Threatened by the Internet? Music Biz Should Rock Like Librarians
Written by Marshall Kirkpatrick
December 31, 2007 10:48 AM
At the risk of jinxing things - I think it's pretty clear that there's a historic shift underway between activities we used to engage in offline and things we now do online. It's no surprise, for example, that CD sales were down 20% this US holiday season while online shopping was up 19%. That's how it works, right? People are moving from one marketplace to another, more virtual one.
Another dataset released this weekend, however, paints a more complex picture. According to the newest study from the Pew Internet and American Life Center - the youngest, most affluent and most Internet-connected adults in the US are also the most likely to visit a physical library. It wasn't that way just 10 years ago. How many other legacy industries can you think of today that can say their strongest growth is among young, affluent, power-Internet users? Something is going very right in library land. The music business ought to pay close attention to what's going on there.
As many librarians (and perhaps the most savvy people in the music business) can tell you, the Internet does not have to replace offline activities one-to-one, as a zero-sum game. Both planes, if you will, can provide essential value ads to each other - and thus "make the pie higher," as they say.
The Pew study found that 62 percent of Americans aged 18-30 are active library users, the percentage drops sharply at age 50 and falls to 32 percent of those 72 and up. Library use is highest, the study found, among young people who have Internet access at home. Just a handful of years ago it was widely believed that home Internet access would be the death of the public library.
Well, there it is! Everyone talks about the death of the American public library, but this and other recent surveys have demonstrated a need for a meeting place of sorts to continue their life long learning.
Granted, the numbers can stand improvement. This is especially true of seniors, who's participation drops as they reach well into their 70's. Also, if one considers that people are living longer or are expected to, then the public library has many profiles to market to.
It is amazing that even with Internet access in the home, the average 18-30 something still found visiting their local public library a must in their busy schedule. Yeah! Now lets reel them in. Their concerns are both family oriented and technologically riding the next wave of communication and information exchanges.
I am reminding anyone interested in the solid advice of Michael Stephens, whom I quoted earlier in the post "Tech Trends":
So here's this year's list, with a new name: "Trends" instead of "Things." Sure it puts a finer point on it but it also recognizes the changes in my thinking about the essential duties of librarians:
-Learn to Learn
-Adapt to Change
-Scan the Horizon
As we carry out or essential mission of service, stewardship and access, I really want folks in libraries to be able to watch the horizon for trends -- and I told the group that in Toronto: "We can all be trendspotters. We can all watch for trends that impact not only the profession but our specific communities and user groups." Please ponder these and let me know what you think.
1. (Learn to Learn) Listen to what patrons say about the library. Their perceptions of the service and resources we provide are vital to the libraries effectiveness. (Without which it wouldn't publicly exist.) Learn from these active home makers and career oriented patrons. They contribute to local tax bases, they vote, they want us to be on their side whenever they drop by. We should be grateful for it. And I know anyone reading this is concerned about how technology is changing the way we converge, communicate and create these opportunities. It is an ongoing process like any ongoing continued education. We are becoming librarians all over each time we encounter a patron.
2. (Adapt to Change) This is my favorite. For personal reasons, however. I am a Buddhist, and am used to hearing the droning bell of suffering and attachment. As long as we cling to a tradition in the face of what comes, we are moving away from a productive mission of service. (A) We can no longer go back to the card catalog and to a time when bibliographic standards ruled the cosmos of information. (B) Rubrics of MARC tags and LC classification held us in static hold, we must accept what I heard one librarian describe as a kind of "kangaroo court". The Internet does seem to resemble a kind of mock indexing of everything that is tossed into the mix. If one considers how social software has impacted on public spaces, and the general freedom that results, it is a scary place at times. But that is no reason to think that we are not needed. Exactly the opposite. We have never been needed more. We are in a flux of change, a beta mode because of the speed at which information is exchanged. Science moves faster, technology moves faster and faster, and tools are replaced by other tools before a second generation even comes out. Habituation is like death.
(Scan the Horizon) It is out there now. On the web and in libraries. The changes are occurring as I type this. Quite exciting. Open oneself to the experience of strange and unfamiliar service orientations, priority is on the development of or growth out of our hobgoblins of fixation and classification.
A. It is a Conversation. (Library 2.0) It becomes open ended. The endless stream is unfixed in print senses completely. It is about expansion (organically speaking) of the flow of exchanges. People want to talk. There are countless new ways to do it in and at a pace like never before.
B. It is a Convergence. Stephens points out that it is the process, not the endpoint that matters.
He further borrows the following: This altered relationship privileges 'expressions' over 'impressions'; engaged consumers draw together information across multiple media experiences...This explosion of exchange is all about itself and less about end results that define a consumer. A person is Googling, for example. I have a friend who is a fellow "YouTuber". I have the new phone, I am connected...but its not like saying: "I am." It is saying: "I do." It is about the changing consumer flows that challenge industries and information outlets
C. It is a Content. Next Stephens borrows from a report of the "New Media Consortium". In it trends of audience consumption finds: User-Created Content. It’s all about the audience, and the “audience” is no longer merely listening. User-created content is all around us, from blogs and photostreams to wikibooks and machinima clips. See?
D. LIS Jobs Redefined. The following considering the exchange of information and user centered service: Libraries may want to evaluate and redefine certain jobs as we move more and more into a user-centered, user-driven environment, in which primary duties may include creating online tools for collaboration and creation, developing innovative programs, and serving as instructors and "strategy guides" for users. I simplify here: but they include the building of structures for users and professionals, and following that they develop electronic resources a rapidly developing information environment.
This briefly touches on a much more meaningful and cogent discussion of information trends than can be afforded here. I hope this will be interesting to anyone reading. The article that prompted this post is evidence that our opportunities are open. We need only be open to them.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/libraries-rock.phphttp://tametheweb.com/2007/03/ten_tech_trends_for_librarians_1.html
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