Librarians Go Trendspotting

By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 3/1/2006

Librarians need to embrace the tech tools long ago co-opted by their younger patrons, such as instant messaging and the ubiquitous Google. That’s the conclusion of the Library Information Technology Association (LITA), the American Library Association’s (ALA) technology arm, which met in January to discuss upcoming trends in library services at ALA’s annual midwinter meeting.

First up: ditching the expensive chat software created just for libraries and installing instant-messaging software, a standard communication tool used by teens and adult patrons alike that is also free. “[Instant messaging is] great because you immediately see the other librarians who are on their list,” says Jennifer Ward, head of Web services at the University of Washington in Seattle, who also chairs LITA’s top technology trends committee.

Sarah Houghton, e-services librarian at the Marin County (CA) Free Library, actually had business cards printed up with her library’s IM handle and distributed them at pizza parlors and skateboard parks in the local community. “You have to go to where the teens are,” she says.

And then there’s Google—the search engine of choice for nearly half of all online queries worldwide, according to OneStat, a Web analytics firm. “That’s what we know students are using,” adds Ward. Google’s Library Project aims to connect users with books they find through its site by retrieving selected scanned pages, and also via links to booksellers and libraries—although few libraries are involved as of yet.

A key strategy, says Houghton, is just getting into spaces where teens hang out—whether it’s at the skate park or in a virtual environment online. Her idea? Have libraries create profiles on popular social networking sites, such as MySpace, making the institution more accessible to teens. “It says, 'Here we are, we’re in your community,’” says Houghton. “Here’s what we can do for you.”