Paper abstract

I’m gonna try and take a leap from my context book, Feed. I’ll extrapolate a bit more on the dystopian warnings contained therein. Hopefully be a bit clearer than I was in the context report post. However, I would also like suggest how these technologies (exemplified by the FEED) describe how close we are to this type of reality. Maybe not chips in the head per se, but corporate control, ubiquitous adverts, surveillance without our thinking we’re being surveilled, and the constant bombardment of information. Exaggerated as the narrative may be to make its point, I suspect we are pretty darn close in some respects. I’d like talk about what that implication is for the next generation of library users, namely digital natives, and how they perceive libraries and how libraries can continue to meet their needs in meaningful ways (not by simply adding the latest technology to the mix without evaluation and study and application and relevancy). I’ll try to briefly outline some of the characteristics of digital natives, talk about some of the generalized behaviors and attitudes, and then tie that to the human ways libraries can marry technology and service so as to not only remain relevant to them , but hopefully be more relevant than ever going forward. I’ll also touch on some of the concerns I have for digital natives (and digital immigrants) using ubiquitous Web-based social technologies with respect to privacy, identity, and reputation.