1. Professor David Nicholas Group (Dave.Nicholas@ciber-research.eu)
The national digital library of the future: results of the Growing Knowledge Exhibition (and related BL research) 1
Professor David Nicholas
CIBER Research
Group

2. Getting to grips with the researchers (and national libraries) of tomorrow
BL leading discussion in this strategic area – GG research, Researchers of Tomorrow research (PhD students) and Growing Knowledge (GK).
Now have a narrative; and a large, robust evidence base for use of BL and government policy makers
So now lets face up to your digital future with the data you have collected
Going to lead on GK:
Examine how research is changing as a result of the availability of digital technologies
Determine extent to which the GK exhibits meet the challenges of serving the changing needs of the research community
Stimulate debate on future role of national (digital) libraries in regard to researchers

3. Form of evaluation
Pebble in the pond and suck it and see approach. Ground the discussion; engage
XX exhibits covering the range of digital research tools in a special ‘digital’ space. Also available online. Six months of exposure and data collection
Hit them with a battery of evaluation tools – logs, questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, observation and touch pads
Basically two things: 1) what they thought of what was on offer; 2) but this was a sprat to get a sense of what they wanted from the national (digital) library of the future
Choice, digital transition, unbelievable access, Google & disintermediation transformed information landscape
Because so much information seeking goes on remotely and anonymously not woken up to this yet. Yet digital transition has further to go…
Still working on basis of old paradigm and yet we have all changed our behaviour
Real concern is Google Generation
Badly need to visualise, conceptualise and act what is going on

4. Consequence is librarians, publishers etc
Consequence is librarians, publishers etc.) know less and less about what more and more people do
Leads to decoupling and, possibly, professional/business melt down
Compounded by fact that the virtual has fundamentally changed the way we seek, use and communicate
In vacuum still working on basis of old, uninformed, paradigm
Need to visualise, conceptualise and act what is going on. Especially for born digital
And an internet year is seven weeks!

5. CIBER: virtual voyeurs - have a lot of evidence
Need e-methods for an e-environment
CIBER two prong approach
Millions of digital footprints from library, publishing, media, cultural & academic sectors. DLA – turn activity to use/information seeking, turn into user data and then look at outcomes
BBC Web behaviour test
What people did, not what they say they did, wish they did or thought they did. Do not remember what they did in the virtual space. Don’t know the questions to ask.
Data are challenging to say the least…first the footprint stuff. Take 1!

6. 1. Lots of activity: take scholarly publishing
1.7 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 . 1/4 of use occurs outside ‘traditional’ working (9-5) day and weekends account for 15% of use
Growth % - increase: a) more digitization; b) preference for everything digital; c) wireless/broadband; d) mobile devices
However, lots of ‘noise’, most users robots
. The digital has still worked wonders for scholarly information, opening it up to all and bringing in people who had difficulty accessing it when they wanted it.
he profession, together with publishers, are part of a huge scholarly success story, our research shows that there is a strong correlation with e-scholarly use and scholarly performance; top researchers (per capita) are the most voracious users of the literature; the universities where usage is greater are the top universities[1].
Therefore librarians must be helping to deliver more than just access; they are also helping to deliver academic outcomes. The point needs to be made to senior managers in a way they understand it – in the form of robust data.

7. 2. Bouncing & promiscuity
They enter a site, view a page or two and then go off somewhere else and do the same there. Thus typically half of all visitors view 1-3 pages from thousands available to them (something that must break the hearts of web designers). They bounce for some of the same reasons mentioned above (search engines, massive choice and poor retrieval skills); after all bouncing is an inevitable consequence of promiscuity. However the mistake is assuming that all bouncing represents poor information seeking. In fact, it can also represent an informed and highly pragmatic form of information seeking, which is the inevitable result of digital overload and a shortage of time. Thus, the user might have done their homework and know exactly what they want and once they have found what they want. Furthermore because they know there is no way they can scroll through the 60,000 hits returned by most search engine queries, they accept that you have to choose what you find quickly and not what is best. We have dubbed this an ‘acceptance of failure’. Nevertheless the younger the person the more likely they are to bounce and this can be attributed partly to poor information skills.
Over half 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,
acceptance of failure
poor retrieval skills (2.3words)
leave memories in cyberspace
direct result of ‘end-user’ checking

8. 3. Horizontal has replaced the vertical
The 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.
Great sense of achievement, like driving fast
Abstracts once though to be dead in the light of full-text availability, but helps the power browsing
Charge for them!

9. 4. Viewing has replaced reading
Power browsing + multi-tasking
Been conditioned by ing, text messaging, Tweeting and PowerPoint and mobile apps will condition even more
Context: 15 minutes a long time online on any one site
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)

10. 5. Like it simple and fast
Avoid carefully-crafted discovery systems. Love Google
Advanced search used rarely
Like immersive environments
Fast bag pick-up
Fast information for a fast food generation –it fits

11. 6. Brand Libraries often anonymous players
Difficult in cyberspace: responsibility difficult to establish in digital environment – so many players and brands, and so much churn
Don’t even know whose information it is!
Also what you think is brand is not what people think. Younger they are less likely to recognise traditional brands. Tesco!
And then there is brand cool! Wikipedia; Twitter and FaceBook causing political/legal havoc
Libraries often anonymous players

12. 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

13. Understanding what is going on
We have to do something with this knowledge to connect with the general public and policy makers; and make it come alive, get people to take action
Especially given that most of what we do, we do online (certainly in information and communication field)
Need to create digital signatures and web profiles throw away personality profiling. Use for building teams, marketing and customisation
We decided to do something with the BBC…

14. BBC Virtual Revolution Experiment (2010)
Sought to characterise and evaluate information seeking and usage behaviour by tracking what people did online (in test questions) and relating it to: a) demographic background (age, use of social media); b) working memory; c)multi-tasking ability.
Initial live television test at UCL in, appropriately, the Science Library to compare young people’s web behaviour with older people
Then run out on BBC website to global audience – 100,000+ responses

15. Live test, the Google Generation: confirming the footprints
Quickest searchers, spending least amount of time on a question - fraction of time spent by adults. Confirmed as fast information generation.
Knee-jerk `digital natives’ interpretation is young people whizzes at technology, and searching Web as natural as breathing.
However, by their own admission, least confident about answers. Lack of confidence explained by their behaviour - viewed fewer pages and domains and undertook fewer searches in answering questions.
Search statements much closer textually to the question posed, making GG `cut and paste’ generation.
As for multitasking, which anecdote has it they excel, yes they did it, but not well.

16. BBC web test: going global with web animals
On the basis of their performance in the web test people were assigned a web animal which fitted their behavioural style. "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing".
Still analysing this data but the following gives you an idea of where we are heading…

17. BBC web test: web animals
Eight animals types used, for instance:
WEB FOX. Web Foxes are good at finding information quickly. They are highly social, maintaining complex relationships with the other members of their social group, often using social networks, or other sites whose content is created by its users, as sources of information. Web Foxes are multi-taskers, able to do several things at the same time. found that Web Foxes tend to be younger (16-24), less experienced web users.
WEB HEDGEHOG are careful internet users, taking their time to find the right information. They prefer to go it alone, rarely relying on social networks and are specialised web users, best suited to concentrating on one thing at a time. found that web hedgehogs tend to be the less-experienced web users.
".

18. Conclusions
Propensity to rush, rely on point-and-click, first-up-on-Google answers, along with growing unwillingness to wrestle with uncertainties and inability to evaluate information, keeps young stuck on surface of 'information' age.
Speculation about whether the digital making us stupid - damaging the brain! Neuroscientists say changes pattern of connections – introducing new ones and dispensing with old ones, and because of plasticity of young people’s brains theirs change more quickly.
Skittering and viewing having serious consequences for fundamental human skills. Chipping away at capacity to concentrate and contemplate which leads to problems with us (not) reading.

19. 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 fully 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