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Over the last 4 years at Red Deer Public Library, I have found that there is a fine line between social work and teen librarianship. I am quite comfortable with the tweeny boppers plunking themselves down in a chair every day after school (or during if they are skipping) and telling me all about their lives.  This I can handle, as usually they just want someone to nod and smile and offer the occasional bit of advice.

The problem has arisen with the high contingent of at-risk street teens using the library who inform me of serious problems such as addictions, pregnancies and suicidal thoughts. With these teens I try to refer them to someone more qualified in the area - a doctor, counsellor, specialist, etc, but follow through is limited and/ or non existent with many of them and I am left torn between the fact that A) I know they have not sought help and B) I know it is not my responsibility as a librarian to get them that help.

Or is it? It may not be in my job description, but to have a pregnant, drug addicted 14 year old that you know has fallen through the cracks of the system, one cannot help but feel a little responsible. Have my other fellow librarians found a way of successfully dealing with these issues?

Yesterday the Pew Internet in American Life project released a report on wireless Internet use. When I first heard about the report I didn’t think very broadly about what the data might have to say about the impact of access for teens (and for libraries for that matter). But, when I read several news reports that highlighted findings that wireless access, particularly on mobile devices, is serving to lessen the digital divide I started thinking about teens. While not everyone has what some might consider traditional internet access at home - a wired or wireless connection that is used with a laptop or desktop - that doesn’t mean that the Internet isn’t available in the home. People are accessing the Internet with laptops and desktops and they are using game consoles and handheld devices for their access.

If outside of the school teens use handheld devices and gaming consoles to access the Internet, we need to look at how our resources are provided to the age group. We need to make sure to provide access to programs and services in ways that work well for someone using an Internet enabled device. For example:

• It’s clearer now than ever before that we need to provide mobile versions of web pages, catalogs, and databases so that they display successfully on small screens. This is already something that libraries are doing, but perhaps we have to make this a bigger priority. (Mobile versions of library sites include New York Public Library and Skokie Public Library). If our web pages and databases aren’t easily read and scanned on the device someone is using at home, it’s likely that they will just look elsewhere, a place where the information is more easily read via the Internet enabled tool they use.
• We need to embrace the kinds of technologies that teens use via their cell phones, including SMS. This includes text messaging ask a librarian services. On a handheld device this is probably the easiest and quickest way for teens to get answers. Again, if we aren’t providing the answers on these devices in this way perhaps a teen will go somewhere else that is.
• Attention should be paid to developing and promoting applications for devices that support reading, searching, listening, viewing, and so on. Can teens download books, articles, audiobooks and read them on their handheld device or on a screen attached to a gaming console? Can they download a widget or application to their Internet enabled device in order to quickly call up the library catalog, a database, homework help tools, and so on? If this is how teens are accessing the Internet outside of school, shouldn’t these be tools the library provides?
• If teens are using their devices as a main way to connect to the Internet, the school and public library needs to develop opportunities to use these devices in order to learn safe and smart use. Instead of banning mobile devices in schools, teens should have the chance to use them in the school setting for research, collaboration, and content creation. By providing teens that opportunity in the school setting we give them the chance to learn, with adults, how to critically think about their use of the device. Similarly, if public libraries provide programs and services that support and even embrace mobile technologies, librarians have an opportunity to embed within those programs and services discussions with teens of positive use of the technologies.

For a long time librarians and educators have said that teens don’t have Internet access at home, and have suggested that because of that the educational and leisure programs, services, and resources provided by the library should not focus too heavily on using the Internet in order to take part. Can we really continue to say and believe this if teens are accessing the Internet outside of school, just not in traditional ways? While the Pew Internet in American Life research was collected by surveying adults 18 and older, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t relate to teens 12 to 18. I’d even venture to guess that it might be more true of teenagers.

I attended the rollout of Best Buy’s @15 TeenVoice 2009 study  on Monday, July 8.  Best Buy built the @15 website as a place for teens to find each other and express themselves and their concerns for the world, as well as suggest where Best Buy should donate its money to truly make a difference.  Best Buy tapped experts from around the country to mentor the teens and study their feedback.

1 - Identify the SPARK that lights up a teen (talents, interests, strengths)
2 - Measure the TVI (Teen Voice Index) which monitors teen involvement in social issues and civic life
3 - Measure the ROI (Relationships & Opportunities Index) which measures the community support around a teen 

For those of you familiar with YPulse, Anastasia Goodstein is a board member for this initiative and has a great blog post summarizing the information and what adults and communities can do to help support positive youth development. 

The research report, “Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want”, came out recently. Authored by an OCLC research team headed by Karen Calhoun, Vice President, WorldCat and Metadata Services, the report presents findings about the data quality expectations of catalog end users and librarians. I haven't actually had time to crack it yet myself (!) but am looking forward to the long flight to Amsterdam for the WorldCat Mashathon when I can.

From the news brief, the Online Catalogs report offers:

· Insight for readers seeking to define requirements for improved catalog data

· Information about the metadata elements that are most important to end users in determining if an item will meet his or her needs

· Support for the enhancements end users and librarians would like to see made in online library catalogs

· Insight into the end user’s discovery experience

· Findings for readers in areas associated with contributing, synchronizing or linking data from multiple sources in library catalogs and integrated library systems

If you've already read the report, what do you think? Do these findings ring true with your experience, or with what you observe about your users?

Eric is madly dashing around the office, trying to get ready for a presentation he's giving in Mexico--or he would have posted this himself.

But he knew I was NOT madly dashing around the office. In fact, I'm here on an almost leisurely Friday morning before the three-day weekend. I biked the baby to school today, as we have been doing for the past 2 weeks now. It turns out, it's practically as fast as the car and it may not be saving a ton of gas...but I decided it saves me feeling like a nincompoop for driving the 3 miles twice a day. Plus the fresh air, a bit of exercise, some drama as I turn onto the main road with lots of cars. All good.

But I digress. Penn State took the results from The College Students Perceptions report and compared it with their latest FACAC results, as reported by E-Tech.

Penn State students regularly came out on top, above national averages revealed by the report. Now, there are a number of factors that could be in play here:

• Penn State students are above average. (Probably quite likely, yes.)
• Students have gotten much more information literate since the report was published (less likely.)
• Librarians have become much more aware of the need to bridge the chasm between student perceptions and library offerings since the report was published (Overwhelmingly likely!)

Dear OCLC,

I’m sure you do this for some very important reason, but spending $16 to express mail me a copy of a report that I didn’t ask for (though it does look quite interesting) seems wasteful. I go to the post office once a week and all express mail does is makes my postmistress agitated. While WorldCat is closer to being useful for me — showing one copy of Jane Eyre shown that is actually in my state before the ones one state over; the closest copy actually being about a quarter mile from here — I’d love it if you could apply this money to some sort of teeny-library scholarship fund so that we could benefit from WorldCat in Vermont instead of just hearing about how we can raise more money to pay you with.

Thanks.
Jessamyn

The Media Management Center at Northwestern University released a report this month about the online news experiences of teens. Titled, If It Catches My Eye, there is a lot for librarians to consider in this document.

In the Implications and Recommendations section of the report the authors write:

What if news enterprises thought of the status quo – the current habits and preferences of teens – not as an unchangeable verdict on the news but as an opportunity and a challenge? What if they decided to:

• Aggressively court teens where they are now and then work over time to fan whatever sparks of interest they may have in news into a more robust flame of interest in various kinds of news?
• Make a special effort to encourage – and even increase the number of – teens who consider it part of their identity to follow and talk about the news?

I read that section and thought to myself, what if librarians changed "news" within that section and inserted the word libraries instead? It would then read:

What if libraries thought of the status quo – the current habits and preferences of teens – not as an unchangeable verdict on libraries but as an opportunity and a challenge? What if they decided to:

• Aggressively court teens where they are now and then work over time to fan whatever sparks of interest they may have in libraries into a more robust flame of interest in various kinds of information?
• Make a special effort to encourage – and even increase the number of – teens who consider it part of their identity to follow and talk about the library?

OK, there was one change that went from news to information instead of news to libraries, but the point remains the same. What's that point? We can't simply say, "Oh, teens aren't interested in libraries, that's just the way it is." Instead we have to find out what does interest teens, discover where they go to get support for those interests, and then join them in those places.

In terms of joining teens where they are, If It Catches My Eye includes recommendations for connecting with teens that librarians can use. Along with recommending to go where the teens already are the report recommends:

• Using humor and a sense of fun - the report mentions news stories about oddities as a way to accomplish this. In the library context why not focus on connecting teens to resources like the Guinness Book of World Records recently launched social networking site as a way to harness their sense of fun and sense of humor? This connection helps librarians to openly acknowledge what teens are interested in, and while acknowledging that it's possible to give teens some tips on being safe while in online social networking environments.
• Creating widgets for tools that teens already use - an earlier blog post discussed the idea of widgetizing homework for teens. The findings of this report support that idea and help demonstrate why it's important for libraries to create information gathering widgets for the tools that teens use.
• Enlisting support from parents and teachers - this is something librarians frequently work to accomplish. But, doesn't the technology that is available help create success in this area? For example, doesn't the need of parents and teachers to learn about the technology teens are using give librarians an opportunity to become central to that learning?
• Providing features/functionalities that teens like and use - for example, teens love to share what they find on the web with friends, how can libraries find ways to help them to do that information exchange successfully and easily?

There's much more in the report that connects to what librarians work to do with/for teens every day. Check it out and see what you can extract to use in your day-to-day work with the teens in your community.

Last week, the 2008 Horizon Report was released. This is a collaboration with the New Media Consortium (NMC) and EDUCAUSE.

The report "seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression within learning-focused organizations." The six technologies identified in this year's report that are predicted to have an impact on teaching and learning include; grassroots video, collaboration webs, mobile broadband, data mashups, collective intelligence, and social operating systems. Challenges as well as examples of how each are being used in organizations similar to those that many of us probably work at, are included. Take a look, or just check out the examples if you don't have time to read the entire report. Do you see other trends or challenges than the ones listed?

Posted by Kelly Czarnecki

As we have done for many years, OCLC will be hosting a Symposium at ALA Annual in DC. It will be June 22, 1:30 – 4:30 pm, at the Grand Hyatt Washington, Independence Ballroom A and registration is here. The topic of this one is related to our forthcoming report Sharing, Privacy and Trust in the Age of the Networked Community.

Title: Is the Library Open?

Hear from three experts on the issues of information privacy law, copyright, digital communication, intellectual property and patron privacy rights in relation to library policies.

The speakers are:
· Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and professor of privacy law at Georgetown University Law Center. "EPIC is a public interest research center in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values. EPIC publishes an award-winning e-mail and online newsletter on civil liberties in the information age – the EPIC Alert."

· Siva Vaidhyanathan, a cultural historian, media scholar and an associate professor of culture and communication at New York University. He blogs at Sivacracy.net. A journalist before he became a professor, he has written several books (including The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System) as well as for many periodicals. And he's been on The Daily Show, but you can't see that clip on YouTube anymore because of the Viacom copyright claim.

· Mary Minow, a library law consultant with LibraryLaw.com, coauthor of The Library’s Legal Answer Book and a public librarian for 10 years. She is the coauthor with Tomas Lipinski of The Library's Legal Answer Book (ALA Editions: 2003). She blogs at LibraryLaw.Blog and says this about herself, "I studied library law, that is the combined study of First Amendment, Copyright, Local Government Law, Disability Law, Negotiations etc. Now what I care about is sharing the most practical parts of the law that I learned, the good, the bad and the ugly, with my former colleagues, the librarians of the world."

Hands up, US readers...how many of your places of work have the Library Bill of Rights displayed somewhere in a public area in your library?

Second question. Are the non-librarians on your staff familiar with the Library Bill of Rights?

We got to musing on the visibility of these Rights when the small team working on our forthcoming report wondered among ourselves...have you ever seen the Library Bill of Rights displayed in a library? And the answer was, "no."

Why not, we wonder? As the document states: "...the following basic policies should guide their services." Shouldn't the people served in libraries know what the service promises are?

If you have the Library Bill of Rights displayed (or your country's equivalent), please let me know! And if you don't, tell me why not. Also, they haven't been amended since 1996. Do they need to be?

I do think it a bit odd that "libraries" stand in for "librarians." (That's a synecdoche for you non-English majors) It's as if doctors' codes referred to hospitals' responsibilities to patients--which they don't.

One criticism I have read about libraries' codes of ethics is that the individual practitioner is not explicitly held accountable (more on codes of ethics in a future post). Certainly, there are no librarians in the US LibraryBill of Rights.

In case you've forgotten, these Rights are:

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Material should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgement of free expression and free access to ideas.

V. A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.

VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

Adopted June 18, 1948. Amended february 2, 1961, and January 23, 1980, inclusion of "age" reaffirmed January 23, 1996, by the ALA Council.

As part of the work we've done on our next report, we had three discussion groups convened to ask young people questions about their use of social networking sites (like Facebook) and issues relating to privacy.

The first session was done at my hair salon, Rafiel's Signature Studio (hmmm, thought there was a web site, but I can't find it). The second and third were at Mcmaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The sessions were filmed and our in-house media wiz, Rich Skopin, took the raw film and turned it into five segments we used at the Symposium last month. We've put the segments up on the web, and you can watch them--they're all short. Scroll half way down this page for the links. (Below them you'll see the links for the podcasts from the Symposium)

Why my hair salon you might be wondering? During one appointment, I was chatting with Emily about what I was doing at work, and I asked her, so, do you use MySpace? Oh yes, she said, and so does everyone else here. Ah-ha! Instant focus group! Actually not all the staff is on MySpace--Raphael, the owner is not.

The McMaster groups were undergraduates in one and graduates in the other...and if you listen, you'll hear many references to MSN which seems to be more popular in Canada than in the US.

One of the evaluations that we got from the Symposium suggested we should "provide examples from a greater cross-section of society. Soundbites are all from very well-spoken young people." I think you'll agree that the young people are all very well-spoken, thoughtful and not unaware of the risks and issues related to using social media--but, I wonder if this commenter didn't realize that the staff of Rafiel's has high school educations and trade diplomas as compared to, say, the grad students working on their second or third degrees. Proof that being well-spoken is not a de facto by-product of advanced education.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the clips--and keep checking back to the report web site because we'll be adding more stuff as it's ready.