The Information Poor

& the Information Don't Care

Small Libraries and the Digital Divide

Jessamyn West
www.librarian.net/talks/uaz

12nov05

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 surveyed in 2003/2004 had Internet access at home.
• Roughly 25% use cable or DSL, the rest use dial-up or other access.
• So, 15% of Vermonters have cable Internet or DSL.
• That's about 100,000 people.

source: Vermont Telecommunications plan

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"

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

How was life at the 3rd largest library in the state?

• 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?

I work for the public. I can make choices for the public. I can use public resources to address various sociopolitical concerns, if I decide to. Such as...

• homelessness - library cards for the homeless, safe places to congregate during the day, public restrooms
• unemployment - resume writing books and software, certification tests in online databases, access to daily papers for classified ads
• poverty - limits to fee-based services, equality of access, free programming, free ILL services
• the digital divide - email and technology classes, public computing facilities, free books about technology

What about less obvious examples? it's all about choices, and choosing FOR one thing often means choosing AGAINST something else.... like the internet being the world's biggest library.... overt rules and decisions often create unforseen and unintended consequences. I'll talk about a few of them

When you are in a small community of truly disconnected folks, the decisions you make for the library computing environment are the decisions you make for their computer use, and their computer understanding.

Watch what the vendor says & know what to ask them. professional ethics, you have divergent goals So? careful planning, current awareness of new technologies & NETWORKING. Learn the vocab so you can speak effectively to vendors: XML, blogs, RSS, APIs, &c.

choices & unintended consequences?

• Money spent on any subscription services is money not available in the budget anually - upgrade costs are often a big unknown
• Operating system lock-in. Did you choose your OS? Are you aware of any security holes it might have, and the ways to prevent their exploitation? viruses are mostly Windows viruses
• Staff who do not understand technology make bad technological decisions. Purchasing technology is NOT the same as purchasing books, DVDs or office furniture.

So? Planning will ease the pain, but there will always be some bugs. Be bold, have mechanisms for feedback.

choices & unintended consequences?

• see above: subscription services, can you rely on your interface?
• "out of the box" configuration may not be to your liking, then what? Can you fix it? Will you? time, money, staff ability, upgrades, "network neighborhood"
• The vendor makes choices you might want to be the one to make.
• if you want their business/patronage, ask for it by making your tools genuinely easy to use upgrade cycle, what upgrades to include, what to be compatible with? jamesian geniune options

So? customize it, open source systems [Koha] and in-house techs.

choices & unintended consequences?

• buying products that filter for a variety of reasons often means you are overfiltering for whatever your specific purpose is [brief CIPA discussion here about what needs to be filtered by law]
• filters with unknown blacklists/whitelists may be filtering whoknowswhat... do you feel comfortable ceding control?
• Any public institution has to think carefully about going against the wishes of the government for PR reasons among others. Conflict in USAPA vs. the 1st Amendment needs to be carefully considered, for example
• track all encroaching legislation and prepare responses before you have to
• DO YOU HAVE A POLICY? dealing with a lay population who only know about these rules and policies by watching tv, or reading MPAA/RIAA press releases in the media, copyright infringement IS theft? Don't be timid

So? Peacefire, further reading, links about the US/CIPA situation, open source filtering

choices & unintended consequences?

• "chilling effects" of excessive self-policing
• passing on misunderstandings to a whole new generation of confused people
• Digital Rights Management may not be based on law, people are basing policy on legislation in some cases not even passed [fair use may allow for copying, for example in certain contexts - government policy policy vs corporate policy]

So? How comfortable are you being a test case?

CreativeCommons, stay informed [ALIA example] and inform others, a pro-active response beats waiting for the knock on the door.

You cannot make people do what you want, and you cannot make them desire what you want them to desire.

You need to advocate for people without access or knowledge as their representative not the vendors' representative, and not as a visitor from the brave new techno-shiny world.

This means not just education, not just experience, but also patience and a lot of empathy.

"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. Her latest writing about technology appears Searcher Magazine. Her latest writing about midget wrestling appears in Wikipedia. IM her at iamthebestartist.

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