Small Libraries and the Digital Divide

the information poor and the information don't care

Jessamyn West
www.librarian.net/talks/wla2

03nov06

1. The information poor. you may be providing their only access to technology and must act like it
2. The information don't care. technology adoption is more a management issue than the money issue that it is often described as

People don't use computers for many reasons, we have the information poor and the information don't care in Vermont.
     
source: Vermont Telecommunications plan

Yes, that line near the bottom says "never heard of."       source: Vermont Telecommunications plan

• 66% of Vermonters had Internet access at home [2003/2004]
• 25% use cable or DSL.
• So... 15% of Vermonters have highspeed internet. [100,000 people]
• "Currently, about 56 percent of Verizon phone lines in the state can support high-speed Internet service."
• Verizon aims for 80% by 2010

source: Vermont Telecom. plan, Burlington Free Press

The Pew Digital Divisions survey splits users into three loose categories:

• the "truly disconnected" (22%) One in five American adults have never used the Internet or email and don't live in an internet connected household.
• the highly wired elite (33%) 33% broadband at home. high income, high education, younger
• everyone else (40%) 40% of American adults have modest connections to the online world, either by only using dial-up or being a non-user living with someone with an Internet connection. "broadband access is a stronger predictor of online behavior than level of experience"

Which category do your staff fall into? Your users? You?

source: Pew Digital Divisions report

The question was "Do you use the Internet at least occasionally" and "Do you send or receive email at least occasionally?"
source: Pew Digital Divisions report

We don't see some of these same division with cell phone usage. Why?
source: Pew Digital Divisions report

Large public libraries in small states, my experience.

• management treats technology as just another resource, like books or CDs doesn't know what a browser is
• staff alternately critical and uncritically accepting, lead tours bemoaning lack of computer use for research
• patrons alternately confused/needy and demanding [stupid?] the more they use tech the more they hate our OPAC
• community could look to library as a leader, but do they? DoL anecdote "we have to be mechanics, it's gone from toilets to computers"

Who do we have for leaders?
DoL, Microsoft, local wifi initiatives, education folks?

The tech dilemma is a management issue disguised as a money issue. we're entering the age of multiple right answers. managing smart people "how can I provide you the tools you need to do an awesome job?" What do we think we know?

• Technology costs money.
  everything costs money, we're not prioritizing tech.
• Patrons break technology.
  we can't fix technology
• Upkeep costs time and time = money
  we can't fix technology
• You have to learn this whether you want to or not.

[more myths]

anecdote about jenny and michael's talk "how am I going to find time to do any of this?

• realism [setting expectations, what you can/can't have]
• decisiveness you don't need to form a committee to decide whether to use flickr to upload your photos
• problem solving for everyone!

Plan for...

• Friction?
• Scaling?
• Saving the time of the user?

[what if we DO this? what if we DON'T]

• What are the givens? the computers aren't going away, our patrons and staff are going to need them to do more and more, our patrons may know how to use them better than we do, or possibly not at all
  
• What do you do for your patrons?
  
• How can you help your staff do an awesome job?

blogs and chat and rss and wikis, but also MySpace, Flickr, del.icio.us, ning, and mashups and FOAF and more...

• What are the givens? connection and network are going to be much more important than just having a computer, or access to a computer, so helping people CONNECT will take precedence over basic mouse and typing classes, though those are important. the future world will be more software, less hardware
  
• What do you do for your patrons?
  [lure them in with new tech, reach out to them where they lie with newer tech]
• How can you help your staff do an awesome job? note: enthusiam for tech is important, but maintain a stable head, give them time to play, to learn

"I don't know what it will be like to have books from our libraries injected into our culture again, but I'd like to see it"

Jessamyn West is the editor of the weblog librarian.net and the co-editor of Revolting Librarians Redux. She works as a community technology mentor with people and libraries in Central Vermont, teaching email to seniors and making tiny websites for tiny libraries. IM her at iamthebestartist.

This presentation was created in HTML using CSS. There was no PowerPoint involved in this presentation except as a nagging bad example. The layout and stylesheet are available to borrow via a share and share alike creative commons license. See source code for details.

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