It's All About You, Just Like It's Always Been.

Last December, David Pogue, who writes about personal technology for the New York Times Business Section, spoke to the FLAG group of public library directors at Westport Public Library. His presentation was one that he regularly gives to educators about the larger environment in which they are teaching, especially regarding the tech savviness of their students. His talk had a lot of implications for the public librarians in the audience, and two of his points especially resonate--that information must be personal, and that it will all be web-based.
There is no doubt that tech savvy folks want information to be all about them. The 50 million people who bought iPods don't want to buy the whole CD, just the one or two cuts they like. Those with video iPods buy episodes of their favorite TV shows without subscribing to hundreds of cable stations. When you log onto Amazon.com, products are personally recommended to you based on your previous purchases. Most young apartment dwellers don't bother to share a landline because they each have their own cellphone, complete with customized audio and video. On the front page of today's New York Times Business Section, Saul Hansell writes about a phenomenon he calls "slivercasting" by producers whose programming has too small an audience to make it onto broadcast or cable television, but who have very dedicated audiences on the Internet. John Hendricks of Discovery Communications likens these specialized video services for niche markets to the magazine display at Borders (or one's local library?) Thanks to these technologies, we can make information and entertainment all about us. We can get what we want where and when we want it, and that would be on the web, 24/7.
What does this mean for Connecticut's libraries, purveyors of information and entertainment to all the people? I would say that we are responding very well to the public's need for personalized, web-based services, probably because we have always been all about the individual. Although we have statewide reciprocal borrowing, every town has its own public library (and some more than one!) The state-funded iCONN databases are available to all Connecticut residents on the web 24/7, and they will soon be supported by virtual reference librarians on the web with them 24/7. Audiobooks can be downloaded from library websites (except to the resistant iPods!) and streaming video and RSS feeds to announce new books and programs are also part of library website designs. Books can be reserved, renewed, and requested online anytime, and we offer a wide array for every taste, just like those magazines at Borders.
The fact is that libraries can serve niche markets because our niche has always been the individual. Just as we go to great lengths to protect the privacy of individuals using our libraries, we also base our services on the needs of individuals, and its not just about the technology. New public libraries are being constructed with a host of small study rooms as well as larger group meeting rooms. (Wilton has 19!) Academic libraries have long developed pathfinders for specialized research topics. The high school library is often the only place in a high school where it is socially acceptable for a teenager to be alone. And what is the reference interview, whether virtual or real, but a one-on-one conversation between one librarian and one patron?
So if the trend is toward the personal, bring it on. We know all about that. It's the way it's always been.