Joyce Valenza’s Neverending Search

I am guilty of frequent blog neglect. I mean to share, to document, to contribute, but deadlines, not nearly as fun, get in my way. Here’s the latest excuse.

Little did I know when I began the doctoral adventure that I’d also be joining the scientific poster culture.

Our UNT SLIS cohort is now hard at work preparing posters that present our research graphically and attractively. Though we don’t have to actually present till ALISE in January, the poster deadline for UNT is Wednesday and I have been desperately trying to learn both PhotoShop and the statistical software packages. When this is all over, I will share my work!

The work centers on student use of school virtual libraries and the need for us all to translate and reinterpret our programs to meet our students where they live and play and work. We can offer much-needed interventions while we allow young people the independence they also need. We can address all our varied roles (as defined in Information Power)–learning and teaching, information access and delivery, and program administration—through our sites. We can scale and customize our work in a way never before possible. These are exciting times for librarians!

Taking a break from the poster craziness, I was inspired to join the existing group of wacky librarians and create my own trading card.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78154370@N00/65719465/

You can join too! Visit http://flagrantdisregard.com/flickr/deck.php

and tag your photo “librariantradingcards.” Visit the others at:       http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/librariantradingcards/

Back in high school I poured my poetry, my “art,” and my reflections into a marble covered notebook. I am the kind of adult who blogs and I would have been the kind of kid who blogged. 

On November 2, the Pew Internet & American Life Project released another in its series of Internet pulse-taking reports.  Teen Content Creators and Consumers reports on two areas of youth culture—their creative activity in the form of blogs and websites and their consumption of downloadable music. Let’s focus on Pew’s teen blog findings.

The study’s investigators, Amanda Lenhart and Mary Madden, found that more than half (57%) of online teens not only take from the Web, they contribute to it and participate interactively.   “They have created a blog or webpage, posted original artwork, photography, stories or videos online or remixed online content into their own new creations.” 

The survey of 12 to 17-year olds revealed that older girls lead this pack of  digital content creators and that members of this group are more fervent and more experienced in their use of the internet than those who do not blog.

The numbers break down like this: 19% of online youth ages 12-17, approximately four million young people, have created their own blogs.  38% of all online teens, or about 8 million young people, say they read blogs.  The adult world is not nearly as involved.   7% of adult internet users say they have created their own blogs and 27% of online adults say they read blogs.

Amanda Lenhart, Senior Research Specialist with the Pew Internet & American Life Project, sees blogs as a “wonderful space where young people have a voice.”  She noted that teen blogs cover the “mundane and the sublime and everything in between” and suggests reading them can be “like getting access to personal diaries stuck between the mattresses.”  

But the teen blogosphere is a complicated place. “Teen blogs may sometimes be embarrassing for adults,” says Lenhart.  “When teens have a voice, they may not always be thinking about who may be reading what they write and there may be external consequences.”  But, Lenhart notes that most teens are keeping blogs to stay in touch with their friends. Two thirds of teens only read the blogs of people they know.

From my vantage point, I see incredible value to teen blogs. I know many teens are newly motivated to write and who find themselves, for the first time, writing for a real audience.  Groups of friends, both remote and local, are brought closer in online communities.  I see great value in classroom blogging as building a habit for the valuable sharing of knowledge. My teacher partners are getting excited about this potential as well.  My daughter and her friends and many of my students are avid personal bloggers.  They chronicle their details of their lives and they share their creativity—their art, their photographs, their stories, and their news–through their blogs.

This is all quite wonderful.  But I would be irresponsible if I did not share some of the issues—and my own concerns–surrounding young people and their blogs.

The Pew study presents what Lenhart describes as a “broad stroke” and does not really address blog content.  As the Pew study hit the Web, it was followed by significant response from the educational blogging community and the educational mailing lists. Educators expressed concern about teens who reveal their hearts, the details of their lives—including the details of Friday night’s party–and sometimes their young venom on their blogs.  Personal blogging at recess is quite different from curricular blogging.  Teachers and parents worry about student privacy and safety and the personal secrets they may reveal. Schools are legitimately concerned over potential liability for personal blogging on school computers during recess and study halls.  Bullying and unpleasant clique behaviors are part of teen culture. That same hurtful behavior sometimes migrates online as an element of teen blogging.

Bottom line?  The kids are blogging.  Like any other tool, blogging can be used either responsibly and creatively or irresponsibly and harmfully.

The question for adults is–how do we celebrate and encourage teen creativity through the new communication vehicles while we guide them through some of the thorny issues relating to personal safety, discretion, and kindness?

Visit the Pew Internet & American Life Project Reports http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/166/report_display.asp

And to get a true flavor of the teen blogophere in all its variety, try browsing around:
Xanga  http://www.xanga.com/

Livejournal http://www.livejournal.com/

MySpace  http://www.myspace.com/

Last week I followed the news about Amazon’s (and perhaps, Google’s) plan to sell book content to searchers by section by section or page by page.  http://business.bostonherald.com/technologyNews/view.bg?articleid=110321

The blogosphere appeared to rock with predictions regarding the future of libraries. 

I worry too.  I worry mostly about equity.  My students will likely be able to buy their information just as they happily buy up their favorite accessories at Abercrombie.  But will all students have that same access? 

I also wonder about all that information that is already provided online for FREE through library and school databases.  Do most folks know about their statewide databases?  If they did, perhaps Amazon’s announcement would not have been such big news.

In a recent issue of Teacher-Librarian (Feb. 2005), Mary Ann Bell examines the available databases and lists the portal sites for each state.  http://www.teacherlibrarian.com/tlmag/v_32/v_32_3_feature.html

In Pennsylvania, for instance, my students already have FREE access to netLibrary, which offers them access to more than 50,000 FREE e-books.  And, through our state’s Access PA POWER LIBRARY http://www.powerlibrary.org/Interface/POWER.asp?ID=PL2870, they have access to: EBSCOhosts remarkable reference and journal literature, Facts for Learning, the AP Multimedia Archive, Grove’s Art and Music, SIRS Discoverer, Oxford Reference, and so much more!  Joining all this FREE information, in my school, and in many others, students have FREE access to additional databases supported by their schools. http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/catalogs.html

We must do a better job of getting the word out.  We must come up with truly viable federated search solutions. Getting to what students and other people need is not all that easy. But people ought not have pay for what they already own.