INTERESTING STATISTICS ON USA GENERATION

According to Sydney Jones, Research Assistant, and Susannah Fox, Associate Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the vast majority of adults on the internet are between 18 and 54. The largest adult demographic on the internet is Gen Y (ages 18-32) at 30 percent, closely followed by Gen X (33-44) at 23 percent and Young Boomers (45-54) at 22 percent. My generation, the “Older” Boomers (hate that designation), 55-63 (yikes! I’m almost out of the boomers), make up only 13 percent of adults online. (The rest of the groups are the Silent Generation, 64-72, at 7 percent and the G.I. Generation (73+) at 4 percent.

I bet if you did the same study for librarians the older and younger boomers would fare better….
Check out the entire report. While you're in the vicinity, check out other stuff from the Pew Charitable Trusts, especially the Pew Research Center.

URL: http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Generations_2009.pdf
Pew Charitable Trusts home page: http://www.pewtrusts.org/default.aspx
Internet & American Life: http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_category.aspx?id=48
Pew Research Center: http://pewresearch.org/

THREE MEDICAL RESOURCES OF NOTE

Three resources have come to my attention recently—ones that you might not have been aware of.

Web 2.0 Resources, from the Medical Library Association, http://www.mlanet.org/resources/web20_resources.html

Blogs, wikis, Facebook groups, and more. Many have an RSS feed so you can subscribe and stay up-to-date.

Researching Medical Literature on the Internet, 2008, by Gloria Micciolli, http://www.llrx.com/features/medical2008.htm

Covers National Library of Medicine databases, metasites such as WebMD, drug information, journals and textbooks, search engines, and more.

Asian American Health, http://asianamericanhealth.nlm.nih.gov, from the (US) National Library of Medicine.

Categories: health and diseases, behavioral and mental health issues, complementary or alternative medicine, health organizations, major Asian populations, and materials in Asian languages.

PHYSICIANS AND LIBRARIANS SHARE THE "INTERNET" PROBLEM

There's a good article in the current issue of C&RL News (v. 69, #7, July/August 2008). In The Issues Facing Librarians and Physicians: Facilitating Quality Research in the Internet Age, Mary Francis [Dakota State University, Madison, South Dakota, USA] notes the common proglems that the two professions face.

She "heard a doctor comment on how his patients were turning to the Internet to conduct research on their health. My thought, 'Welcome to my world.' As a reference and instruction librarian, I have
continually been faced with students who use the Internet as the end all and be all of their research. I spend time during each instructional session I teach to note how the Internet will not provide the same quality material as that found within the academic journals indexed in the library’s databases. Physicians face a similar problem when patients find poor-quality health information online.

To the suggestion "that doctors provide their patients with a list of Web sites they would recommend as containing quality material," she comments, "Fortunately, this list has already been compiled by the Medical Library Association." It's a shame that haven't gotten the message to more MDs that we've already done much of their work for them. We have to do better!

URL:http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews/backissues2008/july_aug08/qualityresearch.cfm

TWO GREAT ARTICLES IN ONLINE

I want to call your attention to two articles in the January/February 2008 issue of Online (v. 32, no. 1). The first is When Internet is InterNOT (pp.32-36), by Arno H.P. Reuser [Ministry of Defence, the Netherlands]. Reuser writes that the Internet is NOT: international, easy, just like Google, large, objective, or anonymous. This is a good article to send to your boss (and his or her boss, too).

The second article is Put the “Service” in Self-Service (pp.55-57) by Darlene Fichter [University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada] and Jeff Wisniewski [University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States]. “To improve online customer service, be willing to do two things: Act quickly and fail.” They really “get it.” Unfortunately, neither is available for free online.

WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND--BOOKS REDUX

“Why Bother Studying Book Use at All? Patrons Want Everything on the Internet”

“There was a time when libraries installed radios in reading rooms and turned them on for important events such as presidential speeches. As radios became common household items, that practice disappeared. We suspect that patron use of the Internet in libraries may be a similar phenomenon. Laptop computers with wireless Internet connections are now common, and it may not be too many years before a home without a fast Internet connection is as unusual as one without a radio. When that day comes, libraries (while still being a supplier of online materials) had better be prepared to meet the demand for what is still our most popular item: books.”

Greiner, Tony and Bob Cooper, Analyzing Library Collection Use with Excel^©, Chicago: American Library Association, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8389-0933-1, US$40.00 (ALA members $36.00), pp. 6-7.

FREE INTERNET TUTORIALS

Intute in the UK has just released eight new free Internet tutorials for the Arts and Humanities in the Virtual Training Suite. The tutorials, authored by university subject specialists, are designed to help students develop Internet research skills for their university or college work, and can be used by lecturers and librarians to support their courses.

Architecture, by Sarah Nicholas, Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/architecture

Art and Design, by Rosemary Shirley Birkbeck, University of London, http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/artdesign

Media and Communication, by Jez Conolly, University of Bristol, http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/media

English, by Dr. James A J Wilson, University of Oxford, http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/english

Fashion and Beauty, by Sara Hall, Manchester Metropolitan University, http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/fashion

History and Philosophy of Science, by Dr David J Mossley, et al, Leeds University, http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/hps

Learning Languages, by Dr Shoshannah Holdom, University of Oxford, http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/langs

Music, by Sarah Taylor, Manchester Metropolitan University; formerly of the Royal Northern College of Music, http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/music

SOME RANDOM INTERNET STATISTICS

While evaluating NationMaster, a neat statistics graphing tool, I found the following statistics.

Users within a country that access the Internet, per capita
1. New Zealand (79.3 per 100,000 people)
2. Iceland (76.0)
3. Sweden (75.5)
8. Australia (64.7)
10. UK (62.2)
11. Canada (61.0)
18. USA (54.7)
24. Japan (50.4)
And dead last……Tajikistan (0.07)
Weighted average: 18.4

Cost of Internet access for 40 hours at evening times at discounted rates, September 2002
1. Belgium (US$62)
2. Netherlands ($53)
3. Norway ($52)
4. Italy ($50)
5. Japan ($49)
11. New Zealand ($41)
12. Australia ($39)
15. USA ($36)
17. UK ($33)
18. Canada ($31)
Weighted average: $43.56

Websites per 1000 population
1. Germany (84.7)
2. Denmark (71.7)
3. Norway (66.4)
4. UK (64.2)
5. USA (63.7)
7. Canada (32.9)
11. New Zealand (15.3)
12. Australia (13.3)
18. Japan (2.9)
Weighted average: 32.8

URL: http://www.nationmaster.com