Social Media and Libraries: New applications for a new generation of users 3.16.07 Mary Madden Pew Internet & American Life Project Michigan Library Association.

Social Media and Libraries:New applications for a new generation of users

3.16.07Mary MaddenPew Internet & American Life Project

Michigan Library AssociationTech Escape 5.0

March 16, 2007 2Social Media and Libraries

Who we are…


Way back in 1993, the internet was…

“headless, anarchic, million-limbed” and “spreading like bread-mold” - Bruce Sterling


Internet Marketing 101

Why use the internet?

• Freedom• Free information and

communication tools• It belonged to everyone

and no one

These are some of the same values we associate with libraries…


Libraries are the living internet…

Libraries are connected nodes of information and community exchange that we use to communicate, collaborate, share resources and preserve knowledge.


Internet and Broadband Adoption 1996-2006

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Mar-

95

Mar-

96

Mar-

97

Mar-

98

Mar-

99

Mar-

00

Mar-

01

Mar-

02

Mar-

03

Mar-

04

Mar-

05

Mar-

06

All internet - 147 mill.

Broadband - 83 mill.


Internet Access at Libraries

• 98.4% of public library branches in the U.S. now offer public internet access

• 63.3% of public library branches offerconnection speeds of greater than 769kbps

http://www.ii.fsu.edu


Where do teens go online?

• 89% of online teens have access at home• 75% have internet access at school• 70% go online from a friend or relative’s house• 50% have gone online from a library• 9% go online from a community center or house

of worship


Libraries & Teens

• OCLC study finds that teens and college students consider search engines a better “lifestyle fit” for their information needs.

• While more than 50% described search engines as a perfect information source, just 17% described libraries this way.

• Teenagers are increasingly becoming library immigrants in a land of library natives.


Social Media: Where Teens and Libraries Meet

Teens Technology Libraries

Using technology to connect to people and information


Social Networking & Libraries


Libraries 2.0


Today’s Teen – Born 1990

Personal computers are 15 years old

Tim Berners-Lee writes World Wide Web program


Today’s Teen – First Grade 1996

Palm Pilot goes onthe market


Today’s Teen – Fourth Grade 1999

Sean Fanning creates Napster


Today’s Teen – Starts Middle School 2001

Wikipedia - 2001


Today’s Teen – Middle School 2001


Today’s Teen – Middle School 2003

Skype - 2003


Today’s Teen – Starts High School 2004

Podcasts – 2004


Today’s Teen – Sophomore Year 2005

YouTube – 2005


Today’s Teen – Junior Year 2006

The Year of MySpace:

• More than 100 million accounts created

• Third most popular site in the U.S. (after Yahoo and Google)

• 55% of online teens use social networking sites

• Of those who use social networking, 48% log on to the sites at least once a day or more


Who’s in the network?

• Reinforcing pre-existing relationships– 91% stay in touch with friends they see a lot– 82% stay in touch with friends they rarely see

in person• Meeting new people & flirting

– 49% make new friends • (more for boys, less for girls)

– 17% flirt • (mostly older boys – 29% of them flirt vs 13% of older

girls)


Profiles: Switchboards for social life

– 84% post messages on friend’s wall or page– 82% send private messages to a friend– 76% post comments to a friend’s blog– 72% make plans with friends– 61% send a bulletin or mass message to all

friends in the system– 33% wink, poke, give e-props or kudos to

friends


All the world is not a stage…

• 66% of all teens with profiles online have in some way restricted access to it – includes hiding it completely, taking it down, or making it private

– Of those with a visible profile, 59% say only their friends can see their profile.

– 40% say anyone can see their profile


MySpace might seem chaotic…

But it also offers a stable sense of place in the midst of drastic social changes that happen during the teenage years.


Teen Reality #1

Teens are technology-rich and enveloped by a wired world:

• 83% of all teens say that “most” of the people they know use the internet

• 10% say that “some” of the people they know use the internet.

• Just 6% say that very few of the people they know use the internet.


Teen Reality #2

Mobile gadgets allow them to enjoy media and communicate anywhere

• 84% report owning at least one personal media device: a desktop or laptop computer, a cell phone or a Personal Digital Assistant

• 44% say they have two or more devices


Laptops

• 32% of teens own laptops

• 30% of adults own laptops


MP3 Players

• 45% of teens own MP3 Players

• 20% of adults own MP3 players

CBSMarketwatch survey 6.13.06


Teen Reality #3

Teens are multimedia multi-taskers:

Multi-tasking is a way of life – and people live in a state of “continuous partial attention”

--- Linda Stone


Kaiser Family Foundation, Generation M, March 2005


Kaiser Family Foundation, Generation M, March 2005


Teen Reality #4

Teens know that ordinary citizens can be publishers, movie makers, artists, song

creators, and storytellers

57% of online teens have created some kind of content for the internet


• 33% of online teens share their own creations online, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos

Sharing Creative Work


Bluegrass fiddler Nick Dumas: Age 16

"I'd be surprised if our band doesn't get noticed by some record company," Dumas says confidently. "People keep telling us,

`You need to go to Nashville.‘”


• 32% have created or worked on webpages or blogs for others, including those for groups they belong to, friends or school assignments

Working for Others


Jasmine Ta: Teen Journalist

“The appeal to me was mainly Holden because I could relate to him so much (…) it was just eye opening because that’s exactly

how I feel and how I think, and to have it in words, it was like, I’m not

alone in the world.”


• 22% report keeping their own personal webpage

Personal Webpages


• 19% have created their own online journal or blog

Creating a Blog


Remixing

• 19% of all online teens say they remix content they find online into their own artistic creations

• 35% of teen bloggers remix content


Teen Reality #5

Today's online teens have grown up amidst the chaos of the digital copyright debate,

and it shows


Impact and Implications

• Those who have grown up with interactive media want to manipulate, remix, and share content.

• Ideas about intellectual property and fair use change

• They expect to be in conversation with other creators.


Most importantly…

Social media is persistent and “always-on”:

• Conversations, research and learning don’t have to end when a student walks out the door.


Ratings and Reviews

On the Table: Add functionality to library catalogs that allow users to give ratings and/or write reviews of books, movies, etc.

How many people really do this and would my patrons rather do this in our catalog or on Amazon?

– 28% of adult internet users have rated a product, service or person using an online rating system, and 3% do so on a typical day.


Online Raters are likely to be:

• More experienced and active internet users

• Better connected – more likely to have broadband at home

• More educated and higher income users

• Young and male


Tagging

On the Table: Allow the public to add "tags" to materials in our catalogs.

How many people have any clue about this? How many create tags? Use others’ tags?

– 28% of adult internet users have tagged or categorized content online such as photos, news stories or blog posts and 7% do so on a typical day.


Taggers are likely to be:

• Under age 40 and have higher levels of education and income

• Better connected -- with broadband connections at home

• But men and women are equally likely to be taggers


Social NetworkingOn the Table: Create a presence on MySpace and

Facebook.

How many people are using SNS? Do people use MySpace to interact with institutions online, or is it person-to-person contact?

• 16% of online adults use an online social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or Friendster and 9% use them on a typical day.

– Reminder: SNS activity is much higher among teenagers.


Who uses SNS?

Among adults:

• Young adults: 18-29

• Daily internet users

• Broadband users

• Those with six or more years of online experience


Mobile Searching and Text MessagingOn the Table: Use text messaging to deliver notices

about library holds. Design small screen-friendly versions of our catalogs.

How many people own cell phones? How many use text messaging?

How many people use their phones/PDAs to browse the web?

– Roughly three in four adults in the U.S. own cell phones, but most of those users are simply using their phones to make and receive calls.


What else are cell phones used for?

The communications Swiss Army knife

Percentage of cell owners who use this feature now on their

mobile phones

Don’t use it now, but would like to

have it

Send and receive text messages 35% 13%

Take still pictures 28% 19%

Play games 22% 12%

Access the internet 14% 16%

Send / receive email 8% 24%

Perform internet searches for things like movie listings, weather and stock quotes 7% 24%

Trade instant messages 7% 11%

Play music 6% 19%

Record their own video clips 6% 17%

Get mobile maps 4% 47%

Watch video or TV programs 2% 14%

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, Associated Press, AOL cell phone survey. March 8-28, 2006. N=1,503 (752 contacted on landlines and 751 contacted on their cell phones). In all, 1,286 cell users are in the sample. The margin of error for the cell-using population is ±3%.


RSS

On the Table: Create RSS feeds of new materials available in the library

How many people subscribe to RSS feeds?

• In 2005, 5% of internet users said they used RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich websites.


RSS users tend to be:

• Typical early adopters – young, white, male

• Have high education and income levels

– RSS would be well-suited for libraries that are interested in automating some of their announcements about new materials to high-end users of the library.


Online Transactions

On the Table: Allow online payment of fees and fines.

Should we accept credit card payment online for fees and fines?

Are people over that hump of being afraid to buy online?

• 71% of adult internet users have bought a product online and 6% do so on a typical day.

- About 3 in 4 online adults say the internet has improved their ability to shop


Audio and Video Downloading

On the Table: Provide downloadable audio and video to patrons.

How many people are downloading music and video files online?

• 27% download music files• 19% download video files

• 17% of internet users pay to access or download digital content online


Downloaders tend to be:Young – under age 30

• 48% of those 18-29 download music vs. 26% of 30-49• 34% of those 18-29 download video vs. 18% of 30-49

Broadband users

• 34% of home broadband users download music vs. 19% of dial-up users

• 26% of home broadband users download video vs. 12% of dial-up users

Men

• 32% of online men download music vs. 21% of online women• 26% of online men download video vs. 13% of online women


Podcasting

On the Table: Create original library content such as tutorials and recommended reading podcasts to engage patrons.

How many people download podcasts?

• 12% of adult internet users say they have downloaded a podcast so they can listen to it or view it at a later time.

-Just 1% report downloading a podcast on a typical day.


Who are these people?

• Men are twice as likely to report podcast downloading (15% vs. 8%)

• Those online for six or more years are twice as likely as those who have been online three years or less to have downloaded a podcast (13% vs. 6%).


Trends driving interest in podcasting:

1. More mainstream and niche content

2. Easier to find, sample and subscribe to podcasts

3.More people own mobile media gadgets


Gaming

On the Table: Start video game nights or tournaments.

How many play games online?

• 35% of internet users play games online


Get a Second Life?

Who plays games online?

50% of users 18-29

34% of users 30-49

26% of users 50-64

23% of users 65 and older


What about gaming and literacy?

Points for gaming privileges are earned by:

* writing book reports * attending an after-school program * participating in a youth service org * embracing other positive activities


Wireless Internet Access

On the Table: Set up WiFi hotspots in libraries.

How many use WiFi?

Aside from laptops, any other devices gaining wide acceptance that are usable on WiFi?

• Some 34% of internet users have logged onto the internet using a wireless connection


Where people use WiFi:

• 20% of internet users have used a wireless network at home.

• 17% of internet users have connected wirelessly at work.

• 27% of adult internet users have used a wireless connection at some place other than home or work.


Laptop users

Where they connect to WiFi:

• 88% of wireless-enabled laptop users have logged on using a home wireless network.

• 36% have used a wireless network at work.

• 57% have used a wireless network someplace other than home or work


PDA users

Where they connect to WiFi:

• 49% of wireless-enabled PDA users have connected to a wireless network with their PDA at home.

• 38% have used their PDA to connect to the internet or email at work.

• 56% have used their PDA to access the internet or email somewhere other than home or work.


You’re not alone…


Best Practices Wiki

http://www.libsuccess.org


The library of the future is…

• Web-enabled and participatory• Also valued as a physical space• Made of people!


Thank you!

Mary Madden

Senior Research Specialist

Pew Internet & American Life Project

1615 L Street NW

Suite 700

Washington, DC 20036

[email protected]

202-419-4500

Social Media and Libraries: New applications for a new generation of users 3.16.07 Mary Madden Pew Internet & American Life Project Michigan Library Association.

Documents

informationsocial media

napstersocial media

aresocial media

onthe marketsocial media

house of worshipsocial

bruce sterlingsocial

online teens

public internet access