
connectors — 7%
have lots of gadget but they don’t make as much stuff. they are into the connections that they facilitate
late 30s, female dominant, diverse races,
lackluster veterans — 8%
frequent users of the internet and gadgets, but not thrilled with information and communications technology enabled connectivity. Don’t like being alwasy “on” if they had a choice they would use a land line
late 40s, male dominated
productivity enhancers — 8%
workers, they have positive views of technology because it helps them do their jobs and learn new things.
early thirties, mixed gender
mobile centrics — 10%
they love their phones
early 30s, minorities rule
connected, but hassles — 10%
mid 40s, female, white, middle income.
they find connectivity intrusive.
inexperienced experiementers –
50ish female dominant, diverse races, 15% bband at home.
occasionally try things out, aren’t connected, but aren’t opposed to it.
light but satisfied — 15%
fine with what they’ve got and don’t need very much more.
have technology, but it does not play a central role in their their lives. fine with tv and radio in tradtional formats. distant relationship to technologies and relaxed about it.
Indifferent – 11%
as a lifestyle choice, they don’t like this stuff.
they don’t like it, don’t need it and don’t want it in their lives
off the network group — 15%
mid 60s+, female dominant
no cell phones, no internet connection, and have a negative view of the internet
what we’ve learned –
large lowtech crowd — 49% (casual relationship to technology)
small technophile crowd — 8% (early adopters)
we are not yet in the mature phase of ICT adoption and use — lots of tech capabilities are idle in people’s hands and homes
take the quiz –http://www.pewinternet.org/quiz/quiz.asp
what does this mean??
it changes our relationship to information and it changes our relationship to each other
How? Ten ways:
1. volume — information grows, long tail expands
2. velocity — of information increases and “smart mobs” emerge. info is gathered and acted upon from ground up. (ex. peer to peer movie reviews)
3. venues of information sharing multiply. place shifting and time shifting occurs. absent presence and present absence.
4. venturing for information changes – search strategies and search expectations spread in the Google era.
5. vigilance for information transforms — attention is truncated. we exist in continuous partial attention and elongated “deep dives” (interest into particular subjects gets longer)
6. valence (relevance) – information customization. (the daily me)
7. vetting of information becomes more social – credibility tests are changing as people ping their networks.
8. viewing of information is disintegrated and becomes more horizontal – folks will scan the abstracts rather than read the articles. scanning…
9. voting and ventilating – content creation and collective intelligence increases
10. invention and visibility of new creators increases
think of yourself as a content creator.
Advice to library pros: Be confident in what you already know and how to meet people’s reference and information needs.
Studying Students: the undergraduate research project at the University of Rochester