Elisabeth Leonard on Libraries

Do negative advertisements go too far?

While walking on the treadmill this morning, I watched a segment on the Today show about an ad that is running in NYC.  The ad is intended to stop smokers from smoking, presumably by playing on their emotional connection to their children (I won't go off on a tangent that not every adult has children, but that thought did cross my mind).  The ad shows a crying child who appears to be abandoned in a public place. The Today show reported that since the ad began running, calls to the smoking cessation hotline have increased substantially.  What they don't report is WHY -- after all, the rest of the segment was spent talking about how the ad was created (the concern is that this child was not acting; he was perhaps forced to cry).

Here's what I want to know: while I am all for campaigns that promote healthy behavior, when did guilt become such a powerful ....WEAPON?  Sex sells and guilt causes you to stop?  At some point, advertisers and the people who pay them need to consider that it isn't enough to just sell a product (or in this case, to stop people from using a product).  I want to be treated not just as someone with emotions, but as someone who can think.  Don't use guilt to cause me to change my behavior...it won't change my behavior long term, which is what I would like to think the goal of any campaign really is.

The more things change...

I am working on a paper this month on what innovations academic libraries have initiated in the last 15 years.  To prepare for it, i am reading Technological innovation in libraries, 1860-1960.  In it I read:

Like the automobile, the radio is far-reaching in its influence.  The whole family comes under its spell.  There are thousands of individuals who appear to be quite bewitched by this instrument and its myserious power....Are we approaching the decline and fall of the printed book and its influence upon civilization? (Sherman, Library Journal, 1924)

Now fast forward to the present and all the reports on the decline in reading:

• Literary Reading in Dramatic Decline, According to National Endowment for the Arts Survey
• Fewer Than Half of American Adults Now Read LiteratureHemingway as 'Chick-Lit' When it comes to fiction, the gender gap is at its widest. Men account for only 20 percent of the fiction market, according to surveys conducted in the U.S., Canada and Britain.
• Literacy of College Graduates Is on Decline Survey's Finding of a Drop in Reading Proficiency Is Inexplicable, Experts Say
• To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence. Americans are reading less and reading less well! 

• Reading scores for 12th-grade readers fell significantly from 1992 to 2005, with the sharpest declines among lower-level readers.
• 2005 reading scores for male 12th-graders are 13 points lower than for female 12th-graders, and that gender gap has widened since 1992.
• Reading scores for American adults of almost all education levels have deteriorated, notably among the best-educated groups. From 1992 to 2003, the percentage of adults with graduate school experience who were rated proficient in prose reading dropped by 10 points, a 20 percent rate of decline.

This is not to put the blame on radio, TV, or the Internet.  Instead, it is intended to be a call to action for all librarians.  If you believe literacy is important, what is YOUR library doing to change this?  A READ poster won't make a difference, especially to people who never see it.

I saw a campaign this week for Red Cross, the Become a Hero campaign.  Perhaps we need to send a similar message, not just for fundraising, but for raising literacy and raising the involvement of libraries in this crisis.

I'm just sayin'.

Impact of technology on mental health

I am sitting in the plenary session (Dr Andrew Campbell is the speaker) on the impact of technology on mental health.  Here on some rough notes:
We must work between the silos: particularly of interest for the speaker, how psychology meshes with information science; How information science affects health
His research n using the Internet to help people with Social Phobia was discouraged: was told the Internet was a fad and he was killing his career by pursuing his research!
He looks at how technology will help/hinder behavioral health (cyberpsychology), specifically at the following questions:

1. Is the internet addictive?
2. Can info/cs help people with disabilities on a practical level?
3. How can psych team with IS more effectively to benefit society?

Things we know about behavioral change from info communication technology use:

• We want uncensored info, but we are worried about it
• Porn has contributed to innovations in info (banking, security, privacy/anonymity, multimedia)
• Financial and identity fraud increasing
• Cyberterrorism
• Misinformation
• Change in the use of language (blended language)
• Youth are interacting with people differently
• Tech is embedded in who youth are as people (says it would damage the youth if it was taken away from them!)
• We are now, as a global society, learning more about the world
• Believes that the goal is to improve information sharing, in the way that the objective was once to improve health (interesting thought that we have replaced that goal, rather than added info sharing as a new goal)
• Aggression increases from video games (Iowa State's Craig Anderson), but why are violent video games so captivating?

Odds and ends

• He uses games to help children communicate more effectively about their problems.  Therapeutic gaming includes "remission" from Hope Labs (2006) and Journey to the Wild Divine (a biofeedback game for ADHD -- Amon & Campbell, 2008)
• Games involve kids in their own self-learning
• As we age, only a few groups remain important to us (the groups are: fun, captivation, dynamic  -- all are uses of technology)
• www.myspace.com/nycteen_mindsace is an example of a 2nd generation mental health website

Gen Y's expect:

•  For us all to get it.  And: If you don't get it, why interact with that person?
• Interested in the now, not in old approaches
• Multitask (talk, type, play and learn simultaneously) their brains are as busy as a 2 year old's...according to MRI's
• More erratic, socially prone to anxiety and stress, possibly less likely to make social attachments
• Predicts that they will, as adults, be ambitious, self-conscious, society oriented, lower motivated (need direction), better able to think outside the box; highly susceptible to mental illness (depression and anxiety)

SLA Centennial!

Did you know it's the 100th anniversary of the Special Libraries Association?!  I admit that I didn't realize SLA had been around for so long.  Some background info:

SLA was founded in 1909 by a group of librarians who thought that libraries serving business, government, social agencies, and parts of the academic community were different from other libraries. These "special"--or more aptly, "specialized"--libraries at first were distinguished by being subject collections with a specialized clientele, but gradually it was recognized that their chief characteristic was that they existed to serve the organization of which they were a part. Their purpose was not education per se but the delivery of practical, focused, and even filtered information to the executives and other clients within their organizations. Specialist librarians, who have come to be called "information professionals," have a unique relationship as collaborators with their users.

Over the past one hundred years, SLA members have been working on the technological edge, moving into knowledge services, and adapting to new roles to keep up with the times. We are entrepreneurial--we embrace change and use our knowledge and vision to further the goals of our organizations. Corporate information professionals synthesize strategic information to help executives make the decisions necessary for business to thrive. Government info pros organize and deliver information for congressional, parliamentary, judicial, and executive leaders to make policy decisions. Academic special librarians organize, digitize, and deliver research information so professors and students can advance knowledge.

From http://www.sla.org/content/Events/centennial/centennialmessage.cfm

SLA has created an area just to celebrate libraries and SLA.  There's information on a video contest, commentary about the future of the profession, 100 Innovations that Have Changed Librarianship, and much more.

Good news!

National Endowment for the Arts Report Finds Fiction Reading on the Rise - NYTimes.com.

After years of bemoaning the decline of a literary culture in the United States, the National Endowment for the Arts says in a report that it now believes a quarter-century of precipitous decline in fiction reading has reversed.

Odds and Ends

I was struck today by 2 pieces of news: Facebook is up to 150 million users (half of whom use Facebook daily!) and in other news, a guy is being sued for suggesting on a website that his chiropractor sucks (my word, not his).  Now, these two pieces of news may seem dissimilar, but for me, they both illustrate how use of the web has become part of our daily lives.  We post things online that we regularly would have said in person to friends -- and we are spending A LOT of time online doing casual things like using Facebook and telling the world what we think of our doctors.  How we use the web has become seamless to us, so much so that I bet the guy that is getting sued was shocked by the news (I imagine he didn't think the chiropractor would ever know what he wrote, believing that his use was both casual and hidden by the massive amount of other bits and pieces of information on the web).

When librarians think about how we talk to our patrons about the web, we should keep in mind what they currently use it for -- and remember that they are entagled in that web....and so are we!

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An update: the original post about the chiropractor appears to have been removed from Yelp.  Now, what remains:

A misunderstanding between both parties led us to act out of hand. I chose to ignore Dr. Biegel's initial request to discuss my posting. In hindsight, I should have remained open to his concerns. Both Dr. Biegel and I strongly believe in a person's right to express their opinions in a public forum.

We both encourage the internet community to act responsibly.  From: http://www.yelp.com/biz/advanced-chiropractic-center-san-francisco 
Maybe part of the settlement?

“Living and Learning With New Media.”

In a new report, “Living and Learning With New Media”, how social media fit into the lives of teens is explored.  Interesting findings include:

• Most youth use social networks to extend their existing friendships, not to create new relationships.
• "A smaller number of youth also use the online world to explore interests and find information that goes beyond what they have access to at school or in their local community.  Online groups enable youth to connect to peers who share specialized and niche interests of various kinds, whether that is online gaming, creative writing, video editing, or other artistic endeavors."
• "Through trial and error, youth add new media skills to their repertoire, such as how to create a video or game, or customize their MySpace page. Teens then share their creations and receive feedback from others online. By its immediacy and breadth of information, the digital world lowers barriers to self-directed learning."
• In a term new to me, "some youth “geek out” and dive into a topic or talent...with the goal of improving their craft and gaining reputation among expert peers."

customer service

The last few times I've gone shopping, I have been astounded by the lack of great customer service in retail.  I don't know if the clerks are overworked, underappreciated, cranky, or just don't care, but I rarely remember having such consistently careless service.  I am pleased to say that this week, things have turned around!  Kudos to the young man at Paneras who didn't ask me to move from where I stood to the register that was open at another counter.  In fact, he seemed to treat it apologetically that he was having to take the time to rush over to the other register to ring me up (he then rushed back to get my money -- and back again with change)!  Honestly, it was a treat.  Kudos too to the student worker at the Davis Library at UNC who greeted me cheerfully when I checked out, smiled when I tried to be funny (it was a lame attempt) and who got excited when she offered me a bag: "ooh!" she excalimed when she saw my backpack was full..."Would you like a bag?  We just got some new ones!"  Now, last time I asked for a bag, I got a ripped grocery bag.  The new bag?  Very nice!  Way to go Davis Library and way to go friendly circ student.  I left with a bounce it my step.  And for anyone reading who works in public service...really, the little smile, the small gesture, these things REALLY make a difference to the person you are helping.  I swear.

What's your voice?

The very best thing about the last couple years is that I have had been able to take the time to really consider my point of view and to share my voice.  I don't want to sound like I am whining -- no employer has ever tried to stifle my voice -- but I'm not sure I really knew what it was until recently.  I am finding that my passion for libraries is much deeper than I had thought and that it is often something I feel deepest when I am thinking as a reader, rather than as a librarian!  Now, I love being a librarian, I just sometimes feel that my voice isn't heard within libraries, but that is one that is shared by many of my fellow readers.  Since I now know my voice, I have been speaking -- sometimes softly, sometimes loudly.  And to my surprise, my voice is welcomed more than I had expected!  Not always shared, but welcomed...well....one step at a time, right? 

So this is my challenge to all of you -- find your voice and speak with it.  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Odd marketing choice

So today I discovered that some of my favorite Mad Men characters have accounts on Twitter!  I was delighted to hear from Betty for example.   To figure out who else I might befriend, I headed to Google, only to find that AMC originally asked Twitter to remove the accounts, because they had been created by fans!  Now, I'd understand if the fans had the characters saying things that were, well, out of character, but instead, the entries I've read really are an homage to the show. 

I mention this here because we should all think carefully about the relationships we have with our customers -- and how our actions can not only impact the person you are directing that action to, but how our actions are perceived by others.  There's no need to create an unpleasant situation!  Be happy when you have found your audience -- and then try nurturing them.