From an Annoyance to an Innovation

Have you ever typed a captcha/re-captcha?  That’s one of those things that you usually  need to type in to a website to prove that you are a human.  Mostly they’re a couple of words, or a bunch of characters, that are distorted a bit, so that a computer can’t read it.  It keeps spammers out of sites and prevents them from doing things like fake bids on eBay, buying bulk tickets on Ticketek, joining lots of email accounts for spam purposes and stuff.

Annoying aren’t they?

Well, I found this wonderful YouTube video of a presentation by Luis von Ahn, who is the inventor of the captcha.

Captcha/Re-Captcha technology is being used to digitise both the New York Times archive and books that are out of copyright, by using the words that the OCR (optical character recognition) programmes cannot read as captcha words.  They estimate that there are about 35 million words per day being “translated” by using captchas.

It’s just another example of how technology, when used innovatively, can take something that is an every day annoyance that we have to have, and turn it into something that benefits us as a whole.

Internet Memes and Cultural Touchstones

Over the past day or so I’ve been having a conversation with a friend of mine about internet memes and their significance to popular culture.  For those of you who don’t know what it is, a meme is a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena.*  So an internet meme is one that is being shared/transferred by the internet.  Think of things like Lolcats, terms like OMG (oh my God), or viral videos like the Chooky Dance or pranks like Rickrolling.

It’s easy to dismiss internet memes as time wasting or stupid pranks, but to any long term users of the internet, a group which increases more and more as time goes on, they are cultural touchstones.  Particularly for the young.  After all, when you’re in your teens and young adulthood, in most cases, you’re at the peak of your pop culture consumerism.  The average person between say 10 and 25 listens to more new music, watches more new television and movies, explores many new ideas through writing than at any other point in their life.  Add to this that your own experiences, thoughts and emotions are growing and changing considerably during this time, which lends more significance to the cultural events going on around you.

Think of it like this.  To my Grandparents, cultural touchstones in their young lives were things like the moment they heard of the end of WW2, or when television was first released in Australia.  The media that this mostly arrived to them in those days was radio, and the references they had in their common language and culture at the time were around things they heard on the wireless, or saw at the pictures (movies).   For my parents, the Vietnam war, man landing on the moon and the assassination of President Kennedy were all cultural touchstones in their lives.  Media still came through the radio, but now television was ubiquitous for them, and their music of the time espressed the emotions attached to these touchstones.  For my generation, the cultural touchstones were things like LiveAid, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Australian bicentennial, the Tiananmen Square massacre.  And through time since then we’ve seen things like the suicide of Kurt Cobain, 9/11, the death of Princess Diana, the Port Arthur massacre, Hurricane Katrina, and more recently events like Barack Obama’s election as US President, the Global Economic Crisis, the apology to the indigenous people of Australia and so on are significant cultural events for the young of today.

Throughout time, from Vera Lyn to the Rolling Stones and Lou Reed, to Duran Duran, Michael Jackson, U2 and Madonna, to Nirvana and Bjork, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, and beyond to todays music icons like Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Kanye West – popular culture has always been influenced by, and a commentary of, the significant events of our time.

The internet as a media is no different to radio, television, movies or print.  It is influenced by, and also takes part in driving the significant events of today.  So just like we made reference to memes from television and movies in past generations, people today make reference to memes from the internet today.  It all cross polinates now as much as radio did with television in the previous years, or movies and magazines, or any other combinations.  Soundtracks to popular movies were played on the radio, which then became music videos on our televisions, and influenced fashions in our magazines.

A really good example is that when Triple J Radio did their Top 100 songs of all time, there was a huge wave of people voting in Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” (it reached about No. 52 or 53 if I remember correctly) just to “Rickroll” everyone listening to the radio Top 100.

This is no different to us picking up sayings or behaviours from advertising, movies, books, music or any other media?  How many of us say “Not happy Jan!”?  When I was a kid, we were all saying “What you talkin’ about Willis?” from Diff’rent Strokes, which is just a television meme.

The real difference being that as a media, the internet covers all formats, where historically, each media had it’s own.  Newspapers were all about print, radio about sound, television/movies about the visual and so forth.  The internet contains all of these formats, so memes can come from all kinds of creative sources.

No matter what your generation, memes have been the language of popular culture since long before any of us were around.  The internet is just another media, just as radio, television, film, books and so on have been before them.

For a list of internet memes that are extremely well known, have a look at:

http://youshouldhaveseenthis.com/ and  http://www.youshouldhavealsoseenthis.com/ (some NSFW!)

*source Wikipedia

An Unconscious Objection?

Looking back across the links I had saved on my Twitter feed to read later, I came across this really engaging article by UK journalist Suzanne Moore, on the perception that social media and “real life” are two separate entities.  One of the things I’m really passionate about as a social media user and a librarian, is ensuring people who choose not to engage in using the internetf, particularly in a social, collaborative way, are making an informed choice, rather than simply blanket banning it from their lives because they don’t understand it, don’t like change or see it as some kind of fad that teenagers indulge in.  Suzanne, like me, is not of the digital generation, those who were born into a world post personal computing.  As she says:

Having spent much of my adolescence sitting on an actual wall waiting for something to happen, a Facebook wall doesn’t seem so awful.

In an age where people of all ages are time poor and technology rich, it makes no difference to them how they interact with their peers, so long as they do.

Of course, there are still those who are on the other side of a digital divide out of lack of resources rather than choosing to ignore it, and we still have an obligation to those as our customers to enable them to cross over with technology and skills we provide in libraries.

But how many of those who make a choice to ignore the digital realm are making an informed choice?  Do they know what is available to them?  Do they understand just how much of our culture and services are unavailable to them by their opting out of the digital realm?

In a time where resources for employment, health, education, housing and all other aspects of our basic lives are moving more and more to online formats, does the average objecter to the internet realise that their objection will likely put them at a disadvantage to those who choose to use online resources?  Take searching for rental accommodation for example.  How often are rental properties let far before they ever get displayed in the windows of real estate agents or on rental listing sheets these days?

Many people say they feel a sense of isolation in today’s world, but also reject the option of engaging in social activity in a digital format.  Are they aware of the possibilities that could be open to them if they were to use online resources?  Suzanne Moore says in her article:

When I lost my passport in Cambodia I turned to Twitter. And I received help from people in Phnom Penh, friends at home and a man from Channel 4 News. You can ask Twitter to recommend a nice pub or walk. Just now I asked it what to do with kale and now have lots of weird and wonderful kale recipes.

More and more

Don’t tell me this is somehow not the real world. It is an enhancement of it and those who I have met through social media have been a delight. The notion that one may be too busy recording and recounting one’s experience to be actually enjoying the moment is being tested. If we feel that nothing is happening unless it is witnessed then this is indeed a massive shift in consciousness.

The world is opening up to us more and more every day.  I myself have travelled halfway across the globe to meet people that I had never met before, but knew very well via the internet.  Over three months I stayed in 11 different homes of people in the US and Canada, only two of which I had actually met before.  The only place where I felt unhappy, homesick or uncomfortable was in one of the homes of someone I had met before (the other person I knew before was my oldest friend of over 20 years who had returned to Canada some years before).  Everywhere that I met people in “reality” for the first (I prefer to say that I physically met them, instead of digitally!) I found that they were just like they appeared to be online, they were as warm and welcoming and kind hearted face-to-face as they were online.

Just recently I travelled to Sydney for a conference to participate as a blogging activist, and present a paper from my perspective.  I would never have had this opportunity if it hadn’t been for my activity on the internet.  Not only would my writing not likely be published as broadly without many, many more years of work, but I wouldn’t have been introduced to the social justice movement and concepts that I now so passionately write about myself.  Meeting those who I had been tweeting, Facebooking, blogging and to a far lesser extent, emailing, face to face was easy as we’d already had the ice broken by months, even years of conversations and collaboration beforehand.

To me, it’s vitally important that those who resist joining the digital age do so armed with the information to make that decision consciously and conscientiously.  As Suzanne Moore says in her article:

Ignorance is not bliss. It’s stupid to be stupid.

Broadening Horizons

I gave an info session at a library the other day on eBooks, eReaders and other devices.  Most of the audience were seniors, people who were born long before the digital age and often find technology really daunting.  It’s my aim when I do these sessions to try to put those fears to rest, and get people excited about playing with technology.  It’s why the sessions end up going far longer than planned, because I invariably end up sitting talking one on one with the attendees, answering all of their questions.

I noticed that several of the participants had visual or hearing impairments, mobility issues or other physical challenges like arthritis that affect their ability to get out of the house and do a lot of things that we younger, able-bodied folk take for granted.  Things like doing the weekly grocery shopping for themselves, or socialising with people for an adult conversation, or simply going to the library to borrow books.

This doesn’t just apply to the elderly, but all sorts of people for various reasons.  Those with disabilities, stay at home parents of young children, shift workers, those in remote areas or even those who do not have decent transport options.

This is where technology can really open up their world.  Grocery shopping can be done online and delivered to the door in most urban areas, as well as a plethora of other online shopping options for everything from books to clothes to health care… you name it.  Many library services have home delivery services of some kind, where customers can reserve books online, use databases and downloads and find information about the other services that the library may offer.  No matter what your hobby or interest is, you will always find a community on the internet to fit you.  You can get adult conversation, articles and discussion at any time, night or day.

I can’t think of anything better than a smart phone or tablet PC to help someone who needs to carry a lot of information but can’t be carrying a lot of items.  I personally have a terrible short term memory, and would be lost without my iPhone, because it has my contacts, calendar/appointments, shopping list, bus/train timetables, notes, banking and of course my music.  All can be held in the palm of my hand, carried in my pocket or in a handbag.  It’s not heavy, is easy to use and doesn’t have any fiddly buttons.  Yes, I know I’m an Apple fangirl, but there are other devices that could serve the same purpose.

Technology has the potential to open a person’s world up when they are restricted for any reason.  It gives people an independence and freedom that they may otherwise have to rely on other people to handle for them.

With our help as librarians, we can open up this world for our customers.  By giving them the skills to use technologies, and dispelling any fears they may have, we’re contributing to changing people’s lives.

Have you seen any examples where online or computer technology has broadened someone’s horizons?  Have you found that yours have been broadened by technology?  Feel free to share in the comments.

Changing our Lexicon

Like it or not, our language changes.  Whether it is through the use of words by young people, who through the ages have always challenged the status quo when it comes to the language they use compared to that of their parents, or through other influences like technology and pop culture, language is forever evolving.  It is estimated that in Shakespeare’s time there were as little as a third of the current words in the English language, and that Shakespeare himself created many of the words that we use today.   Some say that up to 1500 English words were first recorded by Shakespeare.

This year’s list of new entries into the Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE) reads like a code-cracker for social media and the internet.  The internet is currently the place that language grows and evolves the fastest.  Some of those of course are fads or jargon for specific scenes or cultures.  But many cross over into regular language.  Where once language originated primarily from the spoken word, eventually to the written, now it has reversed and tends to originate from the internet, to social media, to texts and emails, and then into spoken language.

I know myself I use words like lol (laugh out loud), shopping (digitally adjusting a photograph using Photoshop software), troll (a person who leaves comments and posts on a website to incite arguments or anger)  and photobombing (to sneak into shot as someone takes a photograph) to name a few, in spoken form now, and these words have all evolved from the internet.

A few examples of ones that have come from the ODE new words list this year include:

• microblogging the posting of very short entries on a blog
• netbook small light laptop
• paywall an arrangement whereby access is restricted to users who have paid to subscribe to a website
• frenemy a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry
• steampunk a genre of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advance technology
• tweetup a meeting organized by means of posts on Twitter
• bromance a close but non-sexual relationship between two men
• defriend another term for unfriend (remove someone from a list of friends or contacts on a social networking site)
• Interweb the Internet
• hater negative person

Have you found your language changing as you’ve used social media and other online tools?  Are you concerned about the change of language?

Rethinking Our Audience

Just reading this brief piece in the New York Times on the subject of online use and gaming statistics has given me some food for thought on who we are aiming at in libraries when we look at social media and gaming.  Traditionally we have expected that these areas would be strong for a youth audience, particularly young males for gaming.

The biggest eye opening statistic for me is that women over 55 spend the most time online gaming of any demographic.  This is probably because I’ve always thought online gaming consisted of things like World of Warcraft – when in reality it is games such as puzzles, card and board games.  When you stop and think about it, how many women do you know who play Farmville and the like?  What about Scrabble, Bejewelled and other games along those lines?  I certainly know far more women who play these kinds of online games than I do men who play more “traditional” online games – and I have a high geek quota in my social circle.

I also read another set of statistics about gaming that had my eyebrows heading skyward too.  2 out of 5 gamers are female, with the average age of gamers being 32 years old.  49% of gamers are between the age of 18-49, with there only being one percent of difference between those in the under 18 age bracket and those 50 and over.  In fact, the 50+ crew were at 26%, a percent higher than the under 18’s at 25%.  Female gamers are far more likely to play on a Nintendo Wii with 80% share of the three big consoles, Wii, Sony Playstation (11%) and X-Box (9%) while male gamers are more evenly split at 41% on X-Box, 38% on Playstation and 21% on Wii.

Women are still in the minority globally as web users, but they are more likely to use the social aspects, like gaming and social media, especially to share photographs and communication with friends and family.  And the highest growth bracket for social media at the moment?  Women over 45 years of age.

This has me thinking about the events and tools we use social media for in public libraries, and how we approach gaming.  Not to mention the internet use that we offer.  Are we excluding women/older customers from participating because of our heavily youth oriented focus on these medias?  Do we offer women and older customers anything that would interest them in the areas of gaming and online content?

Online Book Clubs

Over the years, I have belonged to a lot of book clubs.  For the first time in my adult life, I’m actually not a member.  I know why this is.  My life is busy and full and while I still read a lot, I don’t have the time to go along to book club meet ups.  If they’re on in times that I’m not working, it’s either of an evening after work, when I am tired and not exactly at my most conversational, or they’re on weekends, which make it difficult to squeeze them in with my busy social life.

But I do feel the void of not being part of a book club.  Which is why I was fascinated to hear that some public library services are experimenting with using services like Shelfari, GoodReads or LibraryThing to establish online book clubs.

I have belonged to online book clubs before, but they usually ran off either Yahoo Groups, which are clunky and can end up sending you hundreds of emails to wade through, or using online forums, which I have always found difficult to keep spam and trolls out of.  Not to mention it’s really difficult to keep connected with the right conversation threads on forums for the books and authors you are reading.

This is where services like those mentioned above come in really strong.  They only send you the emails that you opt into, so you don’t get flooded with a lot of conversation that you’re not interested, but they also have that level of protection from spam and trolls.  Best of all, you can search huge databases of titles, authors and ISBN’s and add books, including information about your progress reading them, and finally reviews when you’ve read them, to share with other book club members, and if you wish, other friends and family.

Not to mention the fact that they look fantastic, with their book covers and “shelves”, review information and book details all right there at your fingertips.

I did a quick search of Shelfari for library based book clubs, and I found some fantastic ones.

Palmerston North City Library have some great discussions about favourite types of books, whether or not we judge books by their covers and books as films.

The Chew and Chat Bookclub of Townsville are a local book group that meet up in libraries.  They’ve set up a Shelfari group for book discussions.

How about a book group for Young Adult Librarians?  Yep, there’s one of those on Shelfari too.

All of the major book and reading social sites have lots of functionality, can be tailored to the individual needs of a library service or book group, and look fantastic.

What kind of book group could you set up on one of these sites?  Have a look on the site of your choice and join a group or two if you are looking to discuss the books you read.  You’ll be amazed at just how many people there are out there across the world who love the same things as you do.

Warm Fuzzies from the University of Bergen Library

I found this lovely little promotional YouTube video from the University of Bergen Library.  It’s a fun way to promote the library, but watch through to the end and get the warm fuzzy feeling from the little piece of personal history shared by their Head of Acquisitions, Ole Gunnar Evensen.

I know I feel good about the library after watching that, don’t you?

Social Media and Literacy

We all know that literacy is one of the core focuses for public libraries.  So how do we encourage reading and literacy in kids in an age where information comes flying at them in short bursts via the internet?  How do we promote literacy amongst their busy parents and other adults who can support literacy projects in schools and libraries, as well as encourage kids to read?

Through social media of course!

Recently I came across a programme from the USA, called Kids Need to Read, (KNTR) thanks to tweets from actor Nathan Fillion.  Nathan is one of the founders of the project (and appears on one of those fantastic American Library Association “READ” posters, though I do wish he’d done it in costume as Captain Mal Reynolds, cos that’d be the best READ poster in the gorram ‘verse) and has been promoting it via Twitter.

But you don’t need to be a high profile actor to promote a literacy programme.  The KNTR people are promoting themselves via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace, as well as having online stores in both eBay and CafePress.  Volunteers from the public are even getting on board to promote the project using social media, like this father and student teacher, who has held a 36 hour tweetathon to raise money.

With some creativity and knowing exactly what message one wants to get across, and who knows the message of literacy better than we librarians, social media is a fantastic place to promote literacy because it’s accessable and inexpensive.

Have you seen any great examples of social media promoting literacy?  Share them in the comments below.

Hello world!

Welcome to my first post as The Social Librarian.

I intend to blog here on the subject of libraries, social media, online technologies, devices and connectivity, and general technology in relation to libraries.

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