The digital transition, information behaviour and information literacy Professor David Nicholas http://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/research/ciber/ 1

The digital transition Digital transition creates unbelievable access to everything which brings search and evaluative skills to all aspects of life Disintermediation is a consequence and results in fast and massive choice, courtesy of Google. We are all librarians now Digital transition has much further to go what with the likes of mobile and reading devices and e-books The digital transition means behaviour goes on remotely and anonymously

Consequence is parents, teachers, librarians etc Consequence is parents, teachers, librarians etc.) know less and less about more and more people This leads to decoupling and, possibly, professional and subject melt down Compounded by the fact that the virtual has fundamentally changed the way we seek, use and communicate In the vacuum still working on basis of old, uninformed, paradigm Badly need to visualise, conceptualise and act what is going on Especially in regard to the born digital Fast transformation: internet year is seven weeks!

Need for new and appropriate research methods Need e-methods for an e-environment People leave digital footprints behind them – a massive evidence base What people did, not what they say they did, wish they did or thought they did. Do not remember what they did in virtual space. Don’t even know questions to ask. Deep log analysis – turn activity data into use/information seeking, then into user data and then relate to outcomes and ‘literacy’ implications The data is challenging to say the least…working with the BBC to get the message across…you might have done the test

Information behaviour and use in the digital space

1. Lots of activity: take scholarly publishing market 1.6 billion annual scholarly downloads Access the driver. More drawn into information net (all scholars, researchers and librarians now!) Existing users search more freely & flexibly. Extended working . Quarter of use occurs outside ‘traditional’ working (9-5) day and weekends account for 15% of use Growth. 40-60% - increase: a) more digitization; b) preference for everything digital; c) wireless/broadband; d) mobile devices (Cell phones, IPads) However, lots of ‘noise’, most users robots

2. Bouncing & skittering Over half visitors view 1-3 pages from thousands available. Around 40% do not come back Younger people bounce the most Bounce because of: search engines, massive choice, an ‘acceptance of failure’ - pragmatism, shortage of time & overload poor retrieval skills (2.3words) leave memories in cyberspace add to ‘churn’ rate direct result of end-user checking

3. Horizontal has replaced the vertical Horizontal has replaced the vertical: skittering (move rapidly along a surface, usually with frequent light contacts or changes of direction) or flicking. Victoria! Hoover through titles, headings, contents pages & summaries at a huge rate and its pleasurable. Charge for abstracts and give away PDFs

4. Viewing has replaced reading Power browsing Been conditioned by emailing, text messaging, Tweeting and PowerPoint and mobile apps will condition even more Context: 15 minutes a long time online Don’t view an article online for more than 5 or so minutes Go online to avoid reading. If long, either read a summary or squirrel away for a day when it will not be read (digital osmosis)

5. Like it simple and fast Avoid carefully-crafted discovery systems. Love Google Advanced search used rarely, and hardly at all by highly-rated research institutions. Like immersive environments Fast bag pick-up Fast information for a fast food generation –it fits

6. Brand much more complicated than you think Difficult in cyberspace: responsibility/authority almost impossible to establish in digital environment – so many players and brands, and so much churn Also what you think is brand is not what people think. Younger they are less likely to recognise traditional brands. Tesco! Libraries often anonymous players

So what do commentators make of all this? The study confirms what many are beginning to suspect: that the web is having a profound impact on how we conceptualise, seek, evaluate and use information. What Marshall McLuhan called 'the Gutenberg galaxy' - that universe of linear exposition, quiet contemplation, disciplined reading and study - is imploding, and we don't know if what will replace it will be better or worse. But at least you can find the Wikipedia entry for 'Gutenberg galaxy' in 0.34 seconds

Issues for librarians (and ‘literacy’) Propensity to rush, rely on point-and-click, first-up-on-Google answers, along with unwillingness to wrestle with uncertainties and inability to evaluate information, keeps young (and not so young) stuck on surface of 'information' age. Skittering having consequences for fundamental skills. Chipping away at capacity to concentrate & contemplate which leads to reading problems Speculation about digital making us stupid - damaging brain! Brain rewards us for looking and finding, but not reading! So love navigating but not getting there!

Actions Wake up to what has happened to our users. Forget personality profiling, what about web profiling –librarians can help here. Understanding information behaviour in digital space is a prerequisite to determining outcomes – positive and negative. Access leads to outcomes, but is not an outcome in itself. Librarians need to research outcomes Only then can determine consequences that result from what is absent from increasing numbers of our users - lack of a mental map, no sense of collection, and poor idea of what is good/relevant in crowded info space. Huge opportunities here. Then in a position to determine whether we are really benefiting from being connected to the fat information pipe and ‘always on’ information, and, if not what remedial action is necessary but don’t call it information literacy; be pragmatic, call it value-added, information investment, raising your game but not literacy! Work with publishers, user moves around in their space and have brand

Stuff to read and view BBC2. The virtual revolution. Programme 4: Homo Interneticus? http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/makingofprog4.shtml CIBER. Google Generation Research At University College London. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/research/ciber/ Nicholas D. The behaviour of the researcher of the future (the ‘Google generation’). Art Libraries Journal 35(1), 2010, pp18-21 Nicholas D, Rowlands I. Editors. Digital Consumers. London: Facet, 2008 Nicholas D, Rowlands I, Clark D, Williams P. Google Generation II: web behaviour experiments with the BBC. Aslib Proceedings 63(1) January 2011, pp28-45