Viewing the slideshow by Pew titled Libraries 2020 got me to comparing some of the statistics that they highlighted about Internet Usage in 2000 in the USA and what I was doing then. 0% used social media but I can remember at the time I was working in a public library as the Online Services Librarian and we were already chatting with our clients and I was using RSS feeds to collate all the information I was already pulling from icons in the industry. We were trying to make conversations with our clients...they just weren't listening or most probably didn't really want to chat/interact with the Library. Anyway, just got on the internet wayback machine here to reminisce a bit about what I used to do then (or in 2002 when the snapshot was taken!)...too funny, I remember getting written up in a SLNSW report for creating illogical navigation names like iBranch....hmmmm, thinking we were a bit before our time really! You can find the wayback machine here if you want to have some fun.
There are so many interesting stats on this slideshow but I found it particularly interesting to see the increase usage of search engine from 35% to 54% daily usage. The slides went on to note that most people believe the info they find through search engines is accurate and reliable.. I think the issue for the LIS profession is that we know this belief could be challenged but do users care? Many times it is the not that the information is not accurate rather, it is incomplete...the search engine gives the user an incomplete picture of what they may be searching for. Unfortunately, for the LIS profession if people don't know what they don't know/don't find does it matter? Yes, if they are academics or researchers but the rest of us...
Anyway, while looking at the Libraries 2020 Slideshare, I discovered a related Slideshare presentation from Petaluma Secondary Librarians about "What we do and why it matters"...great overview of a school library and its benefits to the whole school community.
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