Gobbling up Google, and Preserving American Intelligentsia

     Our academic library is one of the best in the nation, with holdings that scholars request from far and wide. Many items are not available in other libraries – and certainly are not available online. However, our student body is comprised of digital natives from the millennial generation.
They ignore the best resources for their research, simply to avoid a trek across campus. They practically emerged from the womb believing that if it is not accessible from their bedroom computer, it is not worth the effort. Their research skills are limited to feeble keyword searches. If we do not do something to educate them now, we will fail in our academic mission. That would make us a party to the mass ignorance that is dumbing-down our society. As winter approaches students become even less willing to venture out of doors. We have an obligation to intercede. Libraries have always strived to serve their patrons in ways that are most convenient for them. If the culture has changed among our patron base, then we must adapt. Otherwise, we are not doing our job. Since we can make this change easily and without financial setback, failure cannot be an option.

     It is my mission to obtain your approval to implement Meebo, an IM aggregator, in our library. It is free. It is web based, and therefore, it is safe. It will allow us to maximize the usefulness of all of our forays into the world of social media. It will help us meet our patrons halfway, and become a presence in their online lives – which are increasingly inseparable from their lives offline. We will be as easy to reach as Google, yet easier to navigate because we will provide more targeted results. We will be more helpful, more creative, more dynamic, and more interactive than Google could ever hope to be. We can assess their informational needs via the reference interview. We can make the dreaded-but-priceless print resources a part of their lives by scanning and emailing just minutes after the Instant Message request is made.

     The differences between the virtual reference-service we currently use, and Meebo are vast. Our VR is made up of what we care about as librarians – not what matters to our patrons. We like to “push pages” but they couldn’t care less if they are even aware of such features. Furthermore, students that know about it simply refuse to use our VR. It is bulky, cumbersome, too technically specific, and prone to crashes and freezes. Students live on their computers. They are not going to install our software only to have it slow down their lives. In addition, we have no offline functionality. This limits our statistics drastically. Every missed inquiry is a missed opportunity to serve our patrons. Not so with Meebo. Every time we sign on we can access and answer all of our missed messages.

     In dollars and cents, our vendor-provided VR is prohibitively expensive. Meebo is free. Dollars and cents are what every library wants and needs – in funding. We cannot expect to get much needed increases if we continue to be seen as irrelevant. Meebo will make us a beloved resource, and one that is vital to the student body. University Officials will be able to see our interactions in Meebo’s automatic log. This will bolster our stats. Our value will be clear, and our efforts to keep costs down will be appreciated.

     If we implement this tool we can ensure that our students will be library-phobic no more. Soon we will be an integral part of every scholar’s world - young and old – once again. Our students, after all, are a constant stream of America’s future leaders.  Because these leaders will be informed by real research, they will be able to enrich and improve our society. We will have saved them from drowning in the swelling sea of insipid mediocrity flooding America. Perhaps they will be able to turn back this vapid red tide – once and for all.