Johnson reading, Part 2

Towards the end of the reading, Johnson made a comment that saved this entire book for me - "moderation in everything." Yes, video games and television are good for you - they encourage critical thinking and problem solving skills, but sitting in front of them for too long can lead to behavior problems and weight problems (I've seen it happen).

Anyway, what does this mean for libraries and schools? Integration of technology. I'm lucky to work in a school where technology is embraced - students are in the computer lab for at least a half hour each week, plus there are two mobile laptop labs, along with digital still and video cameras, and all kinds of educational software available for teacher and student use. Technology isn't seamlessly integrated yet - some teachers are using their SmartBoards solely as projection screens, not interactive learning tools - but integration will come with education. Teachers and librarians need to be educated in how to best harness educational technology to benefit their students and patrons.

Does pop culture sophisticatedly deliver stupidity?

In response to the question about the Johnson reading: yes and no. I agree with what he says about television and film, as far as developing more complex storylines and making the reader mentally participate in the series, rather than a watching a self-contained episode (like most Law & Order and CSI shows). Johnson also makes a good argument for gaming, with the benefits of problem-solving and storytelling. But, most video games don't allow for true imaginative exploration (unless of course, you're the one developing the game). That's where reading truly wins - a reader has to develop the book's world in his mind's eye, whereas with video games, the player is presented with a pre-visualized world. This is why books are almost always better than the movies made from them: the reader has the "creative control" over how the book is presented.

Time for another personal anecdote: I was studying abroad in England when the first Harry Potter (and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone) movie was released. I had gotten about halfway through the book before I saw the movie, and I had envisioned a completely different world than what I saw on screen, and it ruined the book for me. It was a few months before I could pick up the book again to finish reading it. Since, I've become a huge Harry Potter book and movie fan, but I still have trouble correlating what I see in my mind's eye to what I see on the screen.

Can librarians utilize the Long Tail?

Short answer: sort of.

Long answer: I think the only way librarians can effectively utilize the Long Tail effect is by guiding patrons to the Long Tail by the power of suggestion. As I mentioned in an earlier post, librarians hold some power as "new tastemakers." If a patron is looking for a "hit" that's unavailable, the librarian can guide the patron to a "nonhit" that's similar, but part of the Long Tail, rather than the mainstream.

I do this all the time in my work. Kids will ask me for the latest, greatest book, and if it's not in, I try to guide them to something similar but less popular. I'm sure that I say "if you like [book x], then you might like [book y]" a dozen times a day. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, but it's important to me that I at least introduce the students to a new book or series.

Anderson reading 2

So, Anderson defines three forces of the long tail:

1. New producers - Democratized production - populates the Tail
2. New markets - Democratized distribution - makes content freely/widely available
3. New tastemakers - Amplified word of mouth - connects consumers to products, the "new" supply and demand

I can see libraries/librarians fitting in within the first and third forces. Let's first discuss the third force, the amplified word of mouth. Anderson defines the new tastemakers as "people whose opinions are respected." (p 107). Traditionally, libraries are respected as repositories of knowledge, making librarians purveyors of knowledge. It should follow that librari* (my new made-up term for "librarians/libraries") set the standard for what is important to know. After all, librari* decide which new books to acquire, which books to advertise in book clubs, and which books to feature in displays.

Even though librari* influence is over books, they can still have some play in the first force, as "new producers." Librari* can use web services, such as blogs and emails, to advertise books. Anderson discussed a new "exposure culture," where being found is the end-all. Librari* can use blogs to advertise new books and programs, and expose themselves to new users.

The second force, the new markets, really isn't relevant to libraries. The new market is online and available 24/7, worldwide, to anyone with an internet connection. Libraries are open 8-10 hours a day, 6-7 days a week, and are limited to the physical space which contains them. A library's physical market confines it to whatever the library physically holds, plus the holdings of associated libraries. There are a finite number of items and a finite number of people who can use those items at a given time. A pure digital market, such as iTunes, carries millions of holdings, and because they are stored digitally, can be accessed many times by many people.

Personal anecdote time: the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series is extremely popular in my K-5 library. We have 4 or 5 copies of the first (red) book, and 7 of the 2nd (blue) book. They flew off the shelves once school opened, and have been continually on hold ever since. Kids are extremely disappointed when they can't have one of the books right away, and some have said that they'll just have their parents buy it, so they can have it right away. The library cannot compete with Barnes & Noble, where dozens of copies are available at a moment's notice. Even though we physically advertise the book (force 1) and personally discuss it (force 3), we have a finite number of copies for a finite number of users. Simply said, we are an old market.

Anderson reading

So, will the library world benefit from the Long Tail effect?

I don't think so. The Long Tail is all about the niche market. Anderson refers to the internet as the "ultimate discovery tool," (p. 37) and the Long Tail is about using the internet to find the myriad non-hits. He discusses how online retailers like amazon.com have eradicated brick and mortar stores by offering a no-boundaries online shop. Online stores are global; they are unfettered by things like walls and location.

Libraries, unfortunately, are limited by walls and location. My local library is four miles from my house. However, via the public library system, I can borrow from any of the 38 libraries in Morris County. There are still walls on those libraries. Borders.com, on the other hand, doesn't have walls. If I can't find a book at my local library, or any of the other 37 libraries in Morris County, you bet I'm going to find it online. Because libraries are only able to hold so many books, I think that as the niches get narrower and the tail gets longer, libraries won't be able to supply the demand.

Brown & Duguid

(Let me start by saying that I followed the Twitter conversation about these chapters, and I agree with everyone else who complained about B&D. It's boring and dense and I just don't get it. Disclaimer: I work with children and am more well-versed in picture books than "academic" readings. I am not an "academic" in any traditional sense of the word, though I do wear glasses and read a lot.)

One point that I took away from the B&D readings this week were the differences between knowledge and information. Particularly, I was interested in their description of how each is acquired. Information is a commodity, while knowledge is a possesion. When you want to learn about something, you need information. When you want to learn to be something, you need knowledge (p. 128).

This relates to their discussion of learning by doing (pgs. 130-131). They discussed a study done by educational psychologists on how children best learn language - by practice, or by reading a dictionary. Children who learned by practice learned far more than children who learned via a book. I saw this firsthand when I taught pre-K. I taught my class the "theory" of letters - what they look like, the sounds they make. Some kids had trouble with the rote learning, but they all blossomed when we played with the letter mats. I scrambled up letter mats on the floor, and had children jump to certain letters - random at first, then spelling out their names and sight words. Learning the theory of something is important, and gives you a lot of information. Learning by practicing something gives you knowledge. If information gives you power, knowledge gives you success.

As far as implications for the US education system - teachers should be concerned with cultivating knowledge, not just delivering information. B&D say on p. 136 that "people learn in response to need." Shouldn't it be a teacher's job to ensure that there is no need? When my private school preschoolers moved on to public school kindergarten, several parents said that their children were miles ahead of the other kids, because they already knew letters, numbers, counting, writing, etc. They possessed that knowledge, which made them better students. Teachers, especially elementary school teachers, have the incredibly important job of delivering information and helping students convert that information into knowledge.

Feed, pt. 2

So I guess I went a little overboard with my first post on Feed. This one will be shorter :) I both enjoyed and disliked the book. As a stand-alone piece of literature, it was great. I'm not a big sci-fi fan (unless you consider Harry Potter sci-fi, which is a whole 'nother discussion), but as a piece of literature, I thought it was well written.

However, as a societal commentary, I was a little disturbed by it. I hope this isn't where society is going. The idea of feeds literally becoming parts of our bodies disgusts me. I believe that it's important for everyone, not just kids and teens, to "disconnect" every once in a while. As much as I enjoy my general internet tomfoolery, there are some days when I just don't want to be around the computer. The children in Feed didn't have that opportunity, and it makes me sad that some people actually want a life so connected.

The dumbing-down of language, or "teenspeak," is another disconcerting point. I hear it all the time, and it drives me crazy. Many of the students at my school, and many of the students in my graduate courses (about 20 years dividing the two groups) pepper their sentences with the words, "like, um, yeah, uh, y'know, I dunno." Not only is it difficult for them to be understood, it makes them sound unintelligent.

Overall, I think the book was written as something of a warning. If we continue at the path we're going, look at where we'll end up - feeds in our heads, hacking our own bodies, disconnect and die. Anderson seems to believe that we're too connected for our own collective good.

Feed

I had read Feed for another class (Materials for Young Adults) last spring, and enjoyed it then. However, re-reading it in the context of this class was different. I picked up on things I hadn't noticed before, and it made me think about my own habits.

My favorite part of the book is the dedication - "To all those who resist the feed." Right from the start, Anderson displays an obviously dystopian view of the future. In this future world, consumerism is the name of the game, and everyone's feeds are there to tell them what to buy, what's cool, what to think. Life is simple, and nobody needs to think - the feed thinks for them (see p. 80-81 in the book).

Anderson draws many parallels to today's teens and the teens in the book. They both have their own slang, are tuned into trends, are connected to each other, and experiement with drugs. While teens today use internet short-hand slang (lol, brb, j/k) in everyday speech and writing, the teens in the book use null for boring, unit for guy/girl, mal for bad, and (my favorite), brag for cool. Teens today are connected to each other via always-on cell phones, IM, and social networking sites like MySpace. In the book, the teens are connected via wireless chatlines embedded in their brains. Teens today experiement with all kinds of drugs, from prescription drugs to pot. Teens in the book get scrambled or go mal, which is a way of hacking their internal feeds and going haywire. Feed reminds me of Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series. The teens in that book use their own language, and though they don't have internal feeds, they do have computers monitoring their every move.

I don't know if Anderson's view of the future is possible in the ways he describes it (pod-like homes, vacations on the Moon, flying cars), but the feeds he describes are practically here, they're just not internalized (yet?). We want to be instantly satiated like the kids in the book are - but to the point that nothing is new and exciting? What's clear is that we have become accustomed to instant gratification. Photos can be viewed instantly on a digital camera, and they can be printed in less than an hour. Whole meals can be cooked in the microwave in a matter of minutes. Everything we need is a click away online. Is this good, necessary? Is it good that in the middle of this post, I stopped to check my email? Even while I'm writing, I'm thinking about the myraid other things I could/should/want to be doing online - emailing friends about a party next weekend, seeing if the shoes I want are on sale yet, planning a mini-vacation for November. Doing all of those things requires me to visit many websites. Would it be good if I could just think about all that content and have it delivered to me? The kids in the book would think so.

Personally, Anderson's idea of the feed scares me. Earlier in the week, I signed up for Bloglines and Google Reader. I instantly fell in love with GR - all my feeds in one place! Yes, it's convenient. But is it necessary? Is it that much of a hassle to visit each website? It has simplified my life and cut down on the time I spend online, but is it simplifying me? Technology does save us a lot of time, but we have to be careful not to lose ourselves in order to save a few minutes.

Brown & Duguid, as related to librarians

Brown & Duguid make some interesting points on technology and it's antisocial tendencies. They believe that technology is so driven to bring people together that it drives them apart, as shown in their discussion of the Chiat/Day "hot desking" experiement. While hot desking, the concept of working from wherever there's an internet connection, looked good on paper, it failed miserably in real life. The experiement showed that people need to work together physically as well as digitally to get stuff done. They also discussed how technology is evolving so rapidly that people are expected to conform to it, not the other way around. Technology must be harnessed and used in such a way that it both enhances and expedites office work. Too often, so much time and money is spent to learn or fix technology that it eventually becomes a money pit - a money pit that nobody wants to admit to seeing, but into which everyone will fall.

Libraries and librarians are often afraid of new technologies. They worry that users won't accept them, that technologies will be too expensive or cumbersome to use, or that "the old way works, so why change." Libraries fall into what Brown & Duguid call the "social periphery," a group of organizations that shape the way we live and work. Unfortunately, the social periphery has been cast aside as the digital revolution tunnels forwards, so the social periphery must fight to be included. Libraries must fight to stay relevant, and they must do that by not only embracing, but harnessing new technologies to their best use.

Obviously, not every little piece of new technology will work in a library, but libraries can model the appropriate use of technology, and in turn, the patrons will adapt to it and the library will remain relevant. It's similar to Brown & Duguid's discussion of Bell and his telephone. He figured that if the telephone was put into the hands of the people, they'd figure out how to use it. Give people the opportunity to see firsthand the technology in action, and they will respond. Libraries can do the same with new technologies. They can offer a "virtual reference" service via email or chat. If one patron has a successful experience using it, that patron will tell a friend, who will in turn tell a friend, and eventually patrons will see virtual reference as a standard practice. As users change and adapt to new technologies, so must libraries. They can maintain a physical presence with a brick-and-mortar building, but it is necessary for libraries to develop and maintain a virtual presence online.