What role can public libraries play in the highly visible and expanding domain of Open Government?
Public libraries are the best-positioned community anchors to address the demand-side of open government. In addition, with a bit more strategic vision and planning, they can play a key role in helping ensure that open government activities align with community aspirations and that citizens have the capabilities to contribute to the opening of government in useful and meaningful ways.
One of the most revealing things I learned was that public libraries have a long history of supporting the opening of government through many of the services and resources they provide. However, this role was hidden in plain sight due to the lack of common language and understanding both within the public library community and between public libraries and open government experts.
Adopting a focus on the demand side of open government will provide public libraries with a much needed common language and a strategic planning platform to help match their programs and activities to their communities' needs and capabilities. Focusing on the demand side of open government will assist public libraries in developing key partnerships with government and other entities, helping government officials, government agencies, nonprofits, and private organizations have a direct resource to the community and its needs. It will also allow them to play a significant role in and benefit from the open government trend.
Pew Research Defines Library Users – Yet Again?
By creating groups based on their connection to libraries rather than their gender, age, or socio-economic attributes, this report allows portraiture that is especially relevant to library patrons, library staff members, and the people whose funding decisions impact the future of public libraries in the United States.
The impact of digital technologies on public libraries is particularly interesting because libraries serve so many people (about half of all Americans ages 16 and older used a public library in some form in the past year, as of September 2013) and correspondingly try to meet a wide variety of needs. This is also what makes the task of public libraries—as well as governments, news organizations, religious groups, schools, and any other institution that is trying to reach a wide swath of the American public—so challenging: They are trying to respond to new technologies while maintaining older strategies of knowledge dissemination.
While interesting that Pew Research findings support this conclusion; this is not news to those in the profession. So, let me state right up front that I found this report lacking in really useful, although critically needed information. They have re-named demographics, re-conglomerated social groupings, and generally rehashed the same information already available. AND, they took three years to do it, which makes their findings almost obsolete by 21st Century standards.
Having said that, there are a multitude of library professionals who may find interesting and possibly useful information in this latest Pew report.
Public library users and proponents are not a niche group: 30% of Americans ages 16 and older are highly engaged with public libraries, and an additional 39% fall into medium engagement categories.
Americans' library habits do not exist in a vacuum: Americans' connection—or lack of connection—with public libraries is part of their broader information and social landscape. As a rule, people who have extensive economic, social, technological, and cultural resources are also more likely to use and value libraries as part of those networks. Many of those who are less engaged with public libraries tend to have lower levels of technology use, fewer ties to their neighbors, lower feelings of personal efficacy, and less engagement with other cultural activities.
Life stage and special circumstances are linked to increased library use and higher engagement with information: Deeper connections with public libraries are often associated with key life moments such as having a child, seeking a job, being a student, and going through a situation in which research and data can help inform a decision. Similarly, quieter times of life, such as retirement, or less momentous periods, such as when people's jobs are stable, might prompt less frequent information searches and library visits.
Most of the report reminds me of OCLC's 2008 in-depth Report to the OCLC Membership, From Awareness to Funding A study of library support in America, except without the extraordinarily detailed information and recommendations. It's nice to know there hasn't been much change in the past six years in describing library supporters, and non-supporters.
At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all, I have to respond – DUH!?!? Anyone with any degree of library experience and common sense knows that "library habits do not exist in a vacuum" and that "life stage and special circumstances are linked to increased [or decreased] library use and higher [or lower] engagement with information." SERIOUSLY? That's the best Pew has to offer to explain the 21st Century library user environment?
I stated essentially the same things in August, 2011 – Customer Targeting – A New 21st Century Library Skill, and in a series of 21st Century Library Customers posts in February, 2011 covering all the generations that libraries serve today. [21st Century Library Customers – Greatest & Silent] For libraries to provide such a wide range of services and technologies makes their mission difficult, to say the least.
While Pew tries to impress readers with cool graphics and simple organization of extensive information [kudos], the content just is not impressive. It's mostly a rehash, like I'm beginning to do in this post. My assessment is – nothing new from Pew. Maybe some enterprising marketing expert can translate the findings into a strategy to move the Solid Center to Information Omnivores, so be sure to share if you do.
Are you a 'Digitarian'? Look what one public library was able to discover about its users. "According to a city report, the information will help Phoenix libraries better understand customers and tailor resources and services to meet their needs." Imagine that! Highly useful user information essential for local library decision making.
"60 Minutes" recently aired a segment on a young man named Jack Andraka who is the Intel International Science Fair Grand Prize winner for his project to find a reliable, cost effective diagnostic test for pancreatic cancer.
Not only did this 15 year old beat out 1,500 other really smart young people, he has presented a TED Talk, which is seriously impressive.
Jack Andraka was so passionate about his desire to accomplish something worthwhile that he petitioned 200 biotechnology science labs to allow him to pursue his research, but only one accepted his proposal. It only takes one.
Another impressive part of the interview came when Safer told about Andraka speaking to "the renowned Royal Society of Medicine about his test and the problems with current cancer diagnostics." The video showed a large room full of doctors and researchers totally engaged in their young speaker's ideas.
THAT is where the game-changing creativity comes into play, not only by Andraka, but by the adults open to listening to a new idea about how to approach an old challenge. The fact that the idea came from a teenager may have been incidental, or maybe not. But, the point is we all must be open to new ideas, new perspectives, new approaches to old challenges in our libraries.
21st Century Librarianship does the unexpected!