NextGen: What Will You Do Today?

By Rachel Singer Gordon -- Library Journal, 10/15/2006

Jokes from my father-in-law regularly grace my inbox, and the other day he forwarded one in which a young college student lectured a senior citizen on why she couldn't possibly understand his generation.

“You grew up in a different world, an almost primitive one, really,” the student proclaimed. “My generation grew up with cable TV and jet planes, and our spaceships have visited Mars. We have nuclear energy, electric cars, and computers on every desktop….”

The senior took advantage of the break in the student's litany, saying, “You're right, son. We didn't have those things when we were young. So we invented them!”

This particular joke started me thinking. What are we doing for the next generation? Today's librarians can get so caught up in day-to-day concerns that we sometimes lose sight of the larger picture. What do we want our libraries to look like in the future? How are we working every day to improve both our institutions and our profession?

One way for NextGens to help shape our profession's future is by lending our strengths and our support to movements like Library 2.0 (or L2). L2 takes a user-centered approach to librarianship, re­examining how we should be providing services to satisfy changing expectations and needs.

Library 2.0 requires putting the user at the heart of all of our services, in virtual as well as physical spaces. But while L2 incorporates technology (and obviously draws some of its tools and principles from Web 2.0), it involves more than just jumping on the technology bandwagon. For L2, technology is a tool, never a reason. [For more on Library 2.0, see netConnect, with this issue.]

Library 2.0 is an evolving target, but its goals and principles offer key values for the profession, including embracing change at all levels of library operation. We must recognize that library services and structures need to be flexible and must be able to respond rapidly to changing environments. Our user populations are constantly changing, from the technologies they use to their demographics and expectations. We need to change along with them.

Another vital L2 goal is to empower our users. A user-centered library draws on user input in creating services. This might mean listening to teens who ask for space of their own. It might mean hosting gaming nights or being responsive to Spanish speakers who ask that the library stock books in their native language. Work on embracing a philosophy of cooperation, rather than control. Reaching new populations, wherever they may be, is also a critical L2 value. For example, consider creating a library presence in MySpace or Facebook (start by unblocking them from your filters!). Whatever it takes, get out into your community, whether that means at student centers or shopping malls or looking into community-building sites like Flickr or into creating a library blog or wiki.

Make information available wherever the user requires it, whether that means providing reference assistance via instant messaging (while you're at it, unblock that as well!) or SMS. Look to design device-independent web pages (and databases and OPACs) that can be accessed anywhere, anytime, by an increasingly mobile population.

Simply put, think about ways to remove barriers. This can be as simple as rethinking our position on no cell phones, no drinks, and no instant messaging. (And we wonder why people run out the door to latch onto the free wireless access at Panera instead?) Do you still make people sign paper forms to use the Internet? Think about the “no” at your library and how you can turn that into a “yes.”

Get your users involved and incorporate your community's input, whether that means figuring out ways to let users tag or add reviews to your catalog or factoring patron input into long-range planning.

L2 recognizes that each library implements technology and services in ways appropriate to its community. We all start from different points and have different needs. Embrace this one-size-doesn't-fit-all approach. What better legacy could today's NextGens leave?

You may or may not personally identify with the superhero librarian meme, but we do talk a lot about the power of our profession. Libraries change lives. Libraries build communities. It's a powerful profession, and we as professionals must assume the responsibility to keep the field moving forward. As a NextGen librarian, what you do over the next few years will shape the future of this profession, both for the next generation of librarians and the next generation of users.