Stephen Abram has posted links to his slides from two talks he gave at OLA earlier this month: keynote and millennials. I was able to attend both talks (barely squeaked into the millennials room) and enjoyed both, though it was rather disappointing that he had to rush through slides at the end of both talks. Unfortunately, I did not reference slides in my notes, but here are my scribblings from each:
1. Technoscism: Library 2.0.
-everything’s getting smaller, but what does it mean?
-how many are ready for the chapter-based economy?
-the future is here–it’s just not evenly distributed yet
-librarians are lousy predictors of what end users want
-librarians improve the quality of the question
-it’s not an information highway, but an information ocean (we submerse ourselves in it)
-what are we doing to protect the library, librarian, and staff? it isn’t the book that needs protection (cited book publishing and sales numbers)
-we’ve been teaching Boolean logic for the last 40 years and have failed. need to improve the quality of display and interface, not the search.
-98% of users can’t identify the adds in Google, nor do they go past the third page of results (hits on these pages are largely determined by advertisers and special interest groups)
-because Google knows where you are, it can tailor results, “optimizing” for what someone “needs” to know (according to those advertisers and special interest groups)
-LibraryThing is the 4th largest library in North America
-community, learning, and interaction are all that matters (ex: recognition of elders and their relationships w/ staff, vs. Google not knowing the age of the person searching)
-we need to reach into the community, not do outreach (we are not the center, the community is).
-DVD format will end in 14 years. Are you ready for that?
-You’ve got to be in it to learn it.
2. Millenials: The Kids are All Right
-in the 70’s, 15% went into college; today 40% do
-what’s more creative than a generation creating a language to meet their communication needs? (re: texting)
-huge parts of our economy are based on play; military trains on combat video games, flight simulators (experience-based learning)
-Millennials’ brains are different: significantly folded + IQ 20 points higher than Boomers + better ganglia = access to more parts of the brain
-group work more common; more talking to groups
-imperative for people to have a life-long curriculum, a personal learning strategy
(Hat tip to Adri.)
