Joan Lippincott started out by speaking about net gens – “If we were creating academic libraries today, what would they look like?”
Oxford, San Jose State University?
would they only have print collections, special collections?
or would we create learning commons?
would they look like Google Book Search or iTunes University where the librarian mostly deals with licensing, totally online?
can we create libraries with content, tools, and services for today’s students?
looked up “what’s in my bag” pool on Flickr to see what today’s students carry (not books)
net gens – born between 1982-1991 who grew up with computers and other media at home and in school from earliest ages
Joan has two NetGen daughters, although their friends are better informants
also calls them millennials, digital natives, gen y, next gen, DotNets
when asked what comes next, she uses the term “screenagers” :-p
– the generation that will have had computers and mobile devices since birth
characteristics of NetGens (a population, not a generation)
using “Born Digital” definition, a highly educated subgroup has the following characteristics
– always connected, multi-tasking
– oriented to working in groups (doesn’t mean they love “groupwork,” but they like hanging out with their friends and socializing while working; you used to go to the library, do your work, & go back to the dorm to socialize. now they socialize at the library with friends who are there and who aren’t there)
– experiential learners (like the shift to hands-on learning from lecture)
– visual (oriented towards visual cues, although they do still read; when they’re doing a history paper, they may embed a map or create a video – they don’t just use text)
– producers as well as consumers (they create something of their own)
even if you have 50% adult learners at your campus, many of these characteristics still apply
(kids today call them “cameras,” not “digital cameras”)
anyone working in digital humanities is working in groups
adults are active learners – they want hands-on
think of any profession – they are all producing websites, word documents, or producing some form of digital information
so our tools need to be oriented towards these characteristics because they’ll need the skills using them going forward
characteristics of “deeper learning” (educause)
– social
– active
– contextual
– engaging
– student-owned
libraries are perfectly positioned to take advantage of this
it’s the projects they do outside of class that gives them the skills in class
– gives them context, they own their product, and engages them
it’s not just hype and it has relevance to learning
have to think about how we do this in our own institutions
are all students really tech-savvy?
students are connected
98.5% of respondents own a computer, 82.2% own a laptop (doesn’t mean they are new computers or that they bring them to class)
spend 19.6 hours a week doing work online (Joan thinks that’s low)
almost all are using social networks
harvard medical school survey of students in 2007 found 52% own a PDA
app with most use is reference!
have to think about the next generation of professionals and how we serve them
they love the internet and would give up TV & radio before internet (because they’re doing those things on the web)
college kids increasingly live in the online and offline worlds at the same time
has important implications for how we structure services
JISC study found that learners who are effective in online environment also create content, seek peer support using informal networks & social tools – an underground world of networking that is invisible to institutions
they may know how to build a website, but “we’re more interested in the art and flow of argument”
have to teach them how to use these tools in their disciplines, not their personal lives
we want students to connect better to library collections and services
Henry Jenkins’ “selected core skills”
– collective intelligence
– judgment – the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information resources
– networking – the ability to search for, synthesize information
– simulation – ability to interpret & *constuct& dynamic models of real world processes
– appropriation
– multtasking – a positive thing when can shift focus to salient details
MIT Photo Diary study
there will be an increasing emphasis on data for visualization (how do we represent this in our finding aids)
content optimized for mobile devices
Cornell has put images from their digital collections on their computers as screensavers so that when students ask where the images came from, the librarians can tell them
Seattle PL visualization of books being checked out
need to think about embedded content and transforming text data into more visual formats
– adopt and adapt
– assess
– hiring new types of staff
– train existing staff
– let go of things you don’t need to do
these students are our future and it’s our role to recreate academic libraries
January 24, 2009
ProQuest "Libraries and the Net Gen" – Introducing Summon
November 13, 2008
John Palfrey: "Born Digital" Presentation
Notes from John Palfrey’s talk for the MacArthur Foundation at Google Chicago
point of the book Born Digital was to bust some of the myths and look at differences in behavior between digital natives and people like their grandparents
shouldn’t treat everybody the same way just because they have the same technology – may not use it the same way
how they define this specific group of kids (not all millennials) – born after 1980, access to the technology (only 1 billion people), skills to use it
5 characteristics
1. “I blog therefore I am”
express their identity online and offline – they don’t distinguish between the two
avatars as another version of identity
one difference is “subscribe to *me*”
2. multitaskers
a lot of debate over multitasking and what it is, but they’re doing multiple things at once
example of game in which boys tried to maintain as many IM conversations with as many girls as they could at once
3. consumers to creators
interact with digital format – seems self-evident, but presumption is immediate access because digital (eg, digital camera vs a disposable one); movie theater vs YouTube, print vs searchable text
presumption of media in digital form and that it’s social and shared
held a contest to design the logo for “Digital Natives” project at Harvard Law School – got 136 entries (32 from the kid who won), just for the glory (no prize)
4. mash up different media, putting different forms of media together
comes down to a series of technologies – RSS, Google Docs, lightweight collaborative tools
5. an international perspective
“couchsurfing” Google Maps mashup – 89,000 friendships created
(I think these were the five characteristics, but I wasn’t paying attention to numbering until later)
Issues: Security
security – Internet Safety Technical Task Force (Texas is the only state not participating in this!)
“stranger danger” is number one fear
data shows kids are not any less safe than they were 10 years ago (fewer incidents), although some kids do meet their attackers online (it’s become a public park in some ways)
bullying is borne out by the data, though – clearly an increase in this, although maybe it’s more that adults can see it now, as opposed to in the past (it’s asynchronous and persistent now)
social networks:
– unintended audience
– replicability
– persistence
– searchability
– unintentional contributions
adults on dating sites are just at bad as posting too much personal information as kids are on myspace, etc.
his big fear now is “digital dossiers,” which start as early as sonograms
sidebar: what is a book? why take digital information about digital behavior and put it in print?
didn’t write the book for kids, because they won’t read it
the book started as research posted in Basecamp
put chapters on a wiki
Issues: Privacy
kids like 3-5 minute videos, so this summer they gave some money to a few interns and had them remake each chapter into a video that they then put on YouTube
showed the video on “digital dossiers”
Issues: Intellectual Property
copyright piracy – notion of “sticking it to the man” still an excuse
kids that did get music from iTunes used gift certificates (often from parents), so they were actually kind of downloading it the same way – for free
remix issues – enormous confusion on this score
once a kid sees the artist, or once they become a creator, they start to think differently about piracy
but there’s an enormous range of understanding about this
played the video of the piracy chapter
Issues: Credibility
misinformation, cheating, hidden influencers, blogs, wikipedia
generally, kids don’t go to the library unless forced to go there
“I went to the library on a field trip once”
Harvard libraries are packed but with kids using laptops, not books
information overload – is it real? can you get addicted to this stuff?
thinks we have to take seriously the idea that you need filtering tools for all of this
Opportunities
there are corresponding benefits and opportunities in each of these problem areas
creativity, media literacy, social production, semiotic democracy
a world where people can remix culture and history – it’s much more powerful outside the US but still important for democracy here
knowledge creation, equity/democratic, participatory
empowering individuals, access to information, information creation
digitalnative.org
join the Facebook group
ended book on the chapter on activism – some young people are very involved with using these skills and tools to change the world and participate
Obama campaign as an example
have to choose how we embrace these things while fighting the worst of them
Questions
– what was the cutoff point for the upper age of kids since those born in 1980 would be in graduate school now
– older kids were actually more sophisticated and thoughtful about issues like privacy, showing that kids do learn; bigger concern might be the gap in the understanding of parents and teachers
– parents who didn’t go to college have less experience in this area for educating kids about this stuff or showing them how to be creative with these tools
if this is a crucial life skill, then we need to rethink this
– attitudes from the data about news?
– they asked a lot of questions, and kids don’t read the NYT cover to cover or watch the evening news (this is a big generational difference – everybody doesn’t get the same truth anymore); they graze for headlines (which might be through RSS, a Facebook feed, on a mobile device, etc.) – getting lots and lots of facts; a smaller number of them would “deep dive” and click on the link; fewer still engaged in a feedback cycle (post it, critique it, etc.); if the net effect is that we have everybody getting a shallow version of the news & the most sophisticated ones are doing the most with it (triangulating data, etc.), then that’s problematic; asked if anyone has ever edited a Wikipedia page – only a few had ever done edits, and they were usually to fix typos – didn’t find this recreation of the knowledge store
– did your research show what might happen when digital natives become old enough to change our IP law, fair use for example?
– copyright law used to matter only to map makers, etc., but now it matters to everyone; long way from being changed