Michael Habib-
via Fred Stutzman: Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), article 1.
Archive for the 'Students' Category
A few days ago, Peter Bromberg of Library Garden posted a version of an essay called “Library as Place”. I had the good fortune to meet Peter at Library Camp a few weeks ago, and I wholeheartedly agree with the arguments of his essay. However, I feel it is important that we, as librarians, look beyond the walls of the library when discussing library as place. We need to expand our vision to include digital library as place. We are already doing this implicitly by incorporating social tools such as blogs and wikis into our websites. However, by explicately acknowledging this phenomenon, we can utilize what we already know about the physical library as place when building online communities. In fact, I originally created my Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model to demonstrate the parallels between physical and virtual library places. It was only after completing the model that I took the additional step of recognizing the virtual library places as Library 2.0.
Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model Basic v2
(green = third place)
(green = third place)
When discussing library as place, Peter brings in the concept of “third place”. It is exactly this version of physical library as place that my model hopes to parallel in the virtual world. Peter explains:
By our very nature we offer people a ““third place”” (not home, not work) where they can come to explore, imagine, think, learn, play, and reflect. Our function as a ““third place”” has never been more important to our continued health and relevance. If libraries are to survive and thrive we must redouble our efforts and refocus our energies to ensure that we are not only ““third places” but destinations of choice.
Taken in a different context, isn’t this exactly what we are trying to transform our web sites into? MySpace, Facebook, and Flickr are wonderful examples of the online third places that people spend their time. What is different about the virtual world is that it is easier to incorporate the library into other third places. For example, if a patron is on your library’s MySpace page, then it could be argued that they are both at MySpace and your Library.
For those who are having trouble conceptualizing of the web as a place, lets look at the example of Second Life instead. As a 3D virtual world, Second Life is more obviously a place. The Second Life Library 2.0 is also the most obvious example of digital library as third place. If a patron is at their house on their computer in Second Life at Library 2.0, where are they? If they are focused enough, they are at the Second Life Library 2.0. Where we are is often more mental than it is physical. By embracing this concept, we will be able to build more compelling physical and virtual places. How might we go about this? Peter asks the following:
Why would someone in our community choose to spend their time here rather than somewhere else? Related questions might be: What does the library look like, smell like, feel like, and sound like? What do our signs communicate? What kind of environment are we offering to the community and how do library staff contribute to the creation of a friendly, welcoming environment?
Outside of smell, couldn’t we apply all of these questions to our websites? To conclude, the next time you find yourself discussing “library as place”, please ask how the discussion would apply to the online world.
Technorati tags: libraryasplace library2.0 secondlife thirdplace academiclibrary20
,or, The Central Problem of Library 2.0: Identity
I am a little late on this topic, but feel it is important to add my 2 cents. Fred and Terrell have already laid the groundwork for what I am going to say by focusing the conversation away from privacy to identity. While much of this repeats what they have already said, I believe my point is a little different. This post will first examine what could have been done differently and then look at the underlying causes of this issue. Lastly, I will examine what this experience teaches us about how we should implement Library 2.0 services.
It has been interesting to see students’ reactions to the “new” Facebook. It appears to me that Facebook’s biggest mistake was rolling it out as an automatic opt-in feature. Chances are that if they quietly added it in the background, it would have spread virally without a peep.
For example, lets say Facebook added a little link somewhere on the page that says, “Want to make it easier for your friends to stay updated on what you are doing, try the new Facebook feeds?” A few students would notice this and think, “Cool now I can use this new feature that no one else knows about.” When one of their friends visited their page next, they would see the feeds complete with the notification that their friend had begun using the feeds. In this way most students would have first been introduced to the service by invading their friend’s privacy and not their friends invading theirs.
The final ingredient for a successful implementation strategy would have been to give students control over what aspects of their Facebook lives they want to share through the feeds. By turning all the feeds on automatically, students were shocked to see something they thought was private broadcast to their networks. For example, many students might be glad to share new groups they joined or friends they have made, but some students might not want all of their comments immediately apparent. To summarize:
- Bait early-adopters. There were students waiting for this to happen who would have chosen to turn the feature on immediately and then pressured their friends to do so.
- Let students choose to turn the service on based off their experiences with the profiles of early-adopters.
- Let students choose what aspects of their life they want to highlight and which they would rather slide under the radar.
This brings us back to the title of this post. When it comes to our identities, we like having control over how we present ourselves to the world. That is one of the reasons that social networking sites are so useful to college students. It is a way to mold your identity so that you can determine who your friends are to be. Social networking profiles and interactions present us as we wish to be seen. Given this, students were using Facebook to present different versions of themselves to different friends. When this illusion was broken, they in effect lost control of their identities. I would thus argue that the underlying concern of most students is not a loss of their privacy, but a loss of their identity. Students don’t mind sharing their personal information with the world, but want to have control over when and how it is shared.
However, if this experience gets students to think more about how they present themselves in their virtual communities, it is a good thing. So far, this experience seems to have done more to drill home the reality of online life than either university instruction or the press.
So what does this mean for Library 2.0?
First, we might want to change Rory Litwin’s primary problem of Library 2.0 from privacy to identity. This might be a better way to explain these principles to a group of students who are accustomed to sharing their data. Privacy is how we think of these issues, but is it how our users think of them?
Second, we can use this as a guiding principle when developing Library 2.0 systems. What people are researching and reading for pleasure presents a remarkable amount about their identity. We need to design systems that allow users to have control over how they present their identity. If a user wants to appear as though they read Joyce and not Grisham, then we need to allow them this choice. We also need to create ways that users can mask their identities or create multiple identities. For example, this blog is a central part of my professional identity and my MySpace account is a central part of my (online) social identity. While I have chosen to attach my real name to both, it is comforting to know that I could have chosen to present one or the other anonymously.
Third, it shows that we have a long way to go in integrating content creation skills into our information literacy programs. However, we now have an excellent example to use when discussing responsible content creation. In my previous response to Rory’s privacy post, I highlighted three information literacy skills that I felt we needed to teach as a result of an increasingly read/write world. Given this movement in understanding from privacy to identity, the three skills we need to teach would now be:
- Identity
- Ownership
- Security
To gain a further understanding of why I feel these are the three primary principles, I encourage you to read my original response to Rory.
Technorati tags: facebook identity privacy socialnetworking web20 library20
I have updated the original Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model. The new version aims to maintain the simplicity of the original, while adding a few examples and using more precise language. Also worth noting is that the line separating the physical and virtual environments is now dotted to signify the artificial nature of this boundary.
This model presents a view of how students might view the library as place in relation to their academic and social lives. It is at this intersection that I propose Library 2.0 has begun to materialize. The primary goal of the model is to encourage brainstorming over how we can develop virtual environments that will fit into students’ lives. However, I would argue that new collaborative spaces in the physical environment could also be viewed as part of L2 in so much as they are responses to changing learning styles that are partially brought on by the social nature of Web 2.0 tools. In this way, a definition of L2 that focuses on Web 2.0 might include some innovative services in the physical environment. This said, it is my belief that L2 is primarily useful as a concept for developing new online tools. To learn more about this model, you can check out the post accompanying the first model here. The comments and links at the bottom of that page will help guide one through the discussions of the original model.
Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model Basic v2
I have also created a more detailed version of the model. In this version the boundary between physical and virtual has vanished. Furthermore, this model includes interaction types as well as places. Instead of focusing on exact tasks such as shaking hands (physical) or commenting (virtual), I have looked at interactions in a broader way. At this point, the key is a little confusing on the model, so please use the revised key posted below the model. However, the basic goal is to get people thinking about designing virtual and physical places according to the types of social interactions our patrons will be having in those environments. You will also notice that ALL of the interactions mentioned occur in both the physical and virtual places. Of course we will be seeing more places inhabiting both physical and virtual as well. For example, virtual group study rooms might supplement our physical study rooms.
The scale at the bottom of the model highlights some of the key spectra that lie between a student’s social and academic lives. Again, it is my argument that the library inhabits a space somewhere in the middle ground between these extremes.
Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model Detailed
(REVISED KEY:
underlined = physical
uppercase = virtual
interactions or spaces can be both
———————————-
non-italics = spaces
italics = interactions)
underlined = physical
uppercase = virtual
interactions or spaces can be both
———————————-
non-italics = spaces
italics = interactions)
I am still working on these models and final drafts will be included in the second part of my Master’s Paper. I am also developing a model to describe Library 2.0 in general. I should have the paper done relatively soon and will post a link to it. Furthermore, the structure of the paper should work well for filling in the wiki that I proposed here.
As always, I encourage feedback. You are welcome to leave comments here or on your own blog. If you are linking to the image on Flickr, please link to this post as well, so that your contribution to the discussion will be included on this page. Thanks.
Technorati tags: library 2.0 library-20 library2.0 L2 web 2.0 web2.0 academic libraries academiclibrary20
Fred Wilson created this chart to display the traffic of some of the major social networking sites. Fred Stutzman has posted an argument as to why the Facebook numbers might be misleading. While I am not sure I agree fully with Fred’s explanation, I agree with him that Facebook has a winning model.
The chart shows increase in users. MySpace has shown a dramatic increase in users. However, its general nature makes it hard to determine whether users will be loyal, or if they will turn to the next big thing. On the other hand, Facebook has one primary audience, college students, and a number of secondary audiences, everyone else. As Fred’s research and theories demonstrate, Facebook is an extremely valuable tool for college students. His data shows that in both 2005 and 2006, virtually 100% of UNC-Chapel Hill freshman chose to participate in the Facebook. Furthermore, there is plenty of reason to believe that this is not unique to UNC. This would mean that the Facebook has already maxed out on new users in their primary target market. While this might impede growth at the rate MySpace has shown, this is excellent as it means that Facebook cycles through new primary user groups every four years. Furthermore, given their complete market dominance over college students, it would be very difficult for a competitor to take take their primary business away.
The one place that I feel Facebook is vulnerable to competition is on the Academic side of their services. If course management software either integrated better with how students study and work, or integrated better with other datasets and resources on campus, then students would come to rely on them more. I will be discussing this idea further in my Master’s paper.
technorati tags: facebook myspace social networking
