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Social Networking, Libraries, and Privacy by George Needham, OCLC

Caroline and I attended this one together. I’m attending primarily due to our privacy audit, so I’ll focus my notes on the privacy issue.

• There is about to be a new OCLC report on this topic next month!
• Libraries set up for time when information scarce and time unlimited, now it’s unlimited information and scarce time.
• Collaboration is the one thing about the current information environment that librarians have and other organizations/people don’t.
• Library ELF (woohoo!) as a self-service pre-overdue notice, but then they have access to personal check-out information.
• Library created content on websites (story time podcasts, video lectures, etc)
• Collaboration in open source information
• Hennepin Count Library Bookspace: social networking for book people, a community for people who like to read
• We win on trustworthy and accurate/quality, but we lose on reliable/always available, cost-effective, easy, convenient, and fast. People value the latter categories more than the former.
• What profession works like reference: general person at desk regardless of question. Most specialize and personalize service. Puts us in the really good “zone of mediocrity.”
• Information war over, we lost. (Apparently the theme of the conference.)
• “Civilians” know the role of the library: place to learn and read, free information, support literacy, research support, etc.
• We do some online things more than other “civilians” like business related social networking sites, blogging, UGC, but we don’t use IM, social network, or chat as much as our users.
• We also read more than general public. Center of our universe, but not for the public: LOW TEXT WEBSITES.
• OCLC asked people how important privacy is to them: librarians found it less important to keep information than public, but when the questions focused on library sites, stats turned around. We said more important to keep library sites private than users did.
• Interestingly, people said, “Stop making it feel like church.” It’s about quiet, but also about environment, alter of the reference desk, sacred texts, etc. This is the library experience. How do we make it more casual and inviting?
• We shouldn’t be a place for people who know how to find information, but to help people who don’t.
• Soon, the report will be here: OCLC Membership Reports

Not so much about privacy here, but certainly there was content about the cultural shift that we’re experiencing. The report should have more information about privacy.