The "Google generation" not so hot at Googling, after all

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A new UK report on the habits of the "Google Generation" finds that kids born since 1993 aren't quite the Internet super-sleuths they're sometimes made out to be.

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The "Google generation" not so hot at Googling, after all

  1. 1. a ciber brieﬁng paper information behaviour of the researcher of the future 11 January 2008
  2. 2. information behaviour of the researcher of the future contents setting the scene 4 what are the aims of this study? 5 how was this study carried out? 6 what is the `google generation’? 7 what is the `digital transition; and how does it affect libraries? 8 how do people currently behave in `virtual libraries’? 9 the google generation 11 what do we know about young people’s information behaviour? 12 how do young people currently behave in virtual libraries? 14 the social networking phenomenon: is it important? 16 google generation: myth or reality? 18 what do we really know about the google generation? 21 where are the skills gaps? 22 2
  3. 3. information behaviour of the researcher of the future contents looking to the future 25 what are might the information environment be like in 2017? 26 looking to the future 29 what are the implications for `information experts’? 30 what are the implications for research libraries? 31 what are the implications for policy makers? 32 challenges for us all 33 notes and endnotes 35 3
  4. 4. setting the scene 4
  5. 5. setting the scene what are the aims of this study? This study was commissioned by the British Library and • whether or not new ways of researching content will JISC to identify how the specialist researchers of the prove to be any different from the ways that existing future, currently in their school or pre-school years, are researchers and scholars carry out their work? likely to access and interact with digital resources in ﬁve • to inform and stimulate discussion about the future of to ten years’ time. This is to help library and information libraries in the internet era services to anticipate and react to any new or emerging behaviours in the most effective way. In this report, we These questions are of enormous strategic importance deﬁne the `Google generation’ as those born after 1993 but they need to be balanced against considerable and explore the world of a cohort of young people with media hype surrounding the `Google generation’ little or no recollection of life before the web. phenomenon, so a healthy degree of critical distance is needed. A bewildering array of titles has attached itself The broad aims of the study are to gather and assess the to a younger generation that is growing up in an internet- available evidence to establish: dominated, media-rich culture: Net Generation, Digital • whether or not, as a result of the digital transition and Natives, Millennials and many others. The untested the vast range of information resources being digitally assumption is that this generation is somehow created, young people, the `Google generation’, are qualitatively `different’ from what went before: that they searching for and researching content in new ways have different aptitudes, attitudes, expectations and even and whether this is likely to shape their future different communication and information ‘literacies’ and behaviour as mature researchers? that these will somehow transfer to their use of libraries and information services as they enter higher education and research careers. 5
  6. 6. setting the scene how was this study carried out? The most appropriate methodology for tackling this study careers (Work Package III). Here, the survey work of would, of course, have been a longitudinal study over a Carol Tenopir and Don King has been especially valuable. lengthy period that tracked the same cohort of young The third part gathered fresh evidence regarding any people through their schooling, their time as differences in information behaviour that can be undergraduates and their early research careers, as measured at one point in time. In other words, do graduate students or doctoral fellows. This was schoolchildren and adults approach the same search obviously impossible, given the time frame agreed for platform in essentially the same way, or are there clear this enquiry, so in approaching this task, CIBER age-related preferences? For this part of the study, developed a methodology that tries, within the CIBER used deep log analysis techniques to proﬁle the considerable limitations of the current evidence base, to users of two web-based information resources that recreate a longitudinal study from the literature together appeal to a wide variety of ages: BL Learn and Intute with some new primary data from a study of how people (Work Package IV). This is the ﬁrst time that anyone has actually use British Library and JISC web sites. In effect, actually proﬁled on any real scale the information seeking it represents a `virtual’ longitudinal study. behaviour of the virtual scholar by age. The ﬁrst part of this approach was to look at published Two other work packages are included. One reviews at literature on the information behaviour and preferences of the broad sweep of literature on the information young people over the past thirty years (Work Package behaviour of academic researchers before, during and in II). More speciﬁcally, the aim was to compare studies the wake of the digital transition and provides much of from the 1980s and earlier (Generation X), with those the context for this study (Work Package I). The other is published around the early 1990s (Generation Y) and a large-scale review of how new technologies, especially more recently, post-1993 (the Google generation). This those relevant to this study such as Web 2.0, and how was a desk-based exercise to try to isolate any critical these become adapted by users (Work Package V). This differences between these three generations at the same package also looks towards the near-term future, looking point in their development. at the kinds of business and technical trends that are The second part of this research was to identify, by driving change in the information landscape. reference to any existing longitudinal studies, whether or Throughout this report, more general ﬁndings about the to what extent the same cohorts of older researchers digital behaviour of young adults from CIBER’s Virtual adapt to the immense changes in information provision Scholar programme are included. taking place around them as they progress through their 6
  7. 7. setting the scene what is the `google generation’? The `Google generation’ is a popular phrase that • 89 percent of college students use search engines refers to a generation of young people, born after to begin an information search (while only 2 per 1993, that is growing up in a world dominated by the cent start from a library web site) internet. • 93 per cent are satisﬁed or very satisﬁed with their Most students entering our colleges and universities today overall experience of using a search engine are younger than the microcomputer, are more comfortable working on a keyboard than writing in a spiral notebook, and (compared with 84 per cent for a librarian-assisted are happier reading from a computer screen than from paper search) in hand. Constant connectivity – being in touch with friends • search engines ﬁt college students’ life styles better and family at any time and from any place – is of utmost importance 1 than physical or online libraries and that ﬁt is `almost perfect’ According to Wikipedia, the phrase has entered popular usage as “a shorthand way of referring to a • college students still use the library, but they are generation whose ﬁrst port of call for knowledge is the using it less (and reading less) since they ﬁrst internet and a search engine, Google being the most began using internet research tools popular”. This is offered in contrast to earlier • `books’ are still the primary library brand association generations who “gained their knowledge through for this group, despite massive investment in books and conventional libraries”. digital resources, of which students are largely Later in this report, we will deal with some of the unfamiliar myths and realities that surround the Google These ﬁndings, which are highly consistent with generation, and we will explode some of them, but the CIBER’s research into the information behaviour of notion has a strong intuitive appeal. young people3 as revealed by the analysis of web log Some headline ﬁndings from a recent global survey by ﬁles, raise enormous issues for information providers OCLC2 suggests that the Google generation and provide the policy context for this study. There stereotype may be broadly true: are broader educational concerns, notably whether having `facts at their ﬁngertips’ and surfeit of information is at the expense of creative and independent thinking? 7
  8. 8. setting the scene what is the `digital transition’ and how does it affect libraries? Enormous changes are taking place in the information The implications of a shift from the library as a landscape that are transforming teaching and physical space to the library as virtual digital learning, scholarly communication and the role of environment are immense and truly disruptive. Library `traditional’ research library services. Many of these users demand 24/7 access, instant gratiﬁcation at a changes have been brought about by technology and click, and are increasingly looking for `the answer’ the explosion of electronic `content’ made possible by rather than for a particular format: a research electronic publishing, mass digitisation projects, and monograph or a journal article for instance. So they the internet.4 The volume of full text information that scan, ﬂick and `power browse’ their way through can be searched, browsed and printed from the digital content, developing new forms of online convenience of a library user’s desktop machine is reading6 on the way that we do not yet fully now almost unimaginable. And, for the ﬁrst time, so understand (or, in many cases, even recognise). are the choices: library users have rapidly become While we have highlighted differences amongst scholarly information consumers who can switch instantly communities in this paper it would be a mistake to believe between commercial search engines, social that it is only students’ information seeking that has been networking sites, wikis, bookmarked resources and fundamentally shaped by massive digital choice, electronic services provided by their library to satisfy unbelievable (24/7) access to scholarly material, their information needs. disintermediation, and hugely powerful and inﬂuential search engines. The same has happened to professors, Research libraries, once proud curators of historic lecturers and practitioners. Everyone exhibits a bouncing / print collections, face enormous challenges in this ﬂicking behaviour, which sees them searching horizontally digital marketplace. The philosophy of warehousing rather than vertically. Power browsing and viewing is the norm for all. 7 large book collections, `just-in-case-they’re needed’, is rapidly becoming redundant as users turn their The trends in the content space are not just backs on the library as a physical space. Instead, technological. Research libraries also have to learn research libraries are having to adjust to a new reality: how best to manage a shifting world of formally the need to compete for attention among user groups, published, self-published and unpublished materials, especially the young, who demand involving, dynamic new licensing and business models, both paper and and personalised content experiences that can digital. It is an enormous challenge. compete with the likes of Facebook.5 8
  9. 9. setting the scene how do people currently behave in virtual libraries? (1 of 2) In a digital information world that is characterised by The latest CIBER research9 suggests that e-books will massive choice, easy access and simple to use tools, be the next publishing success story, although it is not surprising that librarians are feeling anxious. demand here could be even more spectacular, simply Their traditional role as intermediaries, helping users as a result of the enormous size of the student to navigate large and complex library systems, is population, hungry for highly digested content. being threatened by services, like Google, that seem All the available evidence shows that people behave to offer almost unlimited information choice and by- in very diverse ways when using electronic information pass the library. resources. We know this because their detailed In fact, research libraries offer an enormous range of behaviour is recorded in the form of computer log valuable publisher content to their users, but often trails. CIBER has spent more than ﬁve years studying through systems that seem far less intuitive than the the digital evidence that millions of scholars leave ubiquitous search engine. So librarians need to gain a behind them when they search e-journal databases, much better understanding of how people actually e-book collections and research gateways. Our behave in a virtual library setting and use their ﬁndings are of enormous relevance for librarians. expensive content. Without this, there is a real danger In general terms, this new form of information seeking that the library professional will swept aside by behaviour can be characterised as being horizontal, history, as relevant to twenty-ﬁrst century Britain as bouncing, checking and viewing in nature. Users are the hot metal typesetter. The popularity of desktop promiscuous, diverse and volatile and it is clear that access to electronic journals is already immense and these behaviours represent a serious challenges for use is growing very rapidly as publishers open up their traditional information providers, nurtured in a hard- content to be indexed by Google and other search copy paradigm and, in many respects, still tied to it. engines. The major journal platforms like Blackwell’s Libraries must move away from bean counting Synergy or Elsevier’s ScienceDirect attract literally dubious download statistics, and get much closer to millions of hits each month.8 monitoring the actual information seeking behaviour of their users. 9
  10. 10. setting the scene how do people currently behave in virtual libraries? (2 of 2) The main characteristics of digital information seeking Squirreling behaviour behaviour10 in virtual libraries are: Academic users have strong consumer instincts and Horizontal information seeking research shows that they will squirrel away content in the form of downloads, especially when there are free offers. A form of skimming activity, where people view just one or two pages from an academic site and then `bounce’ In spite of this behaviour and the very short session times that we witness, there is no evidence as to the out, perhaps never to return. The ﬁgures are instructive: around 60 per cent of e-journal users view no more than extent to which these downloads are actually read. three pages and a majority (up to 65 per cent) never Diverse information seekers return. Log analysis reveals that user behaviour is very diverse: Navigation geographical location, gender, type of university and People in virtual libraries spend a lot of time simply status are all powerful consumer demographics. One ﬁnding their way around: in fact they spend as much time size does not ﬁt all. ﬁnding their bearings as actually viewing what they ﬁnd. Checking information seekers Viewers Users assess authority and trust for themselves in a The average times that users spend on e-book and e- matter of seconds by dipping and cross-checking across journal sites are very short: typically four and eight different sites and by relying on favoured brands (e.g. minutes respectively. It is clear that users are not reading Google). online in the traditional sense, indeed there are signs that Conﬁdence level: very high new forms of `reading’ are emerging as users `power browse’ horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense. 10
  11. 11. the google generation 11
  12. 12. the google generation what do we know about young people’s information behaviour? (1 of 2) Research into how children and young people These points relate both to the current use of the become competent in using the internet and other internet by young people and, a technology research tools is patchy but some consistent themes11 generation earlier, to their use of early online systems are beginning to emerge: and CDROMs. There is little direct evidence that • the information literacy of young people, has not young people’s information literacy is any better or worse than before. However, the ubiquitous use of improved with the widening access to technology: highly branded search engines raises other issues12: in fact, their apparent facility with computers disguises some worrying problems • young people have unsophisticated mental maps of • internet research shows that the speed of young what the internet is, often failing to appreciate that it is a collection of networked resources from people’s web searching means that little time is different providers spent in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy or authority • as a result, the search engine, be that Yahoo or • young people have a poor understanding of their Google, becomes the primary brand that they associate with the internet information needs and thus ﬁnd it difﬁcult to develop effective search strategies • many young people do not ﬁnd library-sponsored resources intuitive and therefore prefer to use • as a result, they exhibit a strong preference for Google or Yahoo instead: these offer a familiar, if expressing themselves in natural language rather simplistic solution, for their study needs than analysing which key words might be more effective Conﬁdence level: very high • faced with a long list of search hits, young people ﬁnd it difﬁcult to assess the relevance of the materials presented and often print off pages with no more than a perfunctory glance at them 12
  13. 13. the google generation what do we know about young people’s information behaviour? (2 of 2) The huge question raised above is whether, and to what extent, the behaviour, attitudes and preferences of today’s Google generation youngsters will persist as they grow up and some of them become academics and scholars. In the absence of properly constructed longitudinal studies that tracked the information behaviour of a single cohort of young people through to maturity, it is impossible to answer this question directly. Circumstantial evidence that today’s undergraduates, just a little older than the Google generation, are `different’ from older adults is presented on the next page. The graph shows the relative value that members of the academic community place on a range of methods for ﬁnding articles. The age differences are startling and they suggest that the shift away from the physical to the virtual library will accelerate very rapidly and that tools like GoogleScholar will be increasingly a real and present threat to the library as an institution. Conﬁdence level: medium. 13
  14. 14. the google generation how do young people currently behave in virtual libraries? (1 of 2) This is a powerful reminder that people have different • those entering BL Learning via a blog type link were information needs at different points in their lives. There in a very small minority and these were predominantly are very very few controlled studies that account for age Americans (and core site users), no evidence yet that and information seeking behaviour systematically: as a social networking has really caught on in the context result there is much mis-information and much of library sites speculation about how young people supposedly behave Young scholars are using tools that require little skill: they in cyberspace. appear satisﬁed with a very simple or basic form of A central plank of this study is a deep log analysis searching. However, this was not so much the case with comparing the information behaviour of a wide range of persistent users. Thus in the case of Intute it was found ages using the same platforms: BL Learning, a service that the more pages viewed in a session the greater the aimed at schoolchildren and teachers, and Intute, a JISC likelihood that that session clicked through to another service that is aimed across and beyond the university site (an outcome in the case of a ‘gateway’ site like community. Intute). The key points to emerge from this analysis13-14 are: Findings from CIBER’s deep log analysis work are very • both services are very popular, both within and consistent with the information seeking literature and outside of the UK, and attract a great deal of use (in other research based on observations or surveys. For the case of BL Learning, 14% of all British Library example, observational studies have shown that young trafﬁc) strongly suggesting that they contain content people scan online pages very rapidly (boys especially) that younger scholars (and their teachers) value highly and click extensively on hyperlinks - rather than reading sequentially. Users make very little use of advanced • the popularity of both sites suggest that they have search facilities, assuming that search engines signiﬁcant brand presence at home and abroad `understand’ their queries. They tend to move rapidly • for both sites, the majority of visits were trafﬁc from page to page, spending little time reading or digesting information and they have difﬁculty making directed from a search engine, and they were relevance judgements about the pages they retrieve. interrogated from home, rather than from school, college or university Conﬁdence level: very high • about 40% of school search engine users found BL Learning using an image search, suggesting a preference for this kind of retrieval 14
  15. 15. the google generation how do young people currently behave in virtual libraries? (2 of 2) Students usually approach their research without regard to the There is very little evidence of generational shifts in the library’s structure or the way that library segments different literature: that Google generation youngsters are resources into different areas of its web site. Library web sites fundamentally `different’ from what went before. This is often reﬂect an organizational view of the library … they do not do a particularly good job of aggregating content on a particular of course difﬁcult to interpret: there are no longitudinal subject area.15 studies to show one way or the other. On balance, the literature appears to point to a big distinction between Children (especially) tend to make very narrow relevance young children and teenage groups, probably due to the judgements by considering the presence or absence of fact that small children have not yet developed the words exactly describing the search topic: as a result cognitive and motor skills to be effective searchers. they miss many relevant documents and end up Beyond age 11, the message is continuity, they do not repeating searches. Information seeking tends to stop at seem especially different in their behaviour from young the point at which articles are found and printed, adults, although CIBER studies have shown that search especially for younger users, with little regard to the engine image search (Yahoo and Google) is proving very document content. popular with the young and this may indicate a genuine Conﬁdence level: very high difference in information behaviour. The literature also shows that many of these Conﬁdence level: very high characteristics pre-date the web (as studies in the 1980s on CDROM, for example, demonstrate)16 and so they cannot be projected on to the internet as something completely new. 15
  16. 16. the google generation the social networking phenomenon: is it important? (1 of 2) The emergence of social web sites is changing the nature expensive copyrighted electronic content: journals, and fabric of the world wide web: we have moved from books and monographs, much of this is news to their an internet built by a few thousand authors to one being users. Either they do not know that the library provides constructed by millions. Social networking is of this material, or they get to it, possibly via Google, and particular interest to librarians and publishers because it assume it’s `free’. Libraries are increasingly between a is part of a wider trend: users creating and posting rock and a hard place: the publisher or search engine content for themselves, blurring the age-old distinction gets the credit, they just pick up the tab. between information producers and information So, a number of progressive librarians have started consumers. And as desktop publishing software building a presence in MySpace and Facebook by becomes the norm, it is sometimes almost impossible to creating proﬁles. It is too early for a solid evidence base tell the difference between formally published and self- to emerge to see whether this kind of initiative will bear published material. fruit, but there are clearly dangers in trying to appear This is a phenomenon affecting the whole of society and `cool’ to a younger audience. In fact, there is a the current popularity of social networking among the considerable danger that younger users will resent the young perhaps diverts attention from who actually library invading what they regards as their space. There generates (as opposed to who consumes) user- is a big difference between `being where our users are’ generated content: Wikipedia and YouTube both exhibit a and `being USEFUL to our users where they are’. marked age separation between viewers of content This seems to be the message from a 2007 OCLC (mainly 18-24s) and content generators (mainly 45-54s survey18 in which college students and members of the and 35-44s respectively).17 general public were asked the following question: Many librarians have started to experiment with social “How likely would you be to participate in each of the software in an attempt to get closer to their users. They following activities on a social networking or community have a problem. Although research libraries spend site if built by your library?” millions of pounds providing seamless desktop access to 16
  17. 17. the google generation the social networking phenomenon: is it important? (2 of 2) The numbers are those who say they are extremely likely There are many other examples of library or very likely to do so (general public responses in experimentation with Web 2.0 technologies: for example brackets). to enrich catalogue entries with user reviews and ratings, • self-publish creative work: 7% (6%) but it is again simply too early to assess their impact or effectiveness. But there is no doubting that social • share ideas with about library services: 10% (7%) networking is a major success story and that libraries should be keeping a watching brief over developments in • share your photos / videos: 7% (6%) this areas, especially as there is evidence from the US • participate in online discussion groups: 6% (6%) that most students with online access use social networking technologies at least sometimes and that • meet others with similar interests: 6% (7%) many report using these networks to discuss education- • describe your own personal collections: 9% (6%) related topics. • view others’ personal collections: 12% (6%) CIBER’s considered view is that the real issue that the library community should be concerned about is the rise Thus, most college students say they are not interested. of the e-book, not social networking. It should certainly Clearly it is very early days, but these survey ﬁndings do continue to experiment and to keep a watching brief on not provide much conﬁdence that social software, yet, these tools, especially for examples of best practice from has much to contribute to the rebuilding of relationships serious business use (e.g. in marketing) and in course with users in an increasingly dis-intermediated delivery. environment. Conﬁdence level: medium to low 17
  18. 18. the google generation google generation: myth or reality? (1 of 3) Kids are so different today. I bet every adult says that about the They have shifted decisively to digital forms of young people of their time, but kids today really are different communication: texting rather than talking* from the kids of any other age. 19 Our verdict: Open. it is very difﬁcult to see messaging as Many of the claims made on behalf of the Google a fundamental trend, its current popularity is certainly Generation in the popular media fail to stack up fully inﬂuenced by its relatively low cost compared with voice. against the evidence20. Over the next three pages, we try to assess these claims on the basis of the very scant They multitask in all areas of their lives* available evidence. Our verdict: Open. There is no hard evidence. However, They are more competent with technology** it is likely that being exposed to online media early in life may help to develop good parallel processing skills. The Our verdict: Generally true, we think, but older users are wider question is whether sequential processing abilities, catching up fast. However, the majority of young people necessary for ordinary reading, are being similarly tend to use much simpler applications and fewer facilities developed. than many imagine. They are used to being entertained and now expect this They have very high expectations of ICTs** of their formal learning experience at university* Our verdict: Probably true, since we live in a global web Our verdict: Open. Information media must be culture dominated by a handful of unifying brands. interesting or they will fail to be used: this is a circular Again, this expectation is relative, all of us are argument. We are a little concerned by the current information consumers now. interest in using games technologies to enhance They prefer interactive systems and are turning away students’ learning and library-based experience. When from being passive consumers of information** broadcast news makers introduced entertainment show Our verdict: Generally true, as borne out by young production techniques 20-30 years ago, research showed that these enhanced `interest’ but impeded the people’s media consumption patterns: passive media such as television and newspapers are in decline. absorption of information. Conﬁdence level: high***, medium** or low* 18
  19. 19. the google generation google generation: myth or reality? (2 of 3) They prefer visual information over text* They need to feel constantly connected to the web* Our verdict: A qualiﬁed yes, but text is still important. As Our verdict: We do not believe that this is a speciﬁc technologies improve and costs fall, we expect to see Google generation trait. Recent research by Ofcom21 video links beginning to replace text in the social shows that the over-65s spend four hours a week longer networking context. However, for library interfaces, there online than 18-24s. We suspect that factors speciﬁc to is evidence that multimedia can quickly lose its appeal, the individual, personality and background, are much providing short-term novelty. more signiﬁcant than generation. They have zero tolerance for delay and their information They are the `cut-and-paste’ generation** needs must be fulﬁlled immediately* Our verdict: We think this is true, there is a lot of Our verdict: No. We feel that this is a truism of our time anecdotal evidence and plagiarism is a serious issue. and there is no hard evidence to suggest that young They pick up computer skills by trial-and-error** people are more impatient in this regard. All we can do is repeat the obvious: that older age groups have memories Our verdict: This is a complete myth. The popular view that pre-date digital media experiences: the younger that Google generation teenagers are twiddling away on generation does not. a new device while their parents are still reading the manual is a complete reversal of reality, as Ofcom They ﬁnd their peers more credible as information survey22 ﬁndings conﬁrm. sources than authority ﬁgures** They prefer quick information in the form of easily Our verdict: On balance, we think this is a myth. digested chunks, rather than full text*** Research in the speciﬁc context of the information resources that children prefer and value in a secondary Our verdict: This is a myth. CIBER deep log studies school setting shows that teachers, relatives and show that, from undergraduates to professors, people textbooks are consistently valued above the internet. exhibit a strong tendency towards shallow, horizontal, `ﬂicking’ behaviour in digital libraries. Power browsing We feel this statement has more to do with social and viewing appear to be the norm for all. The popularity networking sub-culture and teenagers’ naturally of abstracts among older researchers rather gives the rebellious tendencies. Its speciﬁc application to the game away. Society is dumbing down. world of education and libraries is pretty questionable. Conﬁdence level: high***, medium** or low* 19
  20. 20. the google generation google generation: myth or reality? (3 of 3) They are expert searchers*** information industry of a collapse of respect for copyright is potentially very serious. Our verdict: This is a dangerous myth. Digital literacies and information literacies do not go hand in hand. A They are format agnostic* careful look at the literature over the past 25 years ﬁnds Our verdict: This may be true of some users, young and no improvement (or deterioration) in young people’s old, but not all. We have not found any careful analysis information skills. of this question, which is surprising given its import for They think everything is on the web (and it’s all free)* libraries and publishers alike. We suspect that this is no longer a meaningful issue: content is no longer format- Our verdict: Open. Anecdotally, this appears to be true dependent in cyberspace. for a large minority of young people, but no one seems to have framed a research question in this form and Conﬁdence level: high***, medium** or low* investigated it more deeply. Certainly this was a prevalent view earlier in the evolution of the internet, indeed its central ethos. To reverse the question, there is much evidence that young people are unaware of library-sponsored content, or at least reluctant to use it. This is the library’s problem, not the fault of young people. They do not respect intellectual property** Our verdict: This seems to be only partly true. Findings from Ofcom surveys23 reveal that both adults and children (aged 12-15) have very high levels of awareness and understanding of the basic principles of intellectual property. However, young people feel that copyright regimes are unfair and unjust and a big age gap is opening up. The implications for libraries and for the 20
  21. 21. the google generation what do we really know about the google generation? In a real sense, we are all Google generation now: the gained from our analysis of the surveys by Carol Tenopir demographics of internet and media consumption are and Don King25 suggest that the differences in rapidly eroding this presumed generational difference. information behaviour, at a single point in time, between The evidence indicates that more people across all age young and early middle-aged students and faculty are groups are using the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies much less signiﬁcant than those between young and widely and for a variety of purposes. The young (not just more mature (40 and 50-year old) students. the Google generation but also Generation Y, the next Whether or not our young people really have lower levels one up) may have been the earliest adopters but now of traditional information skills than before, we are simply older users are fast catching up ... the so-called Silver not in a position to know. However, the stakes are much Surfers. In many ways the Google generation label is higher now in an educational setting where `self-directed increasingly unhelpful: recent research ﬁnds that it is not learning’ is the norm. We urgently need to ﬁnd out. even accurate within the cohort of young people that it seeks to stereotype. Virtually 100% of students use word processors and utilize the internet for coursework. But the impression of broad A 2007 survey by Synovate24 ﬁnds that only 27% of UK competence slips when percentages are revealed for other teenagers could really be described as having the kind of applications, such as those for presentation development (65%), deep interest and facility in IT that the label implies. The spreadsheets (63%), graphics (49%) or creating web pages (25%). 26 majority (`average Joes’, 57%) use relatively low level technology to support their basic communication or Our overall conclusion is that much writing on the topic entertainment needs and there is a substantial residuum of this report overestimates the impact of ICTs on the of 20% (`digital dissidents’) who actively dislike young and underestimates its effect on older technology and avoid using it wherever possible. The generations. A much greater sense of balance is demographics are clearly very complicated and resistant needed. to neat generational labelling. Much of the evidence 21
  22. 22. the google generation where are the skills gaps? (1 of 3) Much has been said recently about the apparent However, a scrutiny of the literature shows that the expertise of children using electronic resources, and practice of formulating queries in this way pre-dates the there are claims that young people are using the Internet web. Thus the wider availability of technology and the more creatively and are becoming more proﬁcient in their near blanket exposure to it in recent years does not use than their teachers, that they tend in any case to be appear to have improved search performance in any more proﬁcient using information technologies than are signiﬁcant way. A persistent theme in the information their parents or teachers and that they are, in short, literacy literature is that we need a fully developed mental ‘technologically savvy’. Indeed, this is the popular map to make effective use of Internet search tools.28 We perception of young people and information technology need not only a broad understanding of how retrieval generally. But there is no evidence in the serious systems work and how information is represented within literature that young people are expert searchers, nor bibliographic or full text databases, but also some that the search skills of young people has improved with appreciation of the nature of the information space, and time27. Studies pre-dating the widespread public use of of how spelling, grammar and sentence structure the Internet have reported that young searchers often contribute to effective searches. Paradoxically, children display difﬁculty in selecting appropriate search terms, (under 13 years) and older adults (46 and older) are often and research into Internet use has consistently found unable to construct effective searches and evaluate the similar difﬁculties. One issue that has persisted results. In the case of children, this is very largely due to throughout the period of electronic searching is the their lack of knowledge of the kinds of information prevalence of full-phrase searching (e.g. “What are the content that exist is a particular domain, as well as three most common crimes in California?”) by young struggling to a greater or lesser extent with the other people. It would be tempting to attribute this activity to elements: a mental map of how search engines work, the rise in the accessibility of the Internet. The Web, of difﬁculties in moving from natural language to search course, may be searched with impunity using natural queries and less command of vocabulary required to language. This is taken to its logical conclusion in consider synonyms or other alternatives. In the case of ‘Ask.com’, which encourages users to enter such full the older generation, the key problem of course is that phrases as search terms. many lack a useful mental map of how the Internet `works’. 22
  23. 23. the google generation where are the skills gaps? (2 of 3) One area of current interest, and, indeed, concern, is the symptomatic of a lack of strategic government support way young people evaluate - or rather fail to evaluate - for information literacy programmes. A much fuller information from electronic sources. Here, too, there is research picture30 is available in the USA, however, and it little evidence that this has improved over the last 10 to paints a picture of a large minority of freshmen entering 15 years. Early research suggested nearly ﬁfteen years college and university with low levels of information ago (and pre-dating the Internet) that teenagers did not literacy and high levels of library anxiety. As might be review information retrieved from online databases for expected, information skills correlate positively with relevance (e.g. from online databases) and, consequently, entry-level SAT scores and subsequent grades. undertook unnecessary supplementary searches when It is not reasonable to translate these ﬁndings into the UK they had already obtained the information required. context but, since information literacy training is so Internet research has shown that the speed of young patchy and inconsistent in this country, the US people’s web searching indicates that little time is spent experience is worth noting. There are two particularly in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy powerful messages emerging from recent research. or authority and children have been observed printing-off When the top and bottom quartiles of students - as and using Internet pages with no more than a perfunctory deﬁned by their information literacy skills - are compared, glance at them. Researchers have similarly found young it emerges that the top quartile report a much higher people give a consistent lack of attention to the issue of incidence of exposure to basic library skills from their authority. In one study, many teenagers thought that if a parents, in the school library, classroom or public library site was indexed by Yahoo it had to be authoritative, and in their earlier years. It seems that a new divide is so the question did not arise. Other studies have also opening up in the US, with the better-equipped students found little attempt to check the veracity of information taking the prizes of better grades. At the lower end of retrieved. the information skills spectrum, the research ﬁnds that The most signiﬁcant ﬁnding [of our study] was that, although intervention at university age is too late: these students the teachers interviewed were information literate, their skills have already developed an ingrained coping behaviour: with and attitudes towards information literacy were not being they have learned to `get by’ with Google. transferred to their pupils.29 There is little research in the UK into the information skills of young people in and entering higher education. This is 23
  24. 24. the google generation where are the skills gaps? (3 of 3) The problem here is that they simply do not recognize that they have a problem: there is a big gap between their actual performance in information literacy tests and their self-estimates of information skill and library anxiety. The ﬁndings of these studies raise questions about the ability of schools and colleges to develop the search capabilities of the Google Generation to a level appropriate to the demands of higher education and research. If a similar pattern obtains in the UK, the key point is that information skills have to be developed during formative school years and that remedial information literacy programmes at university level are likely to be ineffective. The big question is what form that training should take: perhaps we should go with the ﬂow and help children to become more effective information consumers? Conﬁdence level: likely in relation to the UK, high for the US. 24
  25. 25. looking to the future 25
  26. 26. looking to the future what might the information environment be like in 2017? (1 of 3) A decade is a very long time ahead to make The inexorable rise of the e-book predictions at a time when the library and information Outside of leisure markets, we expect print sales to world is in such a state of turmoil and anxiety, but it is diminish sharply as electronic publishing initiatives possible to identify some powerful trends that seem such as blogs, RSS, integrated media players, pod very unlikely to be reversed. casting and publishing-on-demand devices become A uniﬁed web culture established parts of the information landscape. It is self-evident that by 2017 the internet will have Electronic books, driven by consumer demand, will come of age for all ages and be completely integrated ﬁnally become established as the primary format for into most homes. The World Wide Web will become educational textbooks and scholarly books and just that: survey research is showing us already that a monographs, as well as reference formats. remarkably uniﬁed set of online attitudes, activities However the most signiﬁcant impact for research will and behaviours is beginning to emerge across many not be how things get published, but how they get different countries as a few powerful brands (e.g. accessed. In particular OLED (Organic Light-Emitting eBay, Amazon, FaceBook) become globally dominant. Diode) technology will allow the widespread These services will become more personalised, more publishing of information on demand, wirelessly mobile, and even more intuitive: values that librarians delivered to an incredibly niche demographic31. This both respect and are, in some cases, already kind of publishing will be a potential headache for emulating. both research activity and archiving, since these In this uniﬁed global Web culture, national library publications can literally appear and disappear in an services and provision will become far less instant. meaningful, even quaint concepts (for example, research shows that British Library websites are very popular outside of the UK). 26
  27. 27. looking to the future what might the information environment be like in 2017? (2 of 3) More content explosions Emerging forms of scholarship and publication Scholars and researchers will beneﬁt enormously from As the information landscape is changing, so are the the huge mass book digitization programmes that are very processes of research. Scholars are beginning to currently underway (e.g. Google Print) and from employ methods unavailable to their counterparts a moves to archive research data as well as research few years ago, including pre-publication release of ﬁndings. It is hard to predict the rate at which open their work, distributing it through non-traditional access publishing and institutional archiving will outlets such as institutional repositories, blogs, wikis increase, but libraries should start to plan now for a and personal websites. time, perhaps not so far off, when most scholarly They are also trying out new forms of peer review articles are available to anyone from their desktop using online collaboration. This presents libraries with machine. This is both a major threat and an new challenges: archiving and managing different opportunity for libraries: it is likely to further fuel versions of scholarly material as they appear (and interest in scholarly content by people concerned rapidly disappear) from the web. The key challenge about their health or the environment, from small for the whole academic community, including libraries, businesses and the `amateur scholar’. is how to take advantage of new interactive media Each month, across the globe, nearly a million new while still protecting the integrity of scholarly media. users join the internet, joining the 750 million already Virtual forms of publication connected. Most are already generating their own content in the form of emails, blogs, wikis and Already, real world information providers, from personal websites and many more will follow. The commercial publishers to university tutors, are scale of this phenomenon is unprecedented in human engaging with Second Life to provide services for history: user-generated content is growing much members of that virtual world and many see a long- faster than publisher or content with inevitable term future in this kind of virtual publishing and consequences. Library-sponsored content is broadcasting. The relevance of this for the virtual shrinking in relative terms and it will become more scholar is that it is indicative of new modes of difﬁcult to ﬁnd as users land where the search engines engagement between content producers and take them, not where librarians think they `ought’ to consumers in the online world, and it is almost land. impossible to guess where this might lead. 27
  28. 28. looking to the future what might the information environment be like in 2017? (3 of 3) The semantic web The world wide web as we have seen and experienced it so far could be completely revolutionised by the advent of the `semantic web’. A system where, currently, humans express simple searches in everyday language, to order groceries, reserve a library book or look up a railway timetable, could be superseded by a system in which computers become capable of analysing all the data on the web. In the words of Tim Berners-Lee, this could mean eventually that “the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines”. Some pundits believe that this scenario is very far away and, indeed that it may never happen on a wide scale. Our view is that the semantic web is a tool that will reach its tipping point fairly soon. In ﬁve years, 2013, there could be substantial developments that might allow a whole generation of undergraduates to begin to experience its potential. This is especially likely to be the case in niche areas, like e-Science, especially biology, creating new opportunities for major research libraries to be involved in completely new forms of activity such as real-time publishing and the sharing of experimental data on the internet. Conﬁdence level: medium to high 28
  29. 29. challenges 29
  30. 30. looking to the future what are the implications for `information experts’? There are several messages in this report for CIBER’s Virtual Scholar programme has found information professionals. evidence - everywhere where we look - of clear differences in information-seeking behaviour by Gradually, the Internet is sinking into the background as a tool that everyone takes for granted - but libraries subject, by gender, and by work role. It is are not keeping up with the demands of students and increasingly clear that a one-size-ﬁts all policy researchers for services that are integrated and towards library or system design is not going to be consistent with their wider internet experience effective: there is as much (albeit, largely unacknowledged) diversity in today’s scholarly (including Google and other tools). Information consumers – of all ages - use digital media population as is likely to exist between today’s voraciously, and not necessarily in the ways that scholars and tomorrow’s. Without a detailed handle librarians assume. Any barrier to access: be that on these issues, it becomes impossible to target additional log-ins, payment or hard copy, are too high services effectively. for most consumers and information behind those Our ﬁnal message, one which information barriers will increasingly be ignored. professionals have exactly the right skills set to Given current levels of investment by the big address is the need for greater simplicity. We know corporate search engines, and static or declining that younger scholars especially have only a very library R&D budgets, it would seem that the only limited knowledge of the many library-sponsored effective strategy is for tighter integration of library services that are on offer to them. The problem is one content with commercial search engines. This is of both raising awareness of this expensive and urgent given that the business case for libraries is valuable content and making the interfaces much more standard and easier to use. The cognitive load beginning to look weak to many outside the profession. It also ﬁts with time-poor student on any library user (or librarian) in trying to work experience as they work their way through college or through such complexity is at present immense. study part-time or at a distance. Librarians are guilty of complacency here. Conﬁdence level: high 30
  31. 31. looking to the future what are the implications for research libraries? The main message of this report for research libraries is be via a ﬂexible, `suck-it-and see’ model. Trying things that the future is now, not ten years away, and that they out in the digital space, monitoring the reaction and have no option but to understand and design systems adjusting accordingly. Moving from counting hits to around the actual behaviour of today’s virtual scholar. watching users. The picture that emerges from internet research is that The signiﬁcance of this for research libraries is threefold: most visitors to scholarly sites view only a few pages, • they need to make their sites more highly visible in many of which do not even contain real content, and in cyberspace by opening them up to search engines any case do not stop long enough to do any real reading. This is either a symptom of a really worrying malaise - • they should abandon any hope of being a one-stop failure at the library terminal - or maybe a sign that a shop whole new form of online reading behaviour is beginning • they should accept that much content will seldom or to emerge, one based on skimming titles, contents pages and abstracts: we call this `power browsing’. We never be used, other than perhaps a place from which urgently need to understand the root causes of this to bounce phenomenon. The strategic implications of a shift from the physical to Students usually prefer the global searching of Google to more the virtual are profound for all industries, especially sophisticated but more time-consuming searching provided by libraries. Yet no one has done any longitudinal analysis the library, where students must make separate searches of the through time to see how today’s library users are online catalog and every database of potential interest, after responding to the changes taking place around them, let ﬁrst identifying which databases might be relevant. In addition, alone tomorrow’s users. Without addressing these not all searches of library catalogues or databases yield full-text issues now, librarians will continue to become even more materials, and NetGen students want not just speedy answers, but full gratiﬁcation of their information requests on the spot.32 marginal players in the digital scholarly consumer marketplace. Possible strategies that might be adopted It can be said with conﬁdence that librarians do not include the provision of better gateways to the literature currently design information systems around this form of and making simplicity their core mission. user behaviour and how best to accommodate it represents their real challenge. The way forward has to Conﬁdence level: very high 31
  32. 32. looking to the future what are the implications for policy makers? The research literature is inadequate in this area and Emerging research ﬁndings from the US points to the what serious material there is is eclipsed by aecdotal fact that these skills need to be inculcated during the or unevidenced claims. The library community needs formative years of childhood: by university or college to invest more in data collection and analysis and to it is too late to reverse engineer deeply ingrained take its examples from commercial leaders (for habits, notably an uncritical trust in branded search example, Tesco) that have a much more detailed and engines to deliver quick ﬁxes. insightful understanding of their customer base and This will require concerted action between libraries, preferences. In particular, there is a need for ongoing schools and parents. longitudinal data and intelligence functions to provide a vital early radar warning of oncoming change. Why Conﬁdence level: high (and the stakes are don’t major national libraries have in-house user enormous) studies departments? Without this intelligence, service stereotypes can easily become detached from reality. At national level, there is a desperate need for a well- funded programme of educational research and inquiry into the information and digital literacy skills of our young people. If the erratic behaviour we are seeing in digital libraries really is the result of failure at the library terminal, then society has a major problem. Information skills are needed more than ever and at a higher level if people are to really avail themselves of the beneﬁts of an information society. 32
  33. 33. looking to the future challenges for us all (1 of 2) So what are the main challenges to libraries and their 3. Becoming much more e-consumer-friendly and information services in meeting the needs of less stodgy and intellectual. Few digital library tomorrow’s scholars and researchers? offerings make any real attempt to connect with 1. Taking full advantage of the popularity of scholarly the larger digital consumer world: they simply do information and at the same time dealing with the not chime with people’s experience of Facebook, fact that UK users are the minority group for YouTube, Amazon or even for that matter, many UK-funded, cash-strapped information ScienceDirect. Why, for example, don’t academic services. libraries try to emulate personal/social searching guidance offered so successfully by Amazon for 2. Reversing the process of dis-intermediation in a many years? full-blown do-it-yourself consumer marketplace. As they say ‘we are all librarians now’. For, 4. Avoiding the decoupling scenario – libraries being instance, how to sell the key library role of a safe decoupled from the user and the publisher. With and authoritative information haven and the need the arrival of the e-book libraries will become even for digital information literacy training. Libraries are more remote from their users and publishers will handicapped here by a lack of brand, although become even closer as a result of consumer there is evidence that the BL has a good footfalls occurring in their domain. The fall out with publishers over open access and institutional international presence. Publishers are better able to offer something here with their strong repositories has caused a schism between commercial and academic brands and their rapidly librarians and publishers and the increasing expanding ‘walled garden’ information products, willingness of the user to pay for information (a and strategic partnerships should be considered. trend noticed by all publishers) will increase the isolation of libraries. 33
  34. 34. looking to the future challenges for us all (2 of 2) 5. Introducing robust, ﬁt-for-purpose mechanisms for 7. The library profession desperately needs leadership monitoring and evaluating their users (and to develop a new vision for the 21st century and information services). Faced with the prospect that reverse its declining proﬁle and inﬂuence. This the future scholar will only ever want to use them should start with effecting that shift from a remotely it is absolutely crucial that libraries have a content-orientation to a user-facing perspective means of monitoring and evaluating what they do. and then on to an outcome focus. Furthermore, it is not sufﬁcient to just listen and monitor it is also necessary to change in response to this data. Otherwise libraries will be increasingly marginalized and anonomized in the virtual information world. No private sector corporation would survive on the basis of failing to invest in consumer proﬁling, market research and loyalty programmes. No library we are aware of has a department devoted to the evaluation of the user, how can that be? 6. Really getting information skills on the agenda because clearly people are having great difﬁculties navigating and proﬁting from the virtual scholarly environment. To succeed it will be necessary to lead on outcomes/beneﬁts (better researchers, degrees etc) and work closely with publishers. 34
  35. 35. notes and endnotes Notes [17] John Horrigan. A Typology of Information and `The evidence base relevant to the issues raised in this report is Communication Technology Users. Washington, DC: Pew incomplete and, in some cases, contradictory. Where Internet and American Life Project, 7 May 2007. appropriate, we indicate our level of conﬁdence in the ﬁndings [18] Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World: A Report based on an assessment of the literature and other evidence. to the OCLC Membership. Dublin, OH: OCLC, 2007. [19] Sarah Ann Long, Digital natives: if you aren’t one, get to Endnotes know one, New Library World, 106(1210/1211) 2005, pp. 187-189. [1] Jason Frand, The information mindset: Changes in students [20] Synovate. Leisure Time: Clean Living Youth Shun New and implications for higher education, EDUCAUSE Review, Technology. Available online at www.synovate.com/current/ March / April 2006, p.15. [2] College Students’ Perceptions of the Libraries and Information news/article/2007/02 [13 December 2007]. Resources: A Report to the OCLC Membership. Dublin, OH: [21] Communications Market Report: Converging Communications Markets. Ofcom, August 2007. OCLC, 2006. [22] Ibid. [3] CIBER Work Package IV, passim [4] CIBER Work Package V, pp58-71. [23] Ibid. [5] CIBER Work Package V, pp. 45-46. [24] Synovate. Leisure Time: Clean Living Youth Shun New [6] CIBER Work Package IV, pp. 20-22. Technology. Available online at www.synovate.com/current/ [7] CIBER Work Package IV, p.21 news/article/2007/02 [13 December 2007]. [8] CIBER Work Package IV, pp. 3 and 8. [25] CIBER Work Package II, pp. 3-5. [9] CIBER SuperBook project, www.ucl.ac.uk/slais/research/ [26] Diana Oblinger and Brian Hawkins, EDUCAUSE Review, March/April 2006, p.12 ciber/superbook [27] CIBER Work Package II, pp. 8-10. [10] CIBER Work Package IV, passim [11] CIBER Work Package II, pp. 8-11. [28] Andrew Large, Children, Teenagers and the Web. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 39(1) 2006, pp. [12] Andrew Large, Children, Teenagers and the Web. Annual 347-392. Review of Information Science and Technology, 39(1) 2006, pp. [29] Lucy Merchant and Mark Hepworth, Journal of Librarianship 347-392. [13] CIBER Case Study I: An Evaluation of BL Learning: A and Information Science 34(2) 2002, p.81. Website for Younger Scholars. London: CIBER, 29 November [30] See, for example, Melissa Gross and Don Latham, Attaining 2007. information literacy: An investigation of the relationship between [14] CIBER Case Study II: A User Evaluation of Intute. London: skill level, self-estimates of skill, and library anxiety. Library and Information Science Research 29(3) 2007, pp. 332-353. CIBER, 29 November 2007. [31] Bright Future for Organic TVs. Scientiﬁc American, 5 October [15] Diana Oblinger and Brian Hawkins, EDUCAUSE Review, March/April 2006, p.12 2007, p.7. [32] Joan Lippincott, Net Generation students and libraries, [16] CIBER Work Package II, p.7 EDUCAUSE Review, March/April 2006, p. 57. 35

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