Action for Libraries
The Great TechScape: What Has I Gots in My Pocketses?
By Shelly Drumm
Let's do a little experiment. If I asked you to give up one of the following devices, which would you be the least likely to choose?
- Your cell phone?
- Your television?
- Your computer?
Chances are, if you chose television, you're a baby boomer or beyond. It turns out, according to a new study from Forrester Research, that the younger you are, the weaker the gravitational pull of television becomes. You may watch it, but you don't need it. But for boomers and seniors, the thing is almost a black hole, exerting a force so powerful that almost 45 percent of seniors and some 35-ish percent of boomers say that they can't live without it. Those between the ages of 18 and 26? Less than 20 percent love their TV that much. So much for the characterization of kids as the embodiment of sedentary couch potato-dom.
While the kids may be turning off their TVs, they're certainly not dropping out. In fact, they're becoming even more tuned in. Mobile devices - things like Palm Pilots and Blackberries, laptops, iPods and cell phones - are allowing people to be more and more connected from more and more places. In 2006, 50 percent of students heading off to college did so not with a desktop computer, but with a laptop computer instead. Cell phones have saturated college campuses, where almost all students carry one. iPods and other portable MP3 players (owned by 41 percent of the college-bound in 2006) allow users to get news and more via podcasts whenever and wherever they are.
These young people are not particularly concerned about how they're connecting, so long as they're always connected. Increasingly, the tool that connects them is pocket-sized. And something to consider here is that people seem to stick with the technology they grow up with, the Forrester Research study a case in point. What does this mean for libraries? It means we need to start paying attention to mobile technology because it's probably here to stay. Below are some of my fave take-it-with-me tools and technologies and a few thoughts on the implications for libraries.
Google SMS and Voice Local Search
Yes, Google really is doing a little bit of everything. Need to find a great pizza joint in a new neighborhood? Need a quick definition? Send a text message to GOOGLE (466453), and Google will text you back, usually in a matter of seconds. For specifics, including the kind of information you can get and syntax, check out www.google.com/intl/en_us/mobile/sms/. And if your thumbs aren't quite as nimble as your average tween's, you can always call Google Voice Local Search and ask, although fewer kinds of searches are available this way. Libraries haven't widely adopted texting as a method of delivering information, and for good reason. The 160 (or so) character limit doesn't really lend itself to the thorough coverage we pride ourselves on delivering. But what about those reference calls that ask things like "How late are you open today?" and "Where's the branch nearest me?" Something to consider.
Twitter
Effectively a micro-blogging platform, Twitter allows users to send and receive super short (140 characters or less) blog posts via the Web, cell phones or instant messaging clients (among others). It's opened itself wide up for innovation, too, so lots of developers are adding to the mix and making some amazing spinoffs and mashups. Twitter is, of course, RSS enabled, too, so tweets (yeah, that's what a Twitter-ized message is called) can be fed onto any Web site. Things libraries could do with Twitter? Get your patrons subscribed to your tweets, and you could broadcast daily library news bites, trivia contests, programming updates and more. And since Twitter allows users to send direct messages to other users, instead of generally broadcasting them, it's possible to use it to create a sort of micro-reference tool. Of course, you want to make sure everyone who subscribes via text messaging understands that they will be responsible for making sure they have a text-friendly cellular account.
My Cell Phone's Web Browser
Okay, it's certainly not ideal to read up on the news on a screen that's 140 pixels wide. But still I often find myself browsing the Web on my cell phone. It's great when I'm waiting at the carwash, riding the bus or trying to win a bet on whether the actress that was in "An Officer and a Gentleman" is the same one that was in "Amityville Horror" (for the record, two different people. Thanks Google Mobile!). Ideal? Probably not. But riffing off Crosby, Stills and Nash and with a hat tip to Lee Rainie, if I can't be with the tool I prefer, I'll use the one I'm with. And I don't think I'm alone.
What does this mean for libraries? Make sure your Web site is mobile friendly. Most mobile browsers will read a semantically marked up Web page, but they'll strip the CSS right off of it. Some libraries are designing basic sites specifically for mobile users that have just the basics, like this one from the Ohio Public Library Information Network.
In short, cell phones and other mobile technologies are here to stay! In Japan, the barometer of our shared techno-future, cell phones and their accouterments are called simply "keitai" (loosely meaning something portable), and keitai culture is a huge part of Japanese society. Housewives use keitai to take two-minute language lessons while they wait for the subway. For teens, they're personal accessories that keep them in constant contact with friends and family. The pervasiveness of mobile devices in Japan has given rise to something that has been dubbed "oyayubi-zoku," or the "thumb tribes" - young hipsters typing away on their mobile devices as they roam the streets of Tokyo and beyond. Keitai are more than just cool new tools - they're portals to a mobile universe. When the nascent thumb tribe-ers in your neighborhood start looking for you in that world, will you be there, ready and waiting?