“The Networked Librarian”

I just watched Lee Rainie of the Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project give a speech for the Bay Area Library and Information Network. His points were interesting and relevant, but I wish he had more often made explicit connections between his material and libraries. I think the most important applicable idea he brought up was in highlighting the special jobs of libraries: providing targeted digital opportunities for those that utilize the library most (low socioeconomic classes, students, and poor seniors with health concerns) and offering educational opportunities for those late adopters who feel intimidated by the use of the Internet. We should be asking ourselves who our audience is and how we can best serve the majority of them, even if this means moving away from the traditional sense of a library space. Better yet, we should be questioning the users, themselves, on what they expect and what they desire for the role of libraries, taking advantage of their investment and ingenuity by inviting patrons to be “co-creators.” He suggested that libraries should be accessing the users who are the most engaged to aid the library in its development. This proposal seems to be in line with the theory behind the Pareto principle that suggests 80% of the effects are derived from 20% of the causes and I think that libraries would be well-advised to consider this principle when making decisions for their futures.