An exploration of the connections between physical and digital collections, and how social media can further enhance teaching and learning. Presented at the State Library of Victoria's SLVLearn 2012 conference, October 10, 2012.

1. The future of information
Kelly Gardiner & Bethany Leong
10 October 2012

2. The future of …
Information And what does it all mean for…
• Search and social search
• Open data Learning
• Universal library search • Personal learning environments
• Digitised collections • Game-based and challenge-based
• Rich live media learning
• Digital publishing • Collaborative learning
• MOOCs
Technology • Changing capabilities
• Mobile learning and devices
• Cloud services and tools
• NBN-enabled content
• Voice and gesture driven interfaces
• Augmented reality (via devices)
P–2

3. Search
How search works now
• Major search engines index
publically accessible data only
• Web is around 800million
websites and growing 5% per
month
What is not indexed/returned?
• Library catalogues
• Some dynamic content
• Orphaned content (unlinked)
• ‘Deep’ databases
• Government publications & data
• Some file types (eg captions in
videos)
• Phone directories
• Some social media content
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4. P–4

5. Social search
• Uses data from web behaviour to
influence search results – yours
and others
• Provides answers to questions,
not resources
• Includes conscious and invisible
peer-to peer recommendations
• Risks include limiting results and
reducing serendipity
• Already in place in Google and
integrated with Google+
• Facebook search soon? Wolfgang Sievers, 1961
State Library of Victoria
• See ChaCha or Quora (answers)
P–5

6. Integrated search
Imagine … Issues
• Searching across the surface and • Even more information
the deep web
• Social and personalised search
• Customising your search style and might restrict our world view
preferred sources
• Most people will only ever use a
• Tailoring and targeting individual simple search
searches
• Search skills are about finding
• Search personalised for you and analysing
through your data and others’
• Reliance on key commercial
• Searching all libraries & vendors
collections with other sources
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7. Digital publishing
• Journal database publishers
monopolies are breaking down
• Ebooks formats & pricing will
settle
• Media and publishing houses will
consolidate
• Self-publishing extends to
schools
Possibilities:
• Collaborative purchasing of
ebooks and journals
• Digital print on demand in
schools
• Enabling PLEs by providing
tailored reading/media
Press, MacRobertson’s Chocolate Factory
P–7 Circa 1920, State Library of Victoria

8. Creation and curation, rich media
• Students research, create, upload,
share and curate their own content and
resources
• Educators do too
• Librarians always have!
• Organic process in online
communities leads to Pinterest &
Tumblr, home made videos on
YouTube
• Multimedia becomes ubiquitous on
all devices
• Immersive web-enabled TV.
• How can we enable the instinct to
find and share? Hans Bonney, circa 1965
State Library of Victoria
•See Learnist
P–8

9. P–9

10. P–10

11. Personal learning environments
•A Personal Learning Network is an on-
tap stream of information, resources,
answers, discussion, contacts and
support
• A Personal Learning Environment is
all of this plus a customisable online
space where all your materials and
tools are collected.
• For students – resources can be
curated and added
• For teachers and library teams – free
ongoing PD.
Imagine it with integrated
personalised search capacity
• See VicPLN, Gooru.
Mark Strizic, ca 1950
State Library of Victoria
P–11

12. Game-based learning
•We’ve always used games in learning
• Most kids now have hundreds of
hours of gaming experience
• Supports engagement,
comprehension, problem solving, goal
setting, creativity, collaboration, story
telling, as well as specific skills or
disciplines
• Challenges can be mobile and
location-based
• Game apps on mobiles now key
learning tools.
• How do we use game-like challenges Creator unknown, 1975
State Library of Victoria
to enhance learning and deliver
content?
• See Minecraft, SimCity.
P–12

13. Mobile learning and devices
Learning wherever you are
•Phones, tablets, netbooks – and TVs
• Extend learning beyond the
classroom/library
• Enable use of rich media and
interactive learning
• Enable location-based active learning
• Apps like Evernote allow access to
research and notes on any device
• Class sets, BYOD, 1-1 devices
• Becomes a platform for future
developments.
See Evernote.
Alfred E. McMicken, 1932
State Library of Victoria
P–13

14. Cloud services
Web-based tools and services
• Social networks for professional
development
• Research tools for senior students
and post-secondary
• Your browser now has enormous
capability
• Google alone has myriad features and
services
• More larger organisations are moving
to this – Ultranet is a custom-built
cloud
• Online learning, collaboration and
classrooms.
• See Dropbox, Zotero, Mendeley,
Lore, Edmodo.
Wolfgang Sievers, 1979
P–14 State Library of Victoria

15. Colour and movement
Voice and gesture driven
applications
• Touch phones and tablets are gesture-
driven
• Games consoles (eg Kinect, Wii)
• Wave your credit card – or phone
• Voice activation already enabled in
phones, lap tops, tablets
• Next generation of those annoying
phone systems: natural language
enquiries – two-way
• Developing eye motion and other
subtle gesture-driven products
• Think multimodal web (inc GPS,
handwriting, voice)
• Will rollout in Search soon
• What does it mean for text? For
literacy? For people with disabilities?
Purdue University robotic nurse
P–15

16. National broadband & universal wireless
NBN-enabled content & services
• High speed connections allow greater
use of rich media, games and
interactives
• Enables connections between schools
• Roll-out fast – fibre and fixed wireless
• Will it enable shared library systems?
• Enables interoperable TV/web
devices.
• Free wireless networks will spread
across cities, schools, towns,
dramatically changing access.
P–16

17. Augmented reality
•Mobile devices
•Layers of space, present, past, image,
real time data, nearby options
•eg Google glasses
•http://youtu.be/9c6W4CCU9M4
Google glasses launch 2012
P–17

18. Collaborative learning
•Group study & active projects an
important part of learning at all levels
• Collaboration now possible online
• Small-scale global interactions easy to
create – use blogs, Skype, Google Docs
or Forms, social media, video
• Study tools include collaboration and
sharing.
• How does it change the technology we
need in library spaces?
• How does it change the idea of a Argus collection, 1941
classroom? State Library of Victoria
• See Evernote, Edmodo, Facebook,
wikis.
P–18

19. Online learning goes viral
MOOCs
• Massive Online Open Courses
• Now offered free by leading
universities including Stanford,
Edinburgh and Harvard
• Provided entirely online on
platforms like Lore and Coursera
• Some provide certification
• Largely short courses now – but
what next?
• See Udacity and Coursera
Marconi Wireless School, Argus, 1945
State Library of Victoria P–19

20. Changing capabilities
Issues
• Automation can lead to loss of core
skills or knowledge
• Understand the concepts that
underpin technology
•Should kids learn how to code? Should
we?
• What about those who can’t access
devices or services?
• Which is more important: skills or
information?
• Our own learning never ends – and
never will
• We need ourPersonal Learning Mark Strizic, ca 1950
Networks. State Library of Victoria
P–20

21. What does information mean?
And what is research?
• Easy to search, not easy to find
• Growing lack of research competence
• Changing role of librarians and
teachers: providing paths to resources
and the skills and tools to use them?
• Changing role of students: research-
and action-based learning?
• A complex set of competencies
Research steps:
• Define tasks and queries
• Find resources
• Select & evaluate information
• Organise materials
• Present findings.
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22. “The need to know the
capital of Florida died
when my phone
learned the answer.”
- Anthony Chivetta,
high school student
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23. What next? Be brave. Go play!
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