Library Journal
Born with
the Chip
By Stephen Abram & Judy Luther -- 5/1/2004
The next generation will profoundly impact both library service
and the culture within the profession
Librarians have adapted amazingly well to the challenges of an
Internet-enabled, web-dominated world. It's been quite a ride
as we worked with digital content, learned new search tools, and
strived to get our many and varied systems interconnected. Now
the roller coaster really begins as we deal with the next generation—those
"born with the chip"—who have grown up in the
1980s with computers and don't think of them as technology. They
are part of their cultural DNA.
Given that the average librarian is a Boomer and over 50, there
is a gap of one to two generations between most of the profession
and a growing group of our primary users, whom we all need to
understand in order to serve well. The generation in question,
which some call Millennials but we'll refer to as NextGens, is
made up of people born between 1982 and 2002. At 81 million they
form the largest population group since the Boomers at 87 million.
The expectations and behaviors of this group will have a significant
impact on the nature of the services that public and academic
libraries need to plan and provide.
What follows is based on individual research, some of which is
unpublished or proprietary. It is also informed by certain recent
key studies published by the Pew Internet & American Life
Project, OCLC, Ontario Libraries Strategic Directions Council,
Digital Library Federation, Council on Library and Information
Resources, Outsell, and others. Although NextGens despise and
reject labeling and we recognize there are exceptions based on
individuality and the remaining digital divide, we have identified
nine aspects of their behavior that we believe differentiate this
group from its predecessors. They represent fundamental differences
in the use of information, personal interactions, and social values.
1 FORMAT AGNOSTIC
Information is information, and NextGens see little difference
in credibility or entertainment value between print and media
formats. Their opinions can be modified and influenced by an information
ocean that does not differentiate between journals and books,
network or cable television, or blogs or web sites. In doing research,
NextGens see little value in choosing to limit formats at the
outset of an exploration or navigation when Google results include
encyclopedia entries, articles, web sites, blogs, discussion threads,
and PDF documents.
IMPACT: Accustomed to Google-like search engines, this generation
will expect to have search results before they are required to
select a source. This is the opposite of the expectation that
established the skills taught to generations of researchers. Federated
and broadcast search tools will be developed to meet this need.
Search tools will expand to integrate text, images, sound, and
streaming media. Librarians can improve the content and context
of information delivered to this group by integrating the responses
of queries across all formats and influencing the algorithms that
display and rank results.
With digital production cheaply available to all on the web,
any interest group—harmful or helpful—can publish
information and make it appear authoritative. They receive information
through sounds (MP3s) and moving images (MPEG and streaming media)
more seamlessly and on-demand than any other generation, without
the filters of networks or national regulators. Media literacy
skills are essential for this generation to help them evaluate
the information they find.
These multiliteracy skills inform their skills as citizens. If
we fail to encourage highly formed multiliteracy skills in this
generation, our democracies could be at risk. We have already
seen the early results of manipulation of Google rankings in the
U.S. Democratic primary race for President—especially in
Howard Dean's campaign's use of blogs, which are valued fairly
highly by Google's algorithms. This and other types of search
engine optimization (SEO) requires vigilance from users, who must
question the content, diversity, and rankings of the links provided
by retrieved lists.
We must prepare this generation for the real issues of the world
they will live through, not the one we encountered. We must focus
on helping them develop the ability to evaluate sources of information
effectively to ensure that they can determine the quality of information
upon which they will base life decisions.
2 NOMADIC
Members of this generation expect information and entertainment
to be available to them whenever they need it and wherever they
are, thanks to Wi-Fi, wireless PDAs, and digital phones. After
all, the web is 24/7. This expectation is about more than convenience;
it indicates a major shift in behavior.
Short messaging services are growing exponentially as users have
access to an extended multiplayer gaming environment. Trusted
personal networks are coded into such programs as email, instant
messaging (IM), screen name, and phone number lists—ready
to access at the push of a button. This generation has moved far
beyond downloading new ring tones into downloading applications
that will be essential in their work environment.
IMPACT: Librarians need to be able to reach NextGens on their
devices of choice, which operate on a wide range of standards
and formats. If virtual reference doesn't meet NextGens' expectations,
we should explore IM or other communication technologies that
allow us to deliver good quality, interactive, remote information
services.
The content that libraries license will need to appear on a variety
of devices. Some publishers, initially in the medical field, are
using the new XML standard to reformat content to properly display
on a small digital phone, PDA, or a larger-screened laptop. If
library services—portals, OPACs, databases, and web sites—are
not accessible on the devices being used, then we risk being irrelevant
in the Next-Gens' world. Just as having no web site today renders
a library invisible to the world at large, having no web-based
services ready for the wireless world will render your library
invisible in the coming years.
3 MULTITASKING
NextGens multitask as a core behavior. The packed screen that
looks unfocused to the average Boomer, who probably closes unused
open windows, feels natural to NextGens. The ability to integrate
seamlessly and navigate multiple applications, simultaneously
combining their worlds in a single environment, is a key skill
of this generation. This skill is not just about running several
IM conversations at the same time. Add in listening to MP3s on
a PC as well as surfing the web while adding content to homework
projects and assignments. This is not bad. In a noisy world, it's
a great skill to be able to multitask and focus differentially.
Indeed, as MS Windows and MS Office add more applications, it
will become critical for libraries to access, acquire, and adapt
easily information for this next generation's decision-making
and work environments.
IMPACT: NextGens expect that all information appliances—desktop,
mobile telephones, and PDAs—will support multitasking. In
contrast, many libraries have chosen not to take advantage of
some of their PC capabilities by 1) installing them without sound
cards or speakers; 2) preventing the use of IM or email; 3) precluding
the ability to use web sites that require animation enablers like
Java; or 4) limiting the ability to view streaming media or run
applications like Real Media, Windows Media Player, or Quicktime.
Some libraries are still using ancient versions of Netscape and
MS Internet Explorer.
Though some of these choices are short-term strategies to protect
limited bandwidth or ensure that a number of the library PCs are
available for OPAC access or database searching, NextGens who
feel the constraints may conclude that the library has "stupid"
PCs and opt to bypass it. Libraries should at least provide signage
for the PCs that limit functionality. In the long term, we must
ensure that we have the hardware that matches this generation's
needs to access information, share it, and place it into their
workflow patterns simultaneously. In this respect, academic and
public libraries are not alone. This is a challenge for workplaces,
too.
4 EXPERIENTIAL
NextGens grew up playing video, PC, PDA, and interactive games
that allowed them to learn and develop skills based on their experience.
These games are like the world—asynchronous, asymmetrical,
and engaging. As a result, members of the next generation prefer
content-rich web pages as opposed to tables-of-contents navigation
for exploring content sets and domains.
Members of this generation have high-level questioning and thinking
skills and lower-level prima facie knowledge (such as facts, time
lines, vocabulary, and regurgitation skills). For many, their
variant learning styles have been supported throughout their education.
Some have been trained in mind-mapping techniques that enable
them to create visual maps of their areas of exploration and define
the domains, sources, and words that they might use to explore
a problem or research area. For example, when asked to debate
a political issue in class they might map both sides of the issue,
pro and con, list interested parties or figures, outline needed
statistics, name groups that might have an opinion, and more.
This mind-map, accomplished on paper or in their heads before
leaping into reading and research, mutates as they become more
informed throughout the total process.
The amount of information in the future will double every 11
minutes by some estimates. Searching will more closely resemble
exploration, navigation, and discovery—sounds like the names
of the popular web browsers! In the next ten years, researchers
will use video game–type interfaces to find answers to serious
questions. For example, the University Health Network in Toronto,
made up of over 9000 full-time medical researchers exploring some
of the key medical questions of our time, is building a "database"
of every person who has had leukemia in Canada since 1985. They
have built a robot that can load the genetic makeup of these people
into the computer environment and then explore the disease. Research
continues into interface design that is likely to model "quest"
game–style interfaces. A July 2003 Pew Internet & American
Life Project report www.pewinternet.org/reports/index.asp) on
gaming technology and entertainment showed that 65 percent of
college students used games regularly, and, surprisingly, the
majority of players were girls.
IMPACT: Work by two educational psychologists, Benjamin Bloom
on learning styles and Howard Gardner on multiple intelligences,
indicates that more learning behaviors are supported by nontext
interfaces than by ones that rely on text. Some of the early,
recent studies of visual interfaces in the library environment
show that improvements can be easily had by combining different
access points and styles, including visualization features in
the display and searching of databases and OPACs. An example of
such studies are those by Donald Beagle at Belmont Abbey College,
NC (belmont.antarctica.net/start?ap=0;ms= 10). Of course, it would
be terrible if we tried to find the single interface to support
all searching and learning right styles—the opportunity
here is to match a greater variety of users' searching styles.
Visual interfaces and displays, combined with some text-based
searching, show great promise, and we need to experiment with
these more. Many of us in the information profession are great
text-based learners. For most of the rest of the world, reading
is not a primary learning behavior. Many libraries have carried
videos for 20 years, but NextGens expect streaming media. The
digital world offers more flexibility for more formats. Visual
interfaces such as Grokker (www.groxis.com) and anacubis (www.anacubis.com)
offer better support for the deeper variety of collections we
will be supporting in the future—e.g., streaming media,
pictures, MP3s, maps, and 3-D museum objects. It seems libraries
are often run by Lisa Simpsons trying to herd a crowd of Bart
Simpson users. Now that the technology is ready to support more
styles, we need to be willing to explore them and recognize that
what worked for us won't work as well for many of the coming generation.
5 COLLABORATIVE
The great innovation and killer app of the Internet was email,
and Boomers readily adopted writing electronic letters. However,
only five percent of people over 30 have an IM account, while
estimates run as high as 85 percent of NextGens with at least
one IM account. This could be an indicator of one of the greatest
generational digital divides.
IM can involve many simultaneous conversations between two to
over 20 participants. Whatever the subject of the moment, IM is
interactive learning. This generation collaborates as a core ethos—e.g.,
in multiplayer web games, with IM, in collaboratories, virtual
classrooms, and chat rooms. It is exciting to have an environment
where information can be introduced and processed and where life,
play, entertainment, school, and work commingle.
IMPACT: Virtual reference (VR) should allow us to communicate
with NextGens in a way that more closely matches how they use
technology and interact with others for research. VR does not
need to be a fully blown system to succeed. In one instance, Pennsylvania
State University librarians set out to deliver librarian services
to at-risk students; using simple IM drove clear positive results.
Our libraries increasingly serve remote users who access databases,
web pages, distance education support, and portals. Too often,
though, the magic of the reference librarian gets lost. VR allows
us to reintroduce the reference interview, escorted browsing,
and personalized research support at the point of need. The most
aggressive libraries already extend this service beyond normal
library hours. As an additional benefit, we learn more about our
users' needs and questions when we capture and analyze our online
reference transcripts. The opportunities to develop the best Ask-a-Librarian
virtual service are immense, and the coming generation is ready
for it. This demand, combined with recent Gartner Group reports
that over 60 percent of workplaces have enabled IM for business
use, sometimes at the demand of their newest employees, illustrates
the world NextGens are preparing for.
6 INTEGRATED
Content and technology are inseparable for NextGens. Communication
technology has blurred the distinctions between private and public
domains (webcams, blogs, camera phones) and learning environments
and entertainment (gaming, IM).
IMPACT: The magic of librarianship is the interpersonal, professional
competencies that we apply in relating our users' information
needs and experiences to organized (and disorganized) content
and our services. Librarians need to be integrated with the virtual
environment as coach, mentor, and information advisor. The reference
interview gives context to the user's inquiries, but even this
key critical competency needs to be reconsidered. Interviewing
NextGens to point them at the right information and sources is
becoming less important as this group gets more and more accustomed
to an increasingly self-service environment. We need to focus
on how to improve the quality of the "question" asked
since NextGens will continue their research investigations beyond
the interaction with the library.
7 PRINCIPLED
This generation has a well-defined value system, and NextGens
express themselves by voting with their actions across the political
spectrum. High levels of veganism, vegetarianism, political action,
environmentalism, voluntarism, and more indicate deep thinking
about how they live their lives and the principles upon which
they plan to base their impact on the earth and society.
IMPACT: Many libraries are dealing with challenges to "dead
tree" subscriptions, recycling demands, concerns over photocopier
chemicals, requests for recycled paper in the shared printers
and copiers, and even petitions for fair trade coffee beans in
the coffee shop. Most of us have great sympathy for the push to
better environmental behaviors, at home and at work. Although
library management is challenged by limited budgets, institutional
contracts, and policies, it will pay to act on our users' concerns.
If we do, a trusting relationship will develop with this emerging
group.
However, and more to the core of our enterprise, we must survey
alternative viewpoints and review our collection development policies.
Are our collections, print and electronic, biased to mainstream
media? Do we have a balance of alternative, ethnic, student, or
religious viewpoints and mainstream periodicals, books, and newspapers?
We're not there yet. We should care because our users care. This
is a case of doing the right things and matching customer needs.
8 ADAPTIVE
Adaptive technology library specialist Jutta Treviranus, director
of the Resource Centre for Academic Technology at the University
of Toronto, estimates that 15 percent of their university population
requires some form of adaptive technology (to cope with everything
from blindness through print disabilities and ADD/ ADHD). It is
fair, and arguably the law, that this generation's libraries provide
the tools for them to access learning effectively. In contrast
to any previous generation, this one has been tested and diagnosed
for physical and learning challenges. Many effective and successful
practices have been developed to overcome their challenges, and
they are knowledgeable about what adaptations they may require
to succeed. A reading disability need no longer be a barrier to
learning at any level.
IMPACT: The University of Toronto has long-term plans and short-term
action plans to deliver all university services (including library
services) to all students, staff, and faculty with tools to mitigate,
as much as possible, any disability. The plan involves storing
dozens of adaptive technologies and software on the central server
to be invoked with the use of an ID card—which will be encoded
with the adaptations necessary to improve each user's university
experience.
We need to move beyond simple IP authentication systems for equitable
access to our libraries' rich resources of databases, indexes,
OPACs, and VR. College and university libraries will need to engage
in much richer partnerships with their institutions to add functionality
to student, staff, and faculty identification cards and then use
them to improve the user's library experience.
9 DIRECT
This generation demands respect and finds no need to beg for
good service. In general, they are direct communicators, neither
rude nor obsequious, just direct. On the positive side, they will
ask for help. On the negative side, they will express dissatisfaction
with services that do not meet expectations.
IMPACT: We have had many conversations with public and academic
librarians who commiserate that they are distressed at the higher
expectations of their users and the lack of budgets to meet them.
Libraries are going to have to reexamine services and look for
opportunities to shift resources and change or stop doing some
things.
Librarians' distress is compounded by widely divergent communication
styles between most library staff members and the rapidly growing
population of NextGens. We have already trained many of our staff
in cultural and racial sensitivity as well as gender sensitivity
and antisexual harassment. Extra sensitivity to cross-generational
issues is now needed. This may simply mean adding training for
both Next-Gens (facts, soft skills) and Boomers (IM, VR, etc.).
Shoring up both will pay off in the long run.
The challenge of change
These nine impact factors provide insights into the coming generation:
their expectations for using information (format agnostic, nomadic,
multitasking); their learning behaviors (experiential, collaborative,
integrated); their beliefs (principled, adaptive, direct). David
Penniman, dean of the School of Informatics, University at Buffalo,
NY, once said, "In order for the library to remain what it
is, it must change. If it doesn't change it will not remain what
it is." This next generation will challenge libraries in
ways undreamt of today, likely in ways greater than the challenge
of the Internet, as we seek to meet the needs of a new generation
of users. Some libraries are already beginning to adapt, others
are not.
They are coming. We had better be ready.
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Author Information
Stephen Abram, MLS, Incoming President of the Canadian Library
Association, is Vice President of Innovation for Sirsi Corporation,
Huntsville, AL. Judy Luther, MLS, is President of Informed Strategies,
Ardmore, PA
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