May I Please Blow Up This Reference Desk? The Ten Social Trends that Can and SHOULD Change the Way that Libraries Do Business Tracie D. Hall Dominican University Umm, the 20 th Century called and it wants its information delivery modes back I ACTUALLY FEEL SORTA BAD…I BET THEY PAID A TON FOR THIS DESK…

Libraries Worldwide are Being Compelled to Reevaluate their Services Remind me to talk about embeddedness…later.. Doesn’t even say “Library”

…And Modes of Delivery Let’s face it, our average user stopped coming in just for books, a long time ago. There’s no divide…no omniscient Me and uniformed You…

The Ten Trends that Should Change the Way Contemporary Libraries Do Business 1.Do not attempt to adjust this channel: Diversity, Multiculturalism, Multilingualism, Globalism—more than just a phase. 2.Rising high school drop-out rates; delayed or prolonged college entrance and graduation; and the librarian-as-teacher- and-the-teacher-as-coach 3.Cohort or Group Learning (Big Reads/Oprah and Eckhart) 4.The infallibility the informal peer review (hey, 27 users can’t be wrong) 5.“Small is the new Big”

6.“Here is the new There” 7.“Customer representative please…representative please…please….?” (The end of print/reading and the return of orality) 8.The “Platform Nine and Three- Quarters” effect and the return of the mighty gatekeeper 9.The New Sensualists 10.The rise of the Empathy Economy Ultimately…people connect to people and through people…not to organizations

TODAY’S LIBRARY USERS INHABITS MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN DIVERSITY AccentLanguage BackgroundPolitical Affiliation AgeLearning StyleRace AppearanceLifestyleRegional Background Communication Style MannerismsReligion Economic StatusMarital StatusReligious Denomination EducationMental Ability/ Mental Health Sexual Orientation EthnicityNationalitySize Family Size/MakeupOccupationSkin Color GenderParental StatusValues System Income LevelPersonality TypeWork Experience Job ClassificationPhysical AbilityWork Style Diversity is here to stay

Static, Inflexible, Fixed Models of LIS Service Models No Longer Fit Our Needs, Wants, and Expectations of Value-Added Service

To Remain Relevant Libraries Must Play an Expanding Role Reese and Hawkins say the library is: An educational support center for students of all ages. A learning center for independent learners. A discovery center for early childhood learners. A Center for community information. Information center for community business. Center for reading, thinking, working. OCLC and others have has suggested that libraries are: Valued-added destinations Third Spaces Centers for access to consumer health information. Economic leveraging agents Centers for Adult Literacy, ESL Instruction, and Citizenship Information. People’s Universities and self-help centers.

Changing Service Modes Also Demands New Competencies What are new competencies are being demanded in the attempt to provide relevant and timely service to your users? What are you doing differently? What are you doing that you’ve never done before? What do you need to be doing? What do you need to learn to keep up? Librarian shifts to teaching and via teaching to coaching

According to Rasmussen and Skinner (1999) a learning community, very broadly defined, is “curriculum design which coordinates two or more courses into a single program of instruction.” They continue to say the strength of learning communities is in the integrated approach to education. Integrated educational experiences more closely parallel the way people learn and are more relevant to real world events. Students have the opportunity to see topics from multiple, sometimes even conflicting, perspectives, encouraging higher level thinking. Cohort or Group Learning (Learning Commons/Learning Communities/Oprah and Eckhart) Focus on the Sympathetic Learning Environment: Relating to or being vibrations, especially musical tones, produced in one body by energy from a nearby vibrating body and having the same frequency as the vibration of the nearby body.

The Right Return of the People’s University The infallibility of the informal peer review (hey, 27 users can’t be wrong)

Small is the New Big I just wanted grape jelly…I’ve been here for like 30 minutes

“Here is the new There”

“Customer representative please…representative please…please….?” (The end of print/reading and the return of orality)

The “Platform Nine and Three-Quarters” effect and the return of the mighty gatekeeper Proximity to Power Matters Insiders vs. Outsiders Jobs and Other Opportunities for Economic Mobility Social Invitations Critical Information is Time- sensitive and can “disappear” Information is audience- particular and sometimes audience-exclusive What’s the secret pass word?

Okay….let’s give ourselves a break, sort of I am not even asking you to think about today’s adult user…I want you to imagine how the library is going to effectively serve these guys: Cognition Impulse Ideation Sensation Reading Comprehension New Sensualists Compel libraries To reach deeper into their Bag of tricks

The Rise of the Empathy Economy From.03 commodity to $3.60 experience The nearness of you I want it, but I want to stay in my pajamas Mass-customization Experience to Empathy Then Panera Came along

Issues that May Impede Effective Library Service to Today's Users: Monolingual/monocultural library staff and services Unfamiliarity with and Misperceptions of Library Services Feelings of Inadequacy (knowledge, language, culture, class or income level, pride) Past Experience of Exclusion or Poor Treatment Physical Barriers {signage, visual, ADA, etc} Lack of sufficient or alternative access points Caters to limited Cognitive or Communication Preferences (Visual/Auditory/Kinesthetic….) Low on Experience/Lacking in Empathy

New Models, New Roles: Specialists, Not Experts Gateways, Not Gatekeepers Collaborators, Not Competitors Embeddedness, Not Maintenance In a 1982 study, Geza Kosa found the third most common reason for students’ hesitation to ask librarians for help was a fear of appearing ignorant. Claude Steele (1992) points out yet another barrier that could impact interactions between diverse groups and librarians, "the specter of stigma and racial vulnerability." Steele portends that for some students of color asking for help implies "being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group".

New Modes, New Tools

What to Ditch? Outmoded Attitudes Outmoded Services Outmoded Spaces and Barriers ? ? ?