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Agreed, Tracey. The digital divide is so much more than access to technology – age, gender, ability/disability, affordability and much more need to be considered before we can think about bridging the divide. But I think that, as far as government is concerned, they do have a responsibility to ensure a certain level of technology infrastructure is available to all citizens. Not that the NBN will necessarily do that – if you live in the bush or rural areas you are still going to be less likely to have fast internet access. Check out the inforgraphic in my twitter chat reflection for this week. Nevertheless it seems to me to be an important initiative, given the way in which technology is pervading so many aspects of our lives.
Hi Lisa, I liked the story of your colleague – if it weren’t for my teenage sons I’d be in her boat for sure! In my middle years I find myself feeling unaccountably “old” in the face of the agilty with which they handle all kinds of tech, but I have to be grateful for the times that their skills dig me out of holes I find myself in. Surely I should be feeling the wisdom of my years 🙂 , but alas that is not the case. Hence my Masters in Information Science …. The point of these ramblings is that information and digital literacy are now skills that everyone must have – they are everyday skills. Medicare, Centrelink, ordering my groceries, reading the newspaper, communication with friends and family – these everyday tasks require digital information skills. Isn’t this what librarians have been doing all along? Helping people with access to information in one way or another. One of those ways is now via technology and there’s no escaping the reality that technology is increasingly linked to more and more aspects of our lives. I like your idea of libraries as information “hubs”. For me this well represents the way in which libraries can remain relevant, even crucial in our communities. Long live the limitless library!
Hi Sarah, your reflection brought back striking memories of an almost identical experience with Lexus. My law firm had it installed in the library on a stand alone computer that no one was allowed to use, except in extreme circumstances, as it was so expensive. It was my first experience in searching for information in a digital environment – how strange exciting those early times were as young lawyers. Like you, I found it difficult to use after a one-shot lecture but it was the beginning of a journey that sees me here studying for a Masters that would be impossible without my trusty laptop. The practice of law now depends heavily on instant access to legal information, legal intranets, mobile devices and a fully functioning CMS. How far we’ve come. A big vote of gratitude goes to all those who took the time and had the patience to teach me the digital literacy skills I’ve picked up along the way. Digital literacy skills are now everyday life skills, where would we be without them? On the other side of the digital divide.
This is a wondeful post Ruth, very thoughtful and filled with insight into a subject that seems to receive little attention, at least here in Queensland. Supporting and celebrating indigenous culture can only enrich all Australians but using digital literacy to support and promote oral/spoken languages is such an interesting idea. What a great way to bring 21st century technology together with ancient cultures – language is so central to identity, so bringing back languages that were all but dead is an inspiring story. I spent the last 20 years living in Vanuatu where there were 112 separate languages in a population of only 300,000 people – almost all of them are still largely only oral/spoken. There is a a small but dedicated group of people at the University of the South Paific Languages unit in Port Vila who are working to save these languages from extinction. With your permission I would like to send them your reflection, with its links, as I’m sure it would be of interest. Would this be OK?
I did get some great books Stacey and I’ve been back to get more since then, so my courage has been rewarded!
Thanks Cailtin. I’d be very happy to think I inspired you to try your own library’s RA, especially as I had such a good experience. I love reading but had never known that RA was a specific library service until it cropped up in this course. Having a better understanding now I feel enabled to utilise the library in different ways and the positive experience I had reinforces that.
I enjoyed using the images to illustrate my review but I need to try Kate’s method of embedding the images now to get rid of the extra text that is spoiling the look of the post. Thanks for your kind remarks.
Thank you for the feedback Stephanie – I didn’t realise when I started out that a service review would be a combination of absurdity and guilt, all the while trying to take mental notes of my experiences and keeping an eye out for RA features. My reflection was intended to indicate how difficult it can be sometimes for people to approach a library, let alone approach a desk. The librarian in this case really eased my fears with her proactive and welcoming response. In this way, and in others of course, I think embedded services are very important to libraries at a time when their relevance has been questioned. Finding ways in which libraries can contribute to a good ‘user experience’ are critical in my view.
Looking forward to my Program Review now!
Make sure you insert an image of you in the trench coat and moustache Will – it will be a winner!
Thanks for the comments, I did feel a bit absurd 😉
Hi Nicole, I really liked your reflection about the problems of everyday people trying to navigate the work a day world we live in. Even Masters students, who could be expected to be better able to tackle the information overload we all live with now, have issues with effective research methods and tools. I think it’s important that we stop and reflect on this stuff to keep the simplest and most straightforward of our problems clearly in mind. Recently I bought my mum (who is 84) an ipad and she’s turned into a Facebook fiend! Loves the way it has reconnected her with her hometown, old friends and keeps her in tune with her granndchildren. But every now and then I get a call like “Where do I find Google again?” that reminds me how much we take for granted in our technology-dominated world. It’s so important to connect with people about their real issues and I think libraries and librarians can do that really well. Thanks for your thoughts on this.
Thanks for your reflection Shannon. It seems like yesterday my boys were the age of your kids and we lived in a community where there were no library services for children at all, so I did all the pre-kindy literacy stuff myself with the kids. I think they would have appreciated some other input sometimes! Your analysis of the service was thoughtful and interesting, contrasting the perspective of the children with the perspective of the parent – both being users of the service. It seemed this library was a more focussed on the kids but maybe would appreciate hearing about dealing a little better with parents. Did they have a suggestion box or something similar where you could record your experiences?
Anyway, when the kids spend a lot of time talking about an adventure, as yours did, you know you’ve done something positive and they’ve had a positive experience. That’s always a good feeling 🙂
Hi Stacey, your forceful argument hit a nerve with me. Of 3 boys I have one son who was definitely not a reader – he loved me reading to him and loved talking about the books we read, but reading alone just didn’t come naturally to him. Now he’s at uni doing primary teaching and has to write about his own learning experiences – when he asked me to read his assignment on reading it made me cry. He loves to read but had struggled with it and is only just now finding his way, aged 19. It’s never too late! Just keeping the reading environment positive as a parent is the most important thing. There’s enough pressure on our kids to “perform” in every aspect of what they do these days. Let’s keep reading fun. Thanks for your reflection, I loved it!
I really enjoyed your reflection Tracey as I thought you summed up the current trends in RA very well. I particularly liked the description of next generation catalogues – is there anywhere that user-generated content cannot go if it can be included in a library’s otherwise sacred catalogue??? Laurel Tarulli’s blog was very interesting in that regard. Otherwise, RA seems to me to be one of those important areas where users can engage with library staff, develop their reading tastes and collaborate over building a preferences base. Building trust with another person can be an inspiring and enriching experience and it seems to me that RA is ideally placed to provide this kind of positive experience. And surely that’s a win-win situation.
Will, thanks for your engaging read once again.
For including images in your posts try this – it’s not perfect by any means but you might think it’s better than nothing.
Go to edit and select the ‘Text’ tab rather than the ‘Visual’ tab. On the tool bar in this mode is a button called ‘IMG’. Click here and you can enter a URL for an image. How you load images that don’t have a URL? No idea. After you’ve loaded it go back to the ‘Visual’ tab and click on the image – you can re-size, add a caption etc. I couldn’t get gifs to work but flat images were OK. You get an annoying strip of text next to the image after you’ve submitted the post – if you you work out how to get rid of this I’d love to know! Good luck, hope this works for you 🙂
What a great read Will! I love your emphasis on human beings thriving and developing on interaction and collaboration – couldn’t agree more.
I’m still in favour of teaching people to fish from the reference desk however and don’t see that as killing off reference but rather expanding it. Effective interaction and collaboration can surely occur at that level also, don’t you think?
Anyway, Inigo Montoya is, and always will be, an inspiration to us all!
I’m a huge supporter of your point of view Peldon! I think academic libraries providing leisure time reading for users must be a win-win situation – providing a desirable service and increasing library circulation at many levels. So far I haven’t investigated the QUT library’s leisure reading but based on your experience I’ll give it a go. I can never have too many books in my life 🙂 Thanks for this reflection.
