Sarah Houghton-Jan’s Top Tech Trends for 2008, ALA Midwinter

Below are my Top Technology Trends for January of 2008.  I hope to attend virtually, but given some potential pitfalls, I felt it would be safer to post my trends in case my virtual self does not appear as hoped. 

If you would like to attend the real live Top Tech Trends session at ALA Midwinter, it is being held tomorrow, Sunday, January 13th, from 8-10 am, in the lOEWS Congress B.  And yes, that means that virtual participation from me would be coming in at 5am my time.  So, don't complain about the 8am face to face time, 'kay? :)

Tough Budget, Tech Stays

With a recession, or at least a persistent economic downturn, pending, libraries are counting their pennies and staying up late writing up proposals for why their budgets should not be some of the ones that are cut. Here in California we have a huge deficit, and where do we think the money is going to come from? Not from the prisons…not from the fire houses. Schools and libraries are among the most edgy, certainly. I do believe, though, that even in these times of tightening belts and even less funds for library services that most libraries will at least hold their technology budgets steady, realizing that a lack of outlay now means that next year the library will be even further behind and its users further disenfranchised. Technology budget lines seem to have become holy ground to many libraries, and I hope to see them stay that way (but then again I’m biased).

 

Widening of the Digital Divide and our Inattention to It

Every time I write about this I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. But the digital divide is a reality in our communities, and one that we aren’t paying enough attention to. It doesn’t matter what type of library you work for, it’s the same everywhere. All libraries have the technological haves and the have nots (and the people in the middle).  There are the people with the Bluetooth headsets, the Tivos, the Netflix, and the broadband access at home. The people who use the library’s electronic resources. The people who prefer RSS to email. And last but not least, the people who know the coolest sites out there for cat photos. But these people are not all of our people, especially in many rural and smaller communities. In the past (think: early days of the internet) we had tunnel visions toward the have nots, and catered out technology services to that group, for better or for worse. It’s imperative for us to realize, now, that we cannot make the opposite mistake this time and focus our services and priorities only/mostly on the haves, ignoring the segments of our communities who still lack the basic technology skills and equipment. That group may be smaller than it has been in the past, but the divide between that group and the tech-savvy population is ever-widening, putting an end to the divide further out of reach with each passing month. I worry that our attention on the haves, stimulated in large part by the influx of Web 2.0 (and now, possibly 3.0) technologies, will result in our continued inattention to the digital divide, much to the detriment of our entire service population.

User-Centered Content Production

We’re getting better about the whole user-centered vs. staff-centered debate in general. In the case of web content, libraries are starting to move in the direction of not only allowing users to create content on their sites (imagine!), but also to drive the individual appearance of that content through “MyLibrary” sites and the overall organization of that content as well. In two recent website redesigns I’ve helped with, the libraries decided to base the priority and organization of the navigation solely on what the users said they wanted. Out with the “staff think this is better” model, and in with the “it’s for the users, let them decide” model. And the content itself is changing—with most U.S. households owning a digital camera, and with digital video not far behind, it’s no longer just text and the occasional photo that we are soliciting from our users – it’s intelligent, interactive, multimedia that expands our site. The price? Letting go of a little bit of that control we’ve held so dear over the years. It’s very exciting to see libraries paying more attention to user needs and priorities in the web environment, just as we do in our physical locations.

 

Virtual Reference Software a la Rest-O'-The-World?

The phenomenon of instant messaging as a new way to provide reference services was quickly followed by libraries exploring non-library-world software to provide this essential service. We've seen libraries like the Ohio University Libraries using Skype to provide video reference, AskOntario will soon be using LivePerson for their service (which is already being used by the University of Windsor and the York/Ryerson collaborative virtual reference service), and several libraries' choosing to use various commercial text-messaging programs to provide live cell phone text-messaging (SMS) reference to their users. The live-people-connection-online world is bigger than our little pond, and I'm glad to see other libraries turning their viewing outward. (Note: after writing this, I see that Karen Schneider picked up on this topic as well—great minds think alike!)

 

We Stop Being So Bossy

We are experts in the realm of the online, as we are in the realm of print, but our behavior is a little different in the two worlds. We would never tell people that we know better than they do how they should read properly, or listen to a music CD. We know how to find the stuff—that’s what we do best—but when it comes to accessing and using it, that is up to the individual. We can make recommendations, and point our strategies, but we would never place ourselves in a superior category of user (at least not in front of the user *grin*). But we have taken on that holier-than-thou role when it comes to online services, where we are telling people repeatedly that we know the right way to behave online. We know what is safe. We know what is appropriate. We know what is cool. No…we…don’t. The mere fact that we put ourselves in to that patronizing role informs our users that we do not know what we’re talking about. Our users, especially/even our teen users (see the recent Pew study) know how to behave online, to protect private information, and to contribute in a productive way. Fortunately, I think libraries are starting to realize that instead of acting in a paternalistic and patronizing way toward our users in the realm of technology, we should act toward them exactly as we do in any other situation that bears on customer service: we collaborate, we share, and we work together.

 

Another Day of Open Source

We TTTers have been talking about open source for years now. And the talk continues as the library path to open source continues and matures. Libraries are starting to look more and more to open source, and the initial fumblings have morphed into some well-thought-out and confident experiments with open source. We’ve moved beyond the basics, like using open source blog and wiki software. Libraries are blazing full ahead using open source ILSs, open source productivity software on public and staff computers (office software, browsers), and a lot more. The flexibility that our users are looking for in our end products drives what we need to purchase at the back end in order to provide that. In many cases, the locked-down un-customizable nature of commercial products does not work for libraries (think the craziness of the locked down nature of Microsoft Word or any fill-in-the-blank-name ILS. Libraries are more willing now than before to fund a computer programmer position instead of sinking zillions of dollars into a system that they have to tweak the heck out of to get it to even work. In many cases, the man hours are less to use an open source solution and build it from scratch than it would be to simply tweak some behemoth of a product that requires thousands of changes. In the end, in order to provide our users with the best experience, more and more libraries, especially more public libraries are turning to the open source world to fulfill their users’ needs…and it makes me smile.