Computers in Libraries 2009 Conference Notes
Helene Blowers, Director, Digital Strategy
Columbus Metropolitan Library
Helene's talk focused on what strategies we need to employ in our libraries to enable, enrich and empower our patrons.
Social Identity is very important to digital natives. Creativity is very important to digital natives. Cultural consumers thrive on information and ideas to fuel their own expression. Nearly 2/3 of online teens are content creators. Those that use social networking sites are more than 5 times as likely to create content - it is their way of fueling social expression. Digital Natives extend their real identity to their online world.
Digital Information Quality. We are starting to see a shift from authoritative control to collaborative control. User generated content is becoming the most trusted form. Social responsibility is a really important part of this. If you looked at the "former" Encyclopedia Britannica vs wikipedia there were actually the same number of errors. The difference between rthe two was that wikipedia could be updated immediately. Britannica realized the problem and opened up a wiki layer on their encyclopedia.
Digital Immigrants (you are what you owned)
vs
Digital Pioneers (you are what you create and share)
Digital Advocacy is the idea that what you do online can actually make a difference, lead the generation.
So, what does all this mean for Libraries and how do we apply strategies around this? What elements need to be present in order for our strategies to support virtual users. In the Libraries, we must be able to:
Helene Blowers, Director, Digital Strategy
Columbus Metropolitan Library
Helene's talk focused on what strategies we need to employ in our libraries to enable, enrich and empower our patrons.
Social Identity is very important to digital natives. Creativity is very important to digital natives. Cultural consumers thrive on information and ideas to fuel their own expression. Nearly 2/3 of online teens are content creators. Those that use social networking sites are more than 5 times as likely to create content - it is their way of fueling social expression. Digital Natives extend their real identity to their online world.
Digital Information Quality. We are starting to see a shift from authoritative control to collaborative control. User generated content is becoming the most trusted form. Social responsibility is a really important part of this. If you looked at the "former" Encyclopedia Britannica vs wikipedia there were actually the same number of errors. The difference between rthe two was that wikipedia could be updated immediately. Britannica realized the problem and opened up a wiki layer on their encyclopedia.
Digital Immigrants (you are what you owned)
vs
Digital Pioneers (you are what you create and share)
Digital Advocacy is the idea that what you do online can actually make a difference, lead the generation.
So, what does all this mean for Libraries and how do we apply strategies around this? What elements need to be present in order for our strategies to support virtual users. In the Libraries, we must be able to:
- Engage - enable customers to connect with library staff, services and with each other in meaningful ways. We want to make our people to feel connected.
- Enrich - provide customers with a rich online experience
that enhances their local branch experience and daily lives. Our
customers feel they are getting great value from their library?
- Empower - to enable customers the ability to personalize and add value to the library experience and allow the community to celebrate themselves. We want to help our customers feel good about themselves.
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