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  • Libraries as Social Networks - Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet Project.

  • Good morning. For those of you that are now joining us my name is Tamara. So, we have invited Karen to introduce our keynote

  • speaker. Karen is the director of library at Holy Names University in Oakland. You may

  • know her from blog "free range librarian."

  • Karen: Welcome. I am of course patting myself on the back for my excellent work as Nicole's

  • manager. Close race, it is really my great pleasure to introduce Lee Rainie, Founding

  • Director of Pew Internet & American Life Project founded in 1999. He is also coauthor for "up

  • for grabs" and before Pew project he was the managing editor of U.S. News & World Report

  • and after a period of covering politics he coauthored a book for MIT press about technology

  • and the title is "Networking." Here is a few more things I found out about him. There are

  • academic searches. There was 22 references, 385 Pew internet academic search. Sorry. Twitter

  • followers, 222 friends on facebook. If you Google Lee Rainie plus zombie you get 226

  • thousand entries. Vampire, 2 thousand. With librarian 19,600 surpassed by Lee Rainie kittens.

  • I found out also that his first name is Harrison. I found a 1986 article that showed he has

  • a lot in common with librarians. We are proud of our history of fighting for free speech

  • and the right to read and we have modeled, who went to Yale rather than turn over public

  • records during the Chicago trial. So, it is my great pleasure to introduce Lee and to

  • be able to sit and tweet through this session to what I know will be a wonderful entertaining

  • informative talk. Thanks very much.

  • Lee Rainie: I keep warning people about digital footprints and here I am. I remember the first

  • time I met Karen in 2002 on a snowy day. When a whole idea of blogging, actually 2003, and,

  • at Harvard assembled a bunch of really smart guys mostly, and, she kept saying such wonderful

  • smart things that I remember at least taking mental note if not written note, "radical",

  • which is a term of affection for me with a lot of common sense. And I have been a follower

  • of her blog ever since then. I was thrilled that she was here and going to be introducing

  • me and I learned things about me that I didn't even know.

  • One thing, my little gig at Pew Internet Project is described in our literature as being a

  • fact tank. It is not that Pew. My funding comes from the Pew trust based in Philadelphia

  • with a business presence in Washington. They fund us to do work that is primary research.

  • We do a bunch of national surveys asking people how they use technology and then we write

  • reports on our findings but we don't have any agenda. No 10 Pew fix-it plan or policy.

  • There is no Pew position on Comcast NBC merger. But we hope that by producing useful data

  • with an argument based on what we find in the data we will be interesting to folks like

  • you. This is the biggest stakeholder cohort for all of our work. It is a big win for us

  • and Pew Internet. Thank Karen for being nice to me. There is another thing that I got to

  • get out of the way at the beginning of every take I do west of the Mississippi. I am a

  • child of the two most challenging speaking cultures in the United States. I grew up in

  • New York so I speak really, really fast and moved halfway through my life to Washington

  • so I speak for long periods of time. I am sorry about that. I have been told about this

  • and tried to get coaching and I can't do it. A librarian came up to me after my talk in

  • Pennsylvania, "I know what your next job could be," I said I am the age of a baby boomer.

  • "You can be a disclaimer reader on drug adds." So, I'm sorry I can't help myself. Really,

  • cut me off if I am going too fast. I will advocate it, please don't twitter me. Transitive

  • verb covered by the conical of higher education warning academics who appear in conferences

  • that there was occurring that in the audience people were saying snotty things on twitter

  • to the speaker. These were some of the actual tweets covered in the article. "We need T-shirt."

  • "I survived keynote disaster." There was sales forms on the breakfast table the next day

  • for that, that T-shirt. Often I don't want to turn away from the scent because I might

  • see a severed head: Too bad they took my utensils away. My staff follows me and I never hear the end

  • of it. So be kind.

  • I will talk about libraries as social networks because it fits into a bigger social story,

  • but has been put on steroids in the era of the internet mobile conductivity and technological

  • social networks story of the rise of network individuals. I wish that I had been smart

  • enough to think of the concept myself. My coauthor is Barry. A long time network analyst

  • and he talks about people now moving into, from a world of small groups and bureaucracies,

  • into a world where networks matter both in personal and social sense but also in commercial

  • senses. And that is the world that we are writing about in our book and the world that

  • technology is implicated in. Big thing that is happening, bunch of things happening, first

  • thing is librarians are well served by thinking of institutions as networks and thinking of

  • them in the same capacity and friends in meta-works play in their lives. Librarians have always

  • played those roles but don't have that model of being a network. I encourage you to think

  • more that way because the word is a network word now. We still have our cluster of really

  • tight friends who are a lot of family members and close friends but a lot of our business

  • is done with more extensive and diverse ranging networks. They are more influential than they

  • have ever been because it is a coping mechanism for the stresses and strains that we are going

  • through as a culture. More and more information more and more casualty more and more material

  • is flying at us. So, one thing that people do in that environment is to turn to their

  • networks for cues about what is most important or interesting or relevant for assessments

  • about what is credible or not what is meaningful and what is not. Also just as an audience,

  • people have a sense that they are actors in networks and can broadcast or publish. They

  • think of networks as a forum for their own content creation that is important for them

  • as they participate in the world. They are differently composed now than they used to

  • be. Networks are bigger, more segmented and diverse than our parents and grandparents

  • had. We can access more people and you can maintain relationship. It is easier because

  • we have electronic means to publish without having to talk to them all one on one. We

  • have set of tools that allow us to have a wider expanse of people we interact with that

  • we know and call upon when we want to make a decision and have something we are going

  • through or just trying to navigate a communicated world. And social networks are more vivid.

  • This word is just coming into being, social networks have been studied for generations

  • but we have a much more vivid sense because they are displayed in front of us by their

  • technology. We are more conscious about how our friends fit together and who knows each

  • other and the big part of the story, biggest part that the internet introduced to light

  • is that we can create content for them. That information sharing content, creating media

  • creation is a very intimate and important part of network building. Librarians are already

  • in this world. You make contact and understand contact and make reference recommendations

  • but it is a networking activity that it didn't used to be. It felt like one on one. Now it

  • is networking activity that librarians are well served in honoring. Other thing that

  • has changed is communities themselves. They are very different now. I want to make sure

  • networks, in as many ways as you possibly can, a big part of the story is explosion

  • of niches. Many more kinds of groups, communities, bonds, and social capital that exist now.

  • There is you name it and there is a group for it or a group against it and it is narrowly

  • defined by passions, by demographics and sometimes by lifestyle. Host of things are now entering

  • that picture. It is exploding in this era. One of the fun things that we have all seen

  • is the rise of social posses. People who grab a cause or interest and pursue it. Sometimes

  • there is something wrong that has happened and people go out for a hunt on the wrong

  • door and what the evidence has done and bringing it to justice. You can think of anything related

  • to politics. Anything. People run down stuff in new and interesting ways because they can

  • call on their networks to help them and their networks propagate in ways that crowds will

  • help them solve problems and learn things. Another brand new group, but it is certainly

  • more powerful and abundant is what my friend calls, "just in time, just like me communities."

  • Particularly evident in the medical world where people look for others who have gone

  • through the exact same disease or care giving set of circumstances that they are in. Not

  • that they are interested in finding people at the same stage of life or disease or kind

  • of community they have been in the same kind of network. Easy now to assemble networks

  • on the fly of people who are very, very much mapping with you and your circumstances or

  • the person that you care about and their circumstances. Is it is a new way to think about the assembly

  • and contribution of networks. I cannot think of any other group that is so competent in

  • doing this. You know how to call on people to get help and resources and know how to

  • figure out and solve problems and plug into people's lives when they can for help. Content

  • creation piece is interesting because now-a-days they are of a different breed. They are content

  • creators in industrial media age. Remember back to the French. they are talking clergy,

  • nobility, and peasants. In the 19th century British and other developing countries talked

  • about a 4th estate which was mass media or newspapers who, they were called 4th estate

  • because they had a different relationship to space than those other 3 estates. They

  • had different mission and narrative form and different calling so they were a distinct

  • class of actors. Well, Bill, who is kind of like me but smarter and has a wonderful job

  • at Oxford Institute talked about this being a fitness state where people who create blogs

  • who do social networking who make youtube video or contribute to the online environment

  • they have different sensibilities and are more personal and partisan and passionate

  • and more particular in a way they see the world. They are not like mass media reporters

  • in the way they tell stories and react to things. This is bringing a new media culture

  • to the exhibits that you have seen out there. It is coming from a crazy bunch of amateurs

  • that are blogging. A New kind of group. Librarians, early on, were appreciative of what the value

  • of content creation was. You took it upon yourself probably to be the most abundant

  • for yourself in original forms but to be teachers of it. I saw lots of libraries around 2005

  • or 6 beginning to have programs built around social media to help patrons be bloggers or

  • set up facebook page and things like that so you understand that this is a new kind

  • of community form that is well suited to the things that you have already learned and understood

  • in your training. That is the world of network individualism at a grand level. Can we stop

  • right there? Again being conscious that I talk too fast and long. Let's do questions

  • and answers throughout. If you have questions arising from things that I have already said

  • or if you agree with something or think I need to elaborate raise your hand right away

  • and let's talk about it. This seems a particularly good moment for a filibuster break. Any questions

  • so far?

  • >>>>>: Would you be discussing social networks in teens?

  • LEE: Yes, I will now that you said so. It is a special case in a way from a research

  • perspective. The most interesting edge of the story isn't the teenager, it is over 50

  • age. Fastest growing class of social network arrives is people over age 50. From a research

  • perspective it is an absolutely hysterically great thing to see is the tension in families

  • when mom wants to friend junior to learn all about the parties they are posting pictures

  • on facebook. Awesome to watch these new norms being created with females on the fly. I will

  • make sure to talk about that.

  • >>>>>: I was interested in the fact you called librarians content creators. I see us as content

  • aggregators.

  • Lee: I don't see it either or. Librarians have been aggregators and there are interesting

  • ways to be thinking about that. How many people are tweeting? How people have a blog? How

  • many people have social network pages? Just in the way we think about it that are content

  • creators in the sense they are sharing their stuff with at least some other people. They

  • have set privacy settings. We still consider it to be content creation. You don't show

  • everybody in your network your diary. Like notes you are passing around in class. This

  • feels like a different quality of public engagement. That is what I mean by that. This is an important

  • distinction.

  • >>>>>: How, as well as the fact that people are engaged in these communities and finding

  • these very unique collections of people and so forth, it seems to me there is also frustration

  • created when you can't find those kinds of things too. Have you ever, have you researched

  • or would you comment about that? Those times when you are trying to find something and

  • you can't.

  • Lee: Yeah, there is that, two versions of that. I'm sorry, I should repeat the questions.

  • What about, have we looked at people who are frustrated by people not being able to find

  • things? We looked at one version of that. Which is a good news story if you are into

  • community building, which is, I am not going to remember the data right, but we asked people

  • what did you do when you couldn't find a community that fit the issue that you cared about? Whatever.

  • If you went out looking for friends and didn't find them what would you do? the vast majority

  • said, I set up a group and content page and started pinging people that I thought would

  • help me. Personal spontaneity that is possible in this age is a lot more readily accessible

  • when people had these tools. There is another version of not finding what you want which

  • is kissing cousin of information overload. People who kind of suspect that what they

  • want is out there but can't get to it. Research results are too great to wade through or not

  • clearly on point. Again, what I think happened in networks and I don't have hard data to

  • prove this, people ping network and say, "I have this need. Help me out." In many cases

  • network will come through for them and it is not necessarily the first order people,

  • first tier of friends. But if somebody is motived they will ping their friends. There

  • are some times when we feel the survey and know a subject is important or know that there

  • is certain important series of questions to ask around to impact technology. When you

  • are not immersed in the field, it will take too long or it will not be enlightening in

  • important ways so we will just tweet it and facebook it and ping our best friends in the

  • community. Karen has gotten a bunch from me. What should we ask? How should we go after

  • it? People who don't know us and total strangers they follow us or heard about us second or

  • third hand send in stuff. Some is crazy and mean spirited but the vast majority is well-meaning

  • and helpful. So that is more the experience that we hear about than people just saying,

  • my gosh. I am so unique there is no one like me or nobody that can share what I want to

  • say. Act of expressing that need almost always brings back something. And that is what people

  • want, too. They are not necessarily fully satisfied but happier for the engagement.

  • >>>>>: Will you talk about the difference between state format media than the information

  • that they provide is for us to govern ourselves better in a democracy.

  • Lee: Question is more a difference between the 4th and 5th estate. 4th estate, I am refugee

  • from the world of mass media, it has a surprising number of narratives and framings and approach

  • to the world that is different from the 5th estate. It is very focused on political and

  • civic life. Very focused on public events of the traditional kind. Things that happen

  • in public or meant to drive public narratives. It is fact check edited ahead of time before

  • it is published. Institution is more important to readers than the actual bi-line that is

  • on the story. It is institutionally based. Quite expensive to gather. Professionals are

  • doing it and it is built around a core set of the narratives. In the 5th estate, more

  • free-for-all. People are not feeling what the mayor or president said yesterday. It

  • is, "hear is my reaction to what that crazy person said or here is how it doesn't work

  • with my life." Here is how I think about this. So starts being personal and almost in civic

  • conversations starts with partisanship. Most engaged people are partisan. Notion we have

  • people saying, they want to know all of the facts make more decisions about who would

  • vote for. People are partisan and come through this through a variety of ways. But they are

  • the ones who want to comment on public life. Blog is pretty nice and red and blue cohort.

  • Shades in between and shades on the side. But it is more partisan that way. In many

  • cases quirky and personal. Journalists can't comment on whether the breath of a candidate

  • stinks or not. The norms of the 4th estate are pretty well established. There are certain

  • places you don't go and certain stories you don't tell and for 5th estate those boundaries

  • aren't well defined and personally defined. Does that make sense to you? They use different

  • tools too. Okay. Well, one more question.

  • >>>>>: Could you explain I guess network and social (inaudible) some of it sounds the same.

  • I guess people with an axe to grind.

  • Lee: Some of that. Question is, about little more detail about what I mean by social posses.

  • They come in a variety of flavors. I am sure people will help me do these stories as we

  • crowd-source my talk. Quite famous technology person from the valley area who was lost over

  • the desert. Do you remember this person couple years ago, help me out. Flying a plane. Quite

  • famous person lost over the desert. All of his friends and friends of their friend began

  • using on line tools to help in the formal search trying to locate where he was to get

  • more details about the plane he was flying. The route he was likely to fly and tail number.

  • People assembled to try to help find a comrade. There is a story of a simple sort that I ran

  • across where an Acura, special piece of some sort of part outside of the car was stolen,

  • and, there was the guy whose car was stolen from, got hold of the security film of it

  • and saw the license plate of the person that he thinks stole it, posted the license plate

  • of that person and a little bit of description and a stranger said, "mine got stolen too."

  • Here is where he works here is where his mother lives. Remember the cub's fan who caught the

  • ball? Social posse that rages out of control that people within an hour of him knocking

  • the ball out of the hands of the left fielder posted his name, address, employer mother's

  • name, commented about 7 languages about what he had done. What I mean is, people assembling

  • to do jobs. Great example of social posse about a book "here comes everybody" talking

  • about a stolen cell phone and people again assemble to help a person track down a person

  • who stole the cell phone. I am giving bad examples of people that don't network to save

  • a life. There are rare diseases where you can, they tell you what the literature and

  • clinical trial says and what the best hospitals are treating the disease and all of a sudden

  • strangers come together to save a life. That is what I mean. Okay.

  • >>>>>: Could you comment briefly on your definition of 4th estate and 5th estate. I consider Fox

  • News partisan.

  • Lee: More clarity? There is blurring. When Karen and I were at Harvard a row was half,

  • divided in half. Half from mainstream media and half from blogging. It was a pretty clear-cut

  • distinction. People, the people in the room, bloggers were amateurs. Media, they were pros.

  • Since everybody is bloggers there is a blurring of that line and no longer any contempt of

  • the kind that there used to be by professional paid reporters for news organization against

  • bloggers because they all do it themselves and they understand, how they can be amplified.

  • Read your morning newspaper someday soon just seeing how many sources that paper came from

  • on line. Reporters find their sources of people who have blogged smartly about it. Worlds

  • have merged. I am talking about sensibility of publishing. There are narratives and norms

  • that are elevating as opposed to others in the content creation world of social media

  • there is a lot more stuff and a lot more ways with more narratives with that personal partisan

  • quirky sensibility to it. Project that I have been working with has been doing research

  • for 11 years. We watched things change the way we look at things. I thought that I would

  • go through those. Internet and broadband. Very first survey in March of 2000 we found

  • 46 percent of adults were using internet. It was already sort of well along in the adoption

  • curve. We weren't new to the party. But, we, it was still less than half of the population.

  • Now it is 79 percent. There are age differences that show up on this chart. Adults over 65

  • still not quite 50 percent of them are yet on-line. Very different picture from the now

  • 93 percent of teenagers who are on-line. Important part of this story is internet user population.

  • For us, that becoming internet user when you answer question to either of these questions.

  • Do you use the internet and email? If you say yes, most people do both, we realize that

  • early on, some users didn't think they were using the internet. We want to make sure we

  • counted them. And, by saying yes to those questions we watched population grow up until

  • 2006. Then it stopped. If you used it at work or neighbors house or libraries you say yes.

  • This is a broad picture of the on-line population. It stopped growing around 2006 in the adult

  • world. Other question we started asking was broadband connections. We don't ask specific

  • up-load or down-load just if you have a high speed connection. Most people know at least

  • that. We now see that 2/3 of Americans have broadband at home. Fascinating to watch the

  • world change from mostly dial-up population to mostly broadband population because as

  • people made that migration they became really different internet users. Use it more deeply

  • into the rhythms of their life and became the default things for what they wanted to

  • look for. Sports or finances or whatever. Internet as they got broadband connection

  • it became the first place to look at rather than the paper in the pre-broadband age. Better

  • outcomes. More easily find things they wanted. And, they were content creators. Relatively

  • high speed connection encouraged people to participate. Not hard to do. Tools got better

  • and so, broadband was a big change but again its growth has slowed down, too. Particularly

  • in the rural parts of this country which are much less connected to high speed connections

  • than urban areas. by educational attainment older people are the single strongest. If

  • you are over 70 you are much less likely to

  • be a user. Disability is still a prediction of non-user use. When we do surveys we get

  • someone on the phone. We ask them do you want this in English or Spanish. If they choose

  • Spanish they are less likely to be using internet. That takes care of socioeconomic differences.

  • Still shows up as dependent prediction. For broadband being African, apart from the socioeconomic

  • status, it is weak and shows up in the data. Consequence for the information are profound.

  • We are getting more stuff and more information and it comes at us more rapidly. The velocity

  • picture I am showing here is interesting because it is not so much that people are getting

  • the big stories in the world coming at them faster in the TV and radio age. What is special

  • about this is people finding out stuff they care about and this relates to the relevance.

  • People are setting up their "daily me". Filters, alerts and other things in this challenging

  • environment so they can bring to them information that matters most to them rather than the

  • gate keepers and the traditional mass media thought they would be interested in. Which

  • is another difference between the 4th estate and 5th estate. I wish I was smart enough

  • to talk about the "daily me", but term that came in the mid 1990 from a book called "digital

  • nation", I think. Somebody like that. He headed MIT media lab. Point is one that librarians

  • have understood a lot better than most people the media environments they are just more

  • immersing now. More fun to be in and getting better and better all of the time as pixels

  • crowd more together and we get more broadband. Bunch of activities into bringing teenagers

  • into their communities. They understand games and make games available. I hear good things

  • about what happened in libraries as they build games into these. Tech companies that think

  • of game-like structures as the most effective way to do training. You get skill. You master

  • it and get a pat on the back and move up to the next level. That is, you know, a ton of

  • work now in the military and tech companies built around teaching these methods. You can't

  • see how much longer the educational establishment may hold out from this. There is serious gaming

  • movement now. It is an important thing and tends to be centered in upper higher education.

  • But it will begin to filter down. It works. Worlds eventually understand this. Big thing

  • is content creation piece. This is how we measure it at Pew. We don't we get rough measures

  • of these things and don't tend to ask these all in the same questionnaires. Easy to say

  • about 2/3 of American adults and 3/4 of content creators of the sort of kind that I described

  • here. Social networks is first. Because people share opinions and lives. Photo sharing piece

  • is really interesting because if it isolates people who share photos from non-photo shares

  • they are different beasts together. They do more and have more social capital and they

  • are reporting greater levels of satisfaction with their lives. Something about sharing

  • photos on-line that turns people on and freaks out parents. Stuff like that. Comments and

  • ratings that people built in there. Still bloggers are 14 percent. And from a phone

  • researcher perspective it is harder to talk to people about blogging. Some people define

  • bloggers, that is easy to say, I am a blogger. But people who tell their life story and it

  • do it on their facebook wall, that is what I call blogging. They don't. The function

  • that we used to think of discrete function called blogging is more morphing into a bunch

  • of different capacities for stuff. Harder to talk to people about reading blogs. Software

  • is so cool it makes it look like high end media site and this merger of professional

  • and amateur classes every reporter working for a news organization as a blogger, there

  • isn't that pro amateur differential that has much meaning. We struggle with twitter and

  • finally said we will ask this straight up. We tend to not want to privilege a particular

  • application, but we confuse people too much with previous language. Twitter, the number

  • has grown, but not exploded like social networks did a couple years ago. Won't ever attain

  • that height that social networking did. You can see, we don't know how to ask yet about

  • locate-based services. We get answers ranging from 4 percent to 17 percent. We are trying

  • to refine it. It is coming. A bunch of people on 4 square using the social location services

  • in twitter and in facebook and Google services, but it is hard to get people to think about

  • that when so many location applications that they are using are not necessarily known to

  • them. Map is tracking your location. So we are going to try to refine the questions to

  • capture this. Big story is that now in the internet era location tended to be an irrelevant

  • variable to people. When they sent off email they didn't care where the recipient was.

  • Time mattered less. Now it is coming more dramatically back into the story, especially

  • when pocket devices are registering it. So a new layer about us and identity and our

  • way of engaging the world is coming back into the story in a really interesting way and

  • content creation of a sort. You guys experienced internet and broadband was enormous as the

  • world moved from atoms to bits. So it is a challenge to your collections to figure out

  • how to deliver to the people who always prized the traditional things you have done plus

  • the new constituents who demand new stuff in new ways. Good news from a social networking

  • perspective, libraries have a unique and special jobs in solving problems. Starting with access.

  • Wonderful work done by the University of Washington about how people use technology at libraries

  • and they were particularly focused on those who live below the poverty line. They found

  • there was a lot of activity from low income folks centered in library technology use that

  • wouldn't have been done anywhere else. Your capacity to apply computers and internet computers

  • was essential to people who needed it, ranging from teens to senior citizens who wanted health

  • care and altruism's. They are using this to do stuff for other people. A lot of altruism

  • gets missed in a lot of ways but libraries are at the center of that. You also, as I

  • say, are becoming more involved with helping people participate. Teaching them skills,

  • models for them, good ways to participate and again through University of Washington

  • study showed that there is a lot of people using library technologies for social activities

  • for job and economic related and educational and skills upgrade and community engagement.

  • Part of the story about libraries being social networks you are serving people who would

  • not be able to participate in this world and it is that is social act. In case you didn't

  • think of this that way. I will argue there is more that libraries can do. I am not sure

  • to what degree this is an issue. Around the country it is. People who don't use internet

  • and people who don't think about broadband have a variety of issues about why they don't

  • do it. For some people it is clearly about the money. They don't have the resources but

  • that is fine. That is not the majority of non-user. 1/5 of non-users price is the single

  • greatest deterrent to getting on line. Other people say, I don't want it or need it or

  • see why it would be useful to me. They like old familiar media sources. But, in focus

  • groups we have done with them often what really they are telling you is I am worried about

  • my skills. I am embarrassed that I am not with the program in the digital age and don't

  • want my children to see that I can't do the things the way that they can do them and they

  • don't know what is out there. It is striking to hear they are pretty good about covering

  • things that get media attention. Well schooled on the idea internet is full of predators

  • and stalkers and people that steal identities and take your money but they don't know high

  • quality health information is on line or the best breaking news is on line or have a sense

  • that they are interact with government on line. That in many cases government services

  • that benefit are easy to use on line. There is a tremendous move to put a lot of stuff

  • over to the web so that people can interact and people don't necessarily know that. So,

  • there is a, what I argue here libraries can be thinking about educational functions that

  • says here is what it is as well as here it how to do it. People need support and hand-holding

  • but also learning where the good stuff is. That is what you learn how to do. I would

  • say there are opportunities here. Again, I am not sure in this area if there are many

  • people who think that way. Clearly the case that there are some people inhibited because

  • they just don't know. That is internet broadband part of it. Any questions about this.

  • >>>>>: I am surprised you find disability is connected to not using internet so much.

  • I find a lot of the people I know, disability including myself, couldn't do without it.

  • Lee: Exactly. Question is, she was surprised that disability is a particular non-internet

  • use when her experience is that the people who are disabled are at it and users of the

  • internet and it helps them. Problem is, that well, issue is, that for all people who are

  • in cohorts that are thought not to be internet users you tend to be avid in the stream if

  • you are a user. In the early days people over age 65 they were in a small minority of cohort.

  • When they were on it, they loved it. When skype came in they loved interaction and in

  • many respects the internet users in those cohorts were more frequent and adoring in

  • their use of internet but cohort showed otherwise. Vast majority didn't look like them and act

  • like them. Same case with disabled. We see, particularly people who are disabled, that

  • really affects some major act of daily living or chronic disease. If they are on line they

  • are more likely to do more stuff. They are in a cohort where more people don't do it

  • than do it. Wireless revolution.

  • Do you know what, we are getting close to the end here. Wireless revolution was really

  • important. I will do a little bit of that to give you our data and tell you how. 57

  • percent, doggone it, 37 percent of Americans now connect to the internet wires if you do

  • it with a smart phone. 85 percent of Americans have cell phones. 40 plus percent of those

  • 80 percent connect to the internet one way shape or form with a hand held device. Almost

  • everybody with laptop connected wirelessly on the go. You get counted in the wireless

  • population more than half of the population now connected wirelessly. They have a very

  • different sense of well let me show you this. They have a very different sense of place

  • and presence and being with people. You may be aware of this new book that makes the argument,

  • MIT, doing book called "Alone Together" people would rather engage networks on this than

  • talk to the person that is 3 feet away. She worries about social implications and norm

  • and people not being present when they are physically somewhere and being engaged with

  • people who are distant from them. There are other things that show it the supplements

  • and doesn't take away engagement from other people. We will argue with the meaning of

  • that for a long time. We are in the field of new survey with applications. 35 percent

  • have applications on the phone and 24 percent actually use them. People buy phones with

  • these loaded and in some cases Ipads frequently loaded don't have any idea how to use them.

  • A lot of them don't like texting either. So the applications, the world is tremendously

  • exciting in this part of the world. Ton of energy in the technology community. Librarians

  • will be at the center of the argument in long-term. Wire magazine did a cover story that provoked

  • conversation. Cover line, "web is dead, long live the internet." Talked about how the wide

  • web browser was going to give way to the application world where people could do more directly

  • to the things that matter from them from trusted sources that matter to them. Companies are

  • trying to get the applications so they can begin charging. Now they have to give them

  • away for free on the internet. I don't think "wired" implication of the wired cover will

  • play out. People will segregate lives and certain things will be great in the web world.

  • If you are sick you don't want to confine yourself to a handful of sources you want

  • the feast. If you want a feast from a trusted source on something that matters to you the

  • application world will be your friend and more I think there will be segregation that

  • takes place and different kinds of searches will be done in different kinds of media environments.

  • Now, this of course is the places where you work, got sort of rearranged. Used to be libraries

  • were places that housed things that people came too. It was cool you stored and made

  • things readily available. Now a lot of this stuff goes out to people without having to

  • visit the building. That is an enormous disruption. Your relevance of the library is something

  • for you guys to decide. But, I argue that the wireless environment can make even more

  • appealing some of the things that in the social sense and collaborative sense and learning

  • sense and in a quiet sense. Libraries are still great for solitude and concentrating

  • on one thing or another. Huge debate that did Google make you stupid. There is brain

  • research showing people who in the life of perpetual user internet, this is a challenging

  • environment where librarians can help people navigate and give them time to be solitaire

  • and at peace if they want to be and also collaborative spaces for crowds learning and sharing and

  • participating and finding the balance and finding needs of people is challenging.

  • >>>>>: I don't believe quiet space is really accurate any more. Part of that is because

  • of all of the media that people use which makes them less conscious of how they affect

  • others with the noise level. They are much less quiet now.

  • Lee: I hear that all of the time. But figuring out where that sort of place of peace and

  • quiet and retreat and solitude is maybe librarians think about that or maybe that is not appropriate

  • any more.

  • >>>>>: Other side, my branch reopened in a wealthy neighborhood, Presidio Heights, in

  • San Francisco. How we are being used as a quite place, that is what I notice; they are

  • using us as a beautiful place to sit and work. it is quieter than Starbucks and you don't

  • have to buy anything.

  • Lee: We have done a number of tours of higher education libraries most common thing we see

  • now is zoning where there are areas for being more active and areas for contemplation and

  • strategically designed buildings around different types of behaviors in the same facility.

  • >>>>>: That is a big move in the architecture communities.

  • >>>>>: We hear about how the Japanese when they get on the train envelope themselves

  • and say, I am focused on this thing. You see that regardless of the level of the noise.

  • I work in a very busy library. We see 2500 a day. People create their spaces. Put their

  • headphones on.

  • Lee: I will run through social networking quickly to give you the data. 48 percent of

  • Americans are social networking now. The fastest growing cohort is older folks. What is most

  • interesting from a social research perspective about teenage use of social networking is

  • dashboard. Absolutely, for many kids there facebook page is their home page that is what

  • they check first in the morning and what they check last at night and carry cell phones

  • to bed with them to see if any new wall postings or texts come in as they sleep. They set alarms

  • loud enough to wake up at 3 am to make sure -- there was wonderful term that I became

  • aware of at the east south west conference. Fomo -- fear of missing out. Sort of this

  • dark side of perpetualness. Something will happen somewhere. If you are the last to know

  • you are a loser. That is one goal for people to be perpetually connected. But the problem

  • is they are perpetually connected. They can never take quiet time to surround themselves

  • with solitude and dosing themselves with social contact and not comfortable being alone. So,

  • there is, world where the classic double proposition of technology is very much in evidence. Things

  • that you get out of it that are way cool and things that it does to your life that rearranges

  • molecules that aren't cool. There is more stuff about videos. Big shift you guys have

  • had to adjust to in the advent of social networks, particularly, share the stage with amateurs.

  • You know all of this stuff and know what is best and assess whether something is right

  • or wrong or got an institutional around it that makes sense or not or whether timely

  • or topic or the most recent thing. All of a sudden everybody is in the act. This he

  • are saying things that aren't true or posting things that are wrong. It is an uncomfortable

  • space. There is an upside to this. Bill Fisher at Harvard says this is the golden age of

  • amateur experts. Cool that you can go to school on any subject you care about without getting

  • the credential. We see it all of the time in health care work. You get diagnoses and

  • didn't know anything about the diagnoses. 3 days after they are schooled as the most

  • well-trained specialist. They read the medical literature and clinical trials. But it is

  • disorienting to have the old structures of authority and sort of expertise now challenged

  • by the 5th estate. So, librarians can help people be in different attention and media

  • zones. I will cut to this. I have 5 questions that I, that are practical questions. I don't

  • want to do that. Okay.

  • These are 5 questions that this age of metaphysical questions about the nature of knowledge and

  • thinking and public technology and nature of public spaces. That is what I was going

  • to talk about for 10 minutes. Here are the practical questions that are worth pondering.

  • Couple years ago I briefed NBC News about how people get news now. David who was president

  • said, that is highlights of the big question of our life. What is commodity? What is the

  • cluster of things ABC News can do better than anybody else? We should lavish attention on

  • them. What if people expect from us which a lot of other actors do as well as we do.

  • But, we owe it to our patrons to give us the best version as cheaply and efficiently as

  • possible. Do we have a White House correspondent. Staffing it, for network where you have got

  • crew to go along with, that is a big money proposition. Is it really day-to-day make

  • abc news better than the ap? Reading the wire service. It was a big struggle for him because

  • he knew that if abc or any news organization pulled a corespondent to cover Washington

  • there would be hell to pay. Everybody would say, You are a sissy. This is a big show at

  • the white house. It is a hard question for librarians too. Patrons want it all from you.

  • Traditional stuff, new stuff, they want you to do it all. New users are making new demands

  • on you. Answer this question. What is uniquely well positioned to do for the world and essentially

  • for our community? And what is the other stuff that patrons expect of us that we can deliver

  • with more efficiency and cost than we do now? There is a wonderful chapter title in Jeff

  • Jarvis's book, "what would Google do?" Talked about how companies, traditional companies,

  • think more like Google in the way they approach the world. One chapter was do what you do

  • best and link to the rest. Somebody else is doing pretty well. Some of the things that

  • you guys are doing pretty well. Maybe there is a new reallocation of resources where it

  • becomes their major responsibility to do it and you point people to that. And say you

  • trust us to give you good information and advice. They are the ones doing it. We don't

  • necessarily have to do touch on all basis. That was a cool way with social networking

  • play. I love that you guys are sort of institutionally thinking about alliances to strike. There

  • is a way to be thinking now about other institutions in your communities are trying to do some

  • of the same stuff you are doing. Providing good education. Remember there are ways that

  • you can make common cause with local university and school system and local nonprofit's groups

  • whatever that you care about. And, essentially expand your mission but also leverage the

  • other kinds of institutions that are available to you that are trying to do the same thing

  • you are. Obviously, thinking about yourself, and individual people or individual communities,

  • networks is a great thing to do. Because it is networking world but there are other ways

  • to think about who else can we form alliances with in our community. What is the mobile

  • plan? I don't actually have great ideas about what this is to librarians. Desire to get

  • real-time and assess it and make meaning out of it make decisions on it is growing and

  • will grow even more. Libraries tended to be oriented around linear information that had

  • been developed over time. Real-time information is hard to sort through and make meaning of

  • and I wonder whether librarians, in asking this question, could come up with wonderful

  • ways to help people tie in to the most meaningful real-time information to help them navigate

  • their lives. 4th question what is the gift economy plays? There is a lot of, good high

  • quality scholarship now suggests there is a parallel culture rising up in the age of

  • the internet where people aren't necessarily looking for financial rewards but being content

  • creators. There are other motives that are driving them that are social. Looking at raising

  • their status or looking to be helpful to people and looking to be a recipient that doesn't

  • involve exchange of money. In many respects people use social network to audition, to

  • look for jobs or hire them in one way shape or form that isn't directly related to what

  • people are talking about now. Librarians are doing things to be helpful, helpful to learn about new things and so I argue that

  • inviting patrons to be co-creators of the library experience you can ask for feedback.

  • People who love you and will be happy to respond to your questions. When you got decisions

  • to make the burden doesn't always fall on you entirely to know what patrons want to

  • anticipate needs. Ask them. They may tell you and you will have to sort through stuff

  • and awkward exchange potentially. But thinking there are people willing to give you feedback

  • and answer questions and respond to the things that you are mulling. Where do we spend our

  • next investment dollar and staff dollar and how do we furnish collections? They will help

  • you sort through that stuff. And, then finally, this is a world where the imperfections of

  • the metric that used to exist can be improved. There are ways to measure things better than

  • we used to but the challenge for particularly for nonprofit institutions or public institutions

  • is to figure out what to measure and how to measure it. You can measure audience size

  • and measure awareness. That is okay too, you can begin to measure engagement. Somebody

  • who tweets you or friends the library or responds to question about we are thinking about buying

  • so many E-books of this type. Those are people who are engaged and I argue they are more

  • valuable to you than somebody who is aware of you and what you are doing. Thinking about

  • how to define success and who you serve and how you serve them that is having fundamental

  • conversations about how you measure that especially not so much outcomes, you are wanting to measure

  • out. You are not measuring outputs but the volume of traffic is important but there are

  • new refinements you can do on that and I'm sure you can measure that. I am sure of that

  • because librarians are smart and care about their world and communities that many other

  • people do. I talk to a lot of groups and library groups and i now say with a level of serious

  • data collections, librarians care more about being good social networkers and being engaged

  • than anybody else I know. As a happy patron of libraries I want to thank you for that

  • and tell you it is a world that is a bit shaky but you don't have to be afraid, if you approach

  • it with a right frame of mind and right level of creativity. Thanks very much.

  • One or two questions if you want. If people want to leave that is cool.

  • >>>>>: Can you share some of the stuff we had to gloss over.

  • >>>>>: It will be on web site. I will leave them here.

Libraries as Social Networks - Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet Project.

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