Communicating in the 21st Century

The front page, above the fold, left-hand column in today's Connecticut Post caught my attention. [If you get there today, September 3, the home page has the graphic from the story].

The title "Talk just isn't what it used to be" is certainly intriguing, and talks about a subject which has certainly attracted a lot of attention in library circles, communication style differences between generations of library users.

I first really began pondering this issue when the ALA Executive Board [EB] heard a presentation at the 2004 Annual Conference in Orlando. Ria Newhouse and April Spivak presented to the EB some of the information they had gathered from their cohort of recent Library School graduates. Mary Ghikas [The Green Kangaroo] had heard them present at the PLA conference in Seattle in March of that year, and as the Senior Associate Executive Director of ALA, she brought them to us because the topic has huge implications for the Association and how it does its business.

I've learned a lot since then. I have an AIM account (and use it periodically, often to talk with my kids), have been blogging for over a year now, have a Flickr account with a not inconsiderable number of photos and a growing list of contacts, and recently changed my phone service to be able to have text messaging at a much cheaper cost (because I was using it so much).

As a matter of fact, today is the annual bringing stuff to college. My daughter is at Band practice, and we will meet her in Boston. Our specific instructions are to text her when we leave home so that she can be ready to meet us at her dorm when we arrive. We'll also call when we get off Storrow Drive. It is a tool. It is how we will communicate in this part of this century!

All of this is to say, even for us "old folks" it is a matter of Change or Die.

Change note: Added links for Ria Newhouse and April Spivak at 1:20 pm