Yesterday I went to the State Library to hear Stephen Abram speak on Web 2 technologies & the future. He says Libraries need to use these technologies to connect with the next generation, our Library OPACs are great for librarians but not for our users. The next generation are experience based & visual learners c.f. librarians who are mostly text-based learners. The next generation (Millenials?) are not format driven or fact-based thinkers but into problem solving. They don't need to know anything (there's Google for that). Our strength is answering the hard questions. Google is good for the What/When/Who, but the How & Why is where Librarians step in. Also Libraries have long been the centre of communities. We are into building communities and establishing social connectivity. This is also the basis (and attraction) of the new technologies eg Facebook/My Space/Flickr. However we need to be proactive otherwise we will lose this opportunity. 90% of 15-25 year olds have at least 1 IM account, only 5% of over 30s do. We need to change our library technologies to the way this younger generation learn (most of this technology is free on the internet). We need to promote our associations with our local communities by linking to community groups/businesses/schools etc on our websites.
For more information on the SirsiDynix's new learning portal which has been constructed around the way children learn, visit www.schoolrooms.net
After this lecture I felt a bit more motivated to learn about these new technologies but also a bit frightened as everything is changing so fast. Apparently in the younger generations everyone is switching to Facebook or MySpace accounts and dumping their hotmail/yahoo emails. The prediction is that by 2020 a small ipod like device will be able to hold all the content every created. Mind-blowing stuff.
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