It is important to note that the researchers only surveyed users at Cambridge University and the Open University, so these results are somewhat skewed and only apply to the U.K., where text messaging is even more prevalent than in the United States.

The report, however, also found that users of more advanced phones like the iPhone are far more inclined to read eBooks on their phones than users of feature phones (no surprise there, given the difference in screen estate and quality). In the end, though, the report argues that it is currently "not worth libraries putting development resource into delivering content such as eBooks and e-journals to mobile devices at present."

Too Conservative?

While these recommendations seem reasonable based on the survey data, we agree with Lorcan Dempsey, a library blogger and Vice President of OCLC, who argues that with the advent of better eReaders and the iPhone, these survey results will probably look very different in just a few years from now.

As Sarah Bartlett from the Panlibus blog points out, the recommendations in this report are anchored in the past (getting SMS alerts about due books, for example), while now would be a good time to "re-imagine the library and its services."

While some libraries are often conservative when it comes to adopting new technologies, we would think that starting to adopt some of these technologies like eBooks and better mobile services now would help these institutions to remain relevant in a future where those large buildings in the middle of campus are already turning more into places for study groups to meet up and grab a cup of coffee than centers of academic research.

CC-licensed image used courtesy of Flickr user umjanedoan.

In response to one of the questions posed on the homepage, project partner R. David Lankes explained the difference between this and an online directory like DMOZ.org. Instead of building out a directory of sites, the Reference Extract project will instead focus on answering "real questions around the world." By answering a lot of questions, the service scales up and generates a lot of "semantic richness" with which a search engine and other services can be built, says Lankes.

He also notes that the engine isn't really trying to compete directly with Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo as an everyday search tool. Although some people might begin searches directly from the Reference Extract homepage, the other search engines will end up returning results from the project and thus leading new users to click through for the answers they need.

That last bit sounds a lot like the model Wikipedia uses. Sure, you can search Wikipedia from its homepage, but you're more likely to Google something and end up on a Wikipedia page that appeared at the top of the search results.

However, unlike Wikipedia, Reference Extract won't simply focus on basic facts about people, places, or things, but will answer questions on a wide range of topics, just as librarians do today. In the end, the project may not out-Google Google, but it will lend something to search results that we've never had before: credibility.

Another dataset released this weekend, however, paints a more complex picture. According to the newest study from the Pew Internet and American Life Center - the youngest, most affluent and most internet-connected adults in the US are also the most likely to visit a physical library. It wasn't that way just 10 years ago. How many other legacy industries can you think of today that can say their strongest growth is among young, affluent, power-internet users? Something is going very right in library land. The music business ought to pay close attention to what's going on there.

The Pew study found that 62 percent of Americans aged 18-30 are active library users, the percentage drops sharply at age 50 and falls to 32 percent of those 72 and up. Library use is highest, the study found, among young people who have internet access at home. Just a handful of years ago it was widely believed that home internet access would be the death of the public library.

CNN's coverage of the study is excellent and includes the following:

"It was truly surprising in this survey to find the youngest adults are the heaviest library users," [Pew director Lee] Rainie said. "The notion has taken hold in our culture that these wired-up, heavily gadgeted young folks are swimming in a sea of information and don't need to go to places where information is."

Leigh Estabrook, a retired professor of information science and sociology at the University of Illinois, said young adults used to finding information online are likely to crave even more and realize they need to turn to libraries to get it.

Rainie added that young adults are the ones likely to have visited libraries as teens and seen their transformation into information hubs, with computers and databases alongside stacks of printed books.

Earlier this month we ran a post here titled Sexy Librarians of the Future Will Help You Upload Your Videos to YouTube. In that post we discussed Jon Udell's theory that librarians of the future could play a key roll in facilitating the rise of User Generated Content online.

Whether that vision is truly futuristic or something many librarians are already doing, libraries are clearly offering the kind of added value that bookstores, mom-n-pop stores and other struggling markets are trying to use to survive the coming of the internet. Events and human customer service are two things that all of these institutions can offer.

Things that libraries are unique in offering, though, include well organized information, direct access to people with unusually strong internet skills (your librarian can probably Google circles around you, for example) and an oasis of braininess in an increasingly insipid culture of nihilism.

It's been years since I was a mini-librarian (GovDocs reference as work study!) so I won't pretend to be up on the state of the art - but there are plenty of Library 2.0 blogs online to get a taste of the field.

It is clear, however, that the library still has a lot to teach us about thriving in this digital era. Traditional institutions and the Internet can have symbiotic relationships, each making the other stronger and more important than ever.

Img credit: The Guitar Heroes of the American Library Association's Midwinter 2007 conference. CC by Flickr user Libraryman. Note: I feel funny about the focus on "affluent young people" in this post as yuppie kids in the library isn't the goal, thank goodness, but I'm drawing a comparison with the private sector. Note the limitations of the analogy.

While hardly surprising, I don't think it has to be this way forever. Who could help improve this landscape by maximizing the impact of the read/write web? Super sexy librarians, that's who!

Finding good stuff online is going to be a huge market opportunity in the near-term future. That's why CBS bought Last.fm, why eBay bought StumbleUpon, why MyStrands has raised more than $50 million for its recommendation engine, why Google Reader is introducing easy sharing between friends and why you're going to see many more startups working in this direction.

And Now for the Sexy Librarian Part...

From the other direction, though, as any experienced online media producer will tell you - there are steps that you can take to make your media easier for the right person to find. This is going to be an important role for information workers of the future.

Check out this wonderful 3 minute section of an interview that Microsoft's Jon Udell did last week on the Talking With Talis podcast. Udell posits that the librarian of the future will help a growing number of citizen media producers to classify their online media and get it connected to other related content in ways that will increase its discoverability. That is hot.

Imagine a future when you go to the library with a 5 minute video you've just made about last night's Presidential debates and that librarian says to you:

You should upload it to YouTube and tag it with these four tags - two broad and two more specific to existing communities of interest on YouTube and the topic of your video. Then you should embed that video in a blog post along with some text introducing it and linking to some of your favorite posts by other people who have also written today about the Presidential debates. Make sure to send trackbacks to those posts!

Now, I think this is a particularly good video on the topic, so if you're interested I will vote for it on StumbleUpon (as a sexy librarian I have a very powerful account there) and give it a good summary explanation. Any of those are steps you can take that will make your work all the easier for people to discover.

Would that be great, or what? That's only the beginning of what is possible! My point is, while mainstream commercial media may still be what the majority of people online are looking for - there are a substantial number of us for whom that's not the case and as we learn to serve eachother and ourselves better in terms of recommendations, discoverability and relevance - our numbers will likely grow.