Month: April 2007

‘Twas a good day. So many new thoughts bouncing around in my head…

OCLC’s new report (coming in June-ish) has found that as librarians “we are a different tribe.” We read more than the general population (even when you clump online and offline reading), and we’ve been using the internet longer than most people. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see any of the data she displayed, or read the legends on the charts. But I’m looking forward to reading the report when it comes out, especially to see if this difference translates into differences in thoughts about privacy online (that seemed to be the thrust of several of the charts, but I couldn’t tell).

Ironically, many of the survey results answering a question about whether or not libraries should build social environments online indicated that the library is “only for books” and “shouldn’t be a dating service.” (This was from librarians and patrons alike.) Then the next talk in the very same room (by Michelle McLean) highlighted a library date night… Seems to have been rather successful.

I also liked a quote from Karen Huffman of the National Geographic Society. She says that building online communities helps people to “work within the white space of the organizational chart to get stuff done.” That’s a really neat image.

Also, Rob Cagna says that they want to make PennTags open source! YAY! I also love it that they call their user-generated reviews “Annotations.” Excellent idea.

Oh, and I haven’t been taking as many pictures as other people have been. Don’t know why. Just haven’t. What I have taken I’ll try to get up on Flickr soon-ish.

technorati tags: cil2007

Nicole Hennig from MIT talked about their anthropological study (inspired by the University of Rochester) of their students’ research habits. Her study’s documentation is here.

It’s no surprise that students start with Google, and that they go to what they know or tap their social networks. But did you know that students are incredibly likely to refer to their own personal libraries (old text books, current text books, and other books they own)? Not surprising, sure, but here’s why: they want to see information that is presented in the way that they originally learned it. This makes perfect sense, but I’d never thought about it before. I’d known about how people go to the familiar when they’re given a choice, but this takes that to a new level for me. It also adds to the challenge of designing systems that “extend the users’ work practices” (Hennig quoted Karen Holzblatt). We can get into Google and into Course Management Systems and the like, but we can’t get into old text books.

This study also found that none of their interviewees had asked for help. Hennig speculated that this was because MIT has a “figure it out yourself” culture. I’m been hearing this so often, and from so many libraries (including mine) that I’m thinking it’s not so much an attribute of the students at specific schools as it is an attribute of students. I know that when I was a student I wondered if asking for help was cheating, and I’m sure that hasn’t changed much recently. So now we’re not only writing ourselves into old textbooks, but we’re also bucking a culture that values independent “struggling through” anything that’s hard.

So why do I want an anthropologist on staff? Because I want to know how our students in different disciplines “struggle through” their research. Hennig mentioned that they began to notice vast differences between students in different disciplines, and I’d like to see more on that. But even beyond that, I want to know what my student’s “work practices” are so that I can figure out how to extend them. If my role on campus is to develop my students’ information literacy, than I need to know what practices exist and where the points of opportunity are for me to stretch my students beyond their comfort zone.

Oh, and besides an anthropologist, I want the LibX extension live all over campus. That should be easier, and cheaper…

technorati tags: cil2007

I got here yesterday afternoon, shelled out for wireless, and took myself down to the lobby in the hopes of randomly recognizing people I’ve never met…. Yeah, don’t ask me what I hoped. But it actually worked! In the end 10 of us went to dinner, and then an untold number took over (and significantly rearranged) the comfy seating area by the hotel bar. I met ALL SORTS OF PEOPLE!!!! What fun. I’ve been reading Jessamyn, Nicole, and Michelle for almost as long as I’ve been reading blogs, but this was the first time I’d actually met them. And it was great to see Jason, Tom, and Meredith again. I also met Michael Sauers, David Lee King, and David Free and I think that’s everyone. If I left someone out, please remember that it was very hard to hear most of the time…

After a day of traveling and a flight that really, at it’s heart, wanted to be a roller coaster ride (did I mention the weather here? Yeah. Planes don’t like descending through that stuff…) it was nice to kick back and just have a good time.

I expect great things from the sessions today! If you see someone in jeans and a brown sweater, hair up in a clip, carrying a laptop around, say Hi, hopefully it’ll be me. If it’s not me, say Hi anyway and then keep looking for me. :)

[Updated to add names and links.]

technorati tags: cil2007