Month: July 2005

Harris Interactive: How Academic Librarians Can Influence Students’ Web-Based Information Choices

Posted on by jessamyn

A pretty interesting look at what the “end-user market segment” that is college students thinks about looking for information online. Keep in mind this is not positioned as a study about people look for information in libraries generally, though the argument could be made that more and more people are looking at the Internet as the first, and perhaps the last, destination for information retrieval. However, that point is not addressed in this survey. Some random facts I pulled out

  • 80% of students surveyed are bothesred at least a little by advertising within websites though “only one-in-five believes ad-free websites have more reliable information.”
  • The survey says “They access the web via high-speed lines, with over 40% logging on via cable modem, T1/T3 line, ISDN, or ADSL/DSL.” which has the obvious follow-up question of how the majority of them access the web, or perhaps whether the response was phrased oddly and is confusing like this sentence nearby “[O]ver 90% access the web remotely from the library via their home computer” which i think means they gain access to the web through the library’s web site?
  • Students find librarians assistance with searching online no more helpful than that provided by teachers or friends “The mean satisfaction score for librarian-provided help is 7.8 (on a scale of 0 to 10), compared to scores of 7.9 for help provided by professorsor teaching assistants and 7.8 for classmates or friends.” I wonder if this would have a different result if it asked about print resources, or other in-library resources?
  • There are further questions about print resources that show that 89% “use the campus library’s print resources” with books, journals and articles getting 75/70/64% respectively.

The survey also contains recommendations

The data strongly suggest that there are real opportunities for academic librarians to connect students with libraries’ high quality resources. A successful approach should incorporate the following tactics to increase libraries’ visibility on the web:

  1. Emphasis on students’ and librarians’ common preferences for accuracy, authority, timeliness, and privacy
  2. Tight integration of the library’s electronic resources with faculty, administrative, and other campus websites
  3. Open access for remote users
  4. Clear and readily available navigational guides–both online and in the library.
  5. Relentless promotion, instruction, and customer service.

The study ends with some questions for further exploration which have a bit too much market-driven speak in them for my tastes, but I know libraries have to start thinking about these things in an academic environment, or at least that’s what people keep telling us. Two examples

  • Students expect service providers–both electronic and bricks-and-mortar–to offer convenience, selection, quality, and a welcoming atmosphere. Can librarians create a customer-friendly experience to match the best merchants and consumer websites?
  • Students want to know more about the library and its resources. Can librarians execute marketing rules for product definition, promotion, price, placement, and positioning?

I guess a secondary question to these last two is “Should they?” I honestly don’t know. OCLC has the 2005 numbers, I’m curious to know what they say. [iag]

one more privacy concern: printers?

Posted on by jessamyn

EFF’s blog has a post about a new way libraries could accidentally infringe on patron privacy. Some common color laser printers have the ability to encode uniquiely identifying and traceable information into pages they print. If you care enough about patron privacy to not reveal if a patron has a library card, would you care enough to not reveal that they have used your computers/printers?

According to experts, several printer companies quietly encode the serial number and the manufacturing code of their color laser printers and color copiers on every document those machines produce. Governments, including the United States, already use the hidden markings to track counterfeiters.

Peter Crean, a senior research fellow at Xerox, says his company’s laser printers, copiers and multifunction workstations, such as its WorkCentre Pro series, put the “serial number of each machine coded in little yellow dots” in every printout. The millimeter-sized dots appear about every inch on a page, nestled within the printed words and margins.

Wired: do we still need libraries in a digital age

Posted on by jessamyn

Wired magazine asked me, Michael Gorman and Sue Davidsen from the IPL about whether the Internet will put public libraries out of business. Here is the sidebar containing our responses.

Folks who know me know that my general answer to this question is “No, but….” Unfortunately, my ten minute phone conversation was compressed into a soundbyte that I don’t really recognize, and for that I apologize to anyone who has to defend the idea of the public library against evildoers and naysayers who say “What’s the big deal anyhow? It’s all online.” I don’t think the problems the public library is facing have much to do with the Internet, but they do have a lot to do with the idea of relevance, people’s shifting priorities in tight fiscal times and the whole changing idea of community and public spaces.

For the record, the question I was asked over email was “Do we still need libraries in a digital age?” My email response, which I followed up with a phone call, was this.

Yes.

Is your question really “Do we still need books in a digital age?” in which case, the answer is more complicated, though ultimately yes.

I guess my question for you is “Whose digital age?” because where I work, at public libraries in Central Vermont, the digital age is unfolding much more slowly and to much less fanfare than it is elsewhere. In a state where only 15-25% of the residents use broadband, the digital age is as much about hurdles and the threat of being left behind as it is about bold and shiny technological innovation and synthesis. Libraries and librarians help people not get left behind by technology, by democracy, and by people who think that libraries and technology can’t coexist and thrive symbiotically.

We need libraries in any age, they’re the human scale measurement for the information age.

jessamyn west
librarian.net

Clearly I need media training. Thanks to the prophet for the scan of the article.