How (and If) Librarians Use Online Tools
WebJunction, the self-described “learning community working together to ensure that all library staff have the resources they need to power relevant, vibrant libraries” whose mission is “to promote learning for all library staff by providing open, affordable online learning communities” (WebJunction website, “About Us”), recently (July 6, 2011) released the results of their survey of WebJunction members about their use of 10 types of online tools and resources. The tools in question (listed in descending order of reported daily use) are:
- Email discussion lists
- Professional or social networking sites
- RSS feeds
- Chat or instant messaging
- Online library news or magazines
- Blogs
- Wikis
- Bookmarking sites
- Mobile apps
- Discussion forums
- Video sharing sites
- Photo sharing sites
- Online games
- Self-paced courses or tutorials
- Webinars or other online events
Interestingly, this survey separated personal use of these tools from use in a professional setting, which I believe makes the results more relevant to a discussion of how librarians use online tools as librarians, rather than as private individuals. I find this to be an improvement over the similar survey WebJunction released in July 2010, which asked members about their use online tools but didn’t specify whether the tools were being used for personal or professional use.
Even the current study is flawed, however, because of the vagueness of the term “use of online tools in professional setting.” Does that mean that the tool is actually being used for the business of the library, or just that it’s being used when the librarian is on the clock? These could be two very different things. As the Annoyed Librarian points out in her critique of the survey:
I’m also skeptical about what using the tools “in a professional setting” means. I would speculate that the majority of librarians using social networking for “professional” purposes aren’t really using it for anything to do with their jobs. At least that doesn’t seem to be the case for the librarians I know, including myself.
They may hang out on Facebook or Friendfeed or Twitter communicating with other librarians, and maybe even about topics related to libraries, but rarely about their actual library work.
What if the question was changed to, “used the tools for work,” defining “work” as “the stuff you actually do for your job,” rather than, “any activity even tangentially related to libraries that I could therefore consider professional activity”? I suspect we’d find a huge difference in the statistics.
While the survey has serious flaws, including a relatively small (1,039 responses), self-selected study population (members of WebJunction are, presumably, interested in its mission “to promote learning for all library staff by providing open, affordable online learning communities” [WebJunction website, “About Us”]), and a tendency for WebJunction to use the survey findings to promote its own products (such as webinars), the results do provide an interesting starting point for a discussion of how, and whether, librarians are using online tools in their work.
What do you think?
July 13th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Interesting… I am also wondering about the convergence of professional and personal capacities. Communicating with other librarians and sharing knowledge, while not strictly work could be part of professional development – perhaps they took “work” in its widest possible scope.
July 13th, 2011 at 6:33 pm
I think you’re right; WebJunction probably wanted to leave “professional use” open to as broad an interpretation as possible, given their goal of increasing the use of online tools in libraries. The author of the article seemed a little annoyed that email discussion lists took first place, calling them mocking “their definite 1.0 clunkiness.” It just would have been better study protocol for them to specifically define what they meant by “professional use,” rather than leaving it up to individual respondents to interpret.