I read this article on NextGens a couple of weeks ago and was really struck by a couple of the things it had to say. Born with the Chip. I’ve heard Stephen Abram talk on this subject a couple times and didn’t expect much new, but I guess it always pays to give a guy a chance, as IMHO he’s really dialed in on this topic now. BTW, if you get a chance to hear Stephen talk you should go; he’s quite dynamic 🙂 (sorry, while I’ve heard the name, I’ve never heard Judy Luther speak).
So relating to distance librarianship, I picked up on the following: “We must prepare this generation for the real issues of the world they will live through, not the one we encountered”. I find this one particularly interesting because so many of the statistics show our distance students are above the average age of the typical undergrad, and thus may not be quite as “wired” as “the kids”, yet on the other hand their entire eduction is in a wired environment… And of course regardless of their age, they’re living in this world, now the world in which we were educated…
“Librarians need to be able to reach NextGens in their devices of choice…” I know I’m not doing anything special in this area. Well, unless the device of choice is the PC, but even then I’m constrained by Canadian Copyright law from delivering some things directly to the desktop (grrrr). Library service to the PDA or cellphone anyone?
“…only five percent of people over 30 have an IM account, while estimates run as high as 85 percent of NextGens with at least one IM account.” This one shocked me, though The Shifted Librarian has been noting this trend for a good while now. I’ve started asking my distance students in some of our pre-assessment exercises how many have an IM account, and so far a large majority DO use them, so I continue to wonder when I will offer my services to them via this medium…
I’m not that far removed from this generation, but my finances seem to limit me from playing with all their toys. Yeah, it’s not my age, it’s something else 😉