The Significance of User-Created Content in Public Library Participation

Lara, Veronica

Abdullah, N., Chu, S., Rajagopal, S., Tung, A., and Kwong-Man, Y. (2015). Exploring Libraries’ Efforts in Inclusion and Outreach Activities Using Social Media. De Gruyter, 65(1), 34-47. DOI 10.1515/libri-2014-0055


Alfonzo, P. (2016). Snapchat in the Library: Librarians master an app to reach millennials. American Libraries, 47(11/12), 22-23.

Bernier, A., Males, M., & Rickman, C. (2014). It Is Silly to Hid Your Most Active Patrons: Exploring user participation of library space designs for young adults in the United States. Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, 84(2), 165-182.

Ford, A. (2016). Fellowship of the Fans. American Libraries, 47(11/12), 34-39.

Perrero, M. (2016). Marley Dias: Bringing diversity to kids’ books. American Libraries, 47(11/12), 26.

            In one of our early presentations, we discovered the technology being utilized by the libraries we study, respectively.  One element of this study was to determine ways in which libraries are utilizing Web 2.0 tools.  Web 2.0 is the trend of user-created content on the web.  An example of this is wikis.  Wikis are user-created online dictionary entries for various subjects.  We certainly don’t need an introduction to Wikipedia to understand this concept. 

            Libraries have been using Web 2.0 tools to encourage participation among their patrons.  In Abdullah’s, et al. article, Exploring Libraries’ Efforts in Inclusion and Outreach Activities Using Social Media, the authors state, “the Internet has undergone a transformation, from being a static repository of information to being a socially interactive Web” (2015, p. 34).  Social media sites are a place for creating and sharing content.  This is in stark contrast to libraries, which have often been described as “information silos.”  Therefore, the goal for libraries should be to create a more participatory environment for its patrons. 

            Several articles have reported on the ways libraries are increasing their presence on social media to boost participation.  Paige Alfonzo writes about a number of libraries that have utilized Snapchat as an outreach tool to bolster teen involvement in public library programs.  Alfonzo discovered that  teens are often featured in the snaps, by sharing their favorite book or to share what they are currently reading.  Other libraries also have contests to create Geofilters for the library.  This allows teens to create the content themselves. 

            But participation doesn’t stop with Web 2.0.  Libraries have been encouraging users to participate and create content in other ways.  For example, Marley Dias is one 12-year-old girl who launched a campaign to diversify the children’s collection at her school, after being dissatisfied by the lack of diversity in the required reading materials.  Her campaign, #1000BlackGirlBooks, as collected and donated 7000 books to six different cities.  In this case, Ms. Dias has taken it upon herself to guide the collection development of these libraries. 

            Programs are another way for libraries to bring in new patrons, and librarians have found a way to incorporate content creation in these too.  The North Liberty Community Library in Iowa has offered a program in which patrons come together to write fan fictions, share, and critique each other.  The point of content creation in this case is to encourage participation in a library program.  Patrons can think of the library as a place to commune and share ideas, rather than it being a place that houses books. 

            Relatedly, an article written by Bernier, Males, and Rickman discuses the library spaces themselves as a way to attract participation.  In the article, the authors state that Young Adult sections are a significant indicator of teen participation.  More specifically, they argue that higher teen participation in the design of Young Adult sections leads to greater long-term participation in teen services.  Their study includes the creation of an index by which to measure teen participation in design, which positively correlates to overall future presentation.  In other words, higher participation in creation of the space leads to higher participation over all.  User-created content, or even planning involvement, is shown to have a profound impact on the idea of ownership over the space.  This sense of ownership is what encourages participants to continue the tendency to participate.

            So what does this show us?  It has been documented in several studies that higher participation during content creation leads to better general participation throughout the library.  We should be thinking of patrons as contributors, and assigning new roles to what libraries offer.  Information no longer moves in one direction.  It should be disseminated, analyzed and recreated into new information.  Thinking of a library as a place to simply receive information is antiquated.  The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can tap into the wealth of information that is our community.

            These are just a few of the articles I have chosen to highlight in this post, but there is a plethora of literature on this subject.  If you find one, please share it here.  I would love to see other examples of user-created content.

Reinventing ELA for the Digital Age

Micka, Tracy

INFO 266, Fall 2016

Jenkins, H., & Kelley, W. (2013). Reading in a participatory culture: Remixing Moby-Dick in the English classroom. [Kindle version]. Retrieved from amazon.com.

Summary:

Imagine teaching a high school unit on the notoriously long and plodding Moby-Dick and having the students love every minute of it. Daring? Yes. Easy and without hiccups, no. This book chronicles the experience. Employing multimedia mashups, comic strips, staged and recorded plays, music videos, social media, fan fiction, and other ‘new media’, teachers set out to use different expressive practices to enable students to engage with the text in a deep and personally meaningful way. It wasn’t about entertaining the students or making a boring book more palatable, but rather about developing a community of readers and giving students a chance to express their ideas across a range of participatory media platforms and practices.

My comments:

At first blush, it’s easy to miss what this book has to do with collection development in school libraries. This happens when you have a limited view of what a library collection is and does. When you view a library’s collection as x number of books and educational resources, then you are seeing the collection largely as “stuff”; if, however, you are able to envision the collection as a platform for collaboration, or a body of resources that goes beyond “stuff” to include programming, connection-development, and people; as a place that exists both physically and virtually according to a set of norms and practices that emphasize and enable collaboration, participation, and knowledge-sharing, then you can understand that this book has everything to do with collection development in school libraries. With this premise, allow me to share some of the exciting theories and conclusions offered by this book.

This book is the result of the burning desire to reinvent the ELA classroom for the digital age. We are now well into an era that could be characterized as the fall of the ‘expert’. For example, the role of teacher is morphing from the ‘sage on the stage’ to the ‘guide on the side’- since information has become ubiquitous with the internet, teachers (experts) are no longer the gatekeepers to content (information), and instead, use their skills to enable students to productively, ethically, and creatively act upon a distributed network of expertise in a way that is meaningful for both the student and the global community to which the s/he is inextricably linked. This concept has huge ramifications for how schools and classrooms (and, indeed, libraries) work. Reinventing the ELA classroom, then, involves moving the knowledge culture toward the idea that, “no one knows everything, everyone knows something, all knowledge resides in humanity” Levy’s Collective Intelligence (as cited in Jenkins & Kelley, 2013, Loc 3609). In this paradigm, learning is not an individual, solitary pursuit- locating and using information is as important as knowing how to collaborate with others and generate new information from that process. In this context, it becomes clear that ELA is as much about writing as it is about reading; about consuming information, yes, but also creating it; about traditional literacy, but, crucially, also about the new media literacies. A library’s collection can either hamper this ‘new’ kind of learning, or propel it forward.

This is not a book aimed at librarians, per se. It is a book for educators though. And to the extent that a librarian resonates with the role of educator, it is a book for them. Digital curation, issues of copyright, reading motivation, and intellectual freedom are all explored from the lens of What would happen if school work aligned closer to out-of-school / informal learning experiences? This question is of great concern to school librarians who expect to remain useful. Reading in a Participatory Culture is a landmine of ideas, both disruptive and comforting, that will help librarians understand the larger forces at play with regard to transliteracy, and to integrate the values and logic of participatory culture into their collection.