I've just had the opportunity to participate in a very large survey of users and no-users of library services. The most revealing thing is that there is a huge difference to the way people are perceiving the library and its services. The customer who doesn't visit or use a library see's the library at a safe place with free services that is old fashioned and not able to deliver the information they want when they want it. The user of the library perceive the library as a wonderful place to participate in community activities and read books, get free DVDs and use free internet. The demographic is really vastly different in these user groups. I think in a lot of cases we have lost touch with the general community and isolated ourselves into more specialised communities.
The customers we have lost like being able to retrieve information from google, are very techno savvy and are right up to speed with the latest technology. It was amazing how many non-users pulled an Iphone out of their bags and told me they can read digital books when they want instantly, and access information immediately. What was really interesting was that people who are now self-sufficient with their information needs are not aware of the disparity of information available. In other words.. they don't know what information they are missing.
The whole journey of the Web 2 Adventure that we have just engaged in has really enlightened me as to how we might bridge the gap between the self-sufficient non-library user and how we can help the existing library patron to engage in the web community in a more productive way. I can already see easy applications of blogs into activities like Bookclub. How we could develop more user friendly catalogues and online services. Promote more interaction between Web 2 applications like social networking sites and information sharing forums with our web site interfaces. I am actually quite excited about projects are that using open source collaboration and uploading them into library OPACs. It's a new frontier and I can see that for the traditionalist it will be a quantum leap of faith to embrace the user of the future .. not in the future .. but now!
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That's some very good insight into the divide between users of information management systems and those who complement this with their library resources.
ReplyDeleteI agree that some people who don't really see libraries could imagine them in a romantic, old fashioned sense, when there is so many more things that a library can offer, and I think the idea of networking is always positive in incorporating a larger audience, just as long as people are aware that it is there