Note from the author I wrote this book in 2011, but much of it holds true today. Understanding the digital divide means understanding the people affected by it and understanding the technology that thwarts them. This book is a combination of practical and philosophical approaches to working with the digitally divided. You can read more about this book on its website: Without a Net: Librarians Bridging the Digital Divide In 2018, I asked the original publisher, ABC-CLIO, to revert the rights to me so I can revert them to you. With help from 44 generous folks on Unglue.it, I was able to pay the reversion fee, and add a Creative Commons license so you can share this book freely. - Jessamyn 3 This is an unglued ebook Unglued ebooks are made possible through the Unglue.it website by contributions from 44 readers like you. Supporters of this edition: Wendi A. Dunlap klmccook jhwcrossett Gail Dawson dphiffer Kevin Waters Sean Dague sudama Ross Tyner Romany Manuell Rogers Cadenhead Benefactors of this edition: grantbarrett Andrew Pollock bandit Anonymous (1) Bibliophiles of this edition: Paul Ford "This is for everyone." —Tim Berners-Lee, Creator of the WWW, at the 2012 London Olympics Dave Polaschek John & Marcy Manning To all dogs everywhere 5 © 2011-04-30 by Jessamyn C. West ISBN: 9781598844535 . URI: https://unglue.it/work/113915/ (this work). This unglued edition is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/. The Creative Commons licensing is made possible by the support of readers like you. Become an ungluer at https://unglue.it/ . 4 You can say thank you by supporting the ungluing of more books at https://unglue.it/ . If you're reading this book on an internet-connected device, you can also share it with your friends: Email it Tweet it Share it on Facebook You can help us fix errors in the digital conversion by visiting the book's code repository at Github. 6 Without a Net Without a Net Librarians Bridging the Digital Divide Jessamyn C. West Copyright 2011 by Jessamyn C. West All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review or reproducibles, which may be copied for classroom and educational programs only, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data West, Jessamyn, 1968– Without a net : librarians bridging the digital divide / Jessamyn C. West. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–1–59884–453–5 (pbk.) — ISBN 978–1–59884–454–2 (e-book) 1. Libraries and the Internet—United States. 2. Libraries—Information technology—United States. 3. Internet access for library users—United States. 4. Public access computers in libraries—United States. 5. Library employees— Effect of technological innovations on—United States. 6. Library orientation— Technological innovations—United States. 7. Information technology—Study and teaching—United States. 8. Libraries and community—United States. 9. Digital divide—United States. I. Title. Z674.75.I58W47 2011 020.28504678—dc22 2011000993 ISBN: 978–1–59884–453–5 EISBN: 978–1–59884–454–2 15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. Libraries Unlimited An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America In memory of Steve Cisler Contents Preface .......................................... xi Why I Am Writing This Book ...................... xi Where I Came From ............................. xii Where I Am .................................. xiii What We Have ................................. xv Where We’re Going ............................ xvi Caveats .................................... xviii Acknowledgments ................................. xxi Introduction ..................................... xxiii Why Our Work Is Important—Defining the Digital Divide............................. xxiii Computers, We Have Them ...................... xxv People Are Offline for a Reason .................. xxvi Moral Imperatives and Technological Definitions.... xxviii Who Is Offline, and Why? ...................... xxix What Libraries Can Do....................... xxxviii About This Book ............................. xxxix 1 People in the Library.............................. 1 Library Staff—You Are Here ....................... 2 Library Patrons—What They Need, What They Receive ................................... 9 viii Contents 2 The Bigger Picture—Who Makes the Tools We Use ...... 19 What Is a Default and Who Decides? ................ 20 The Media, the Decision Makers, and How They Interact .............................. 38 Synthesis—How It All Works Together .............. 48 3 Planning—Strategies, Techniques, and Tools........... 51 Library Policies ................................ 53 Leading versus Following—Tech Assessments......... 60 4 Planning for Pedagogy ........................... 69 Our Toolbox ................................... 70 Setting Up the Classroom......................... 78 Instruction Happens............................. 81 The Technology Itself ............................ 85 Are You Accessible? ............................. 92 5 Basic Instruction and Explanations .................. 97 Tech Terms and Meanings ........................ 98 What Is a Computer? ........................... 102 What Is an Operating System? .................... 117 What Is the Desktop? ........................... 120 What Is a Window? ............................ 120 Basic Tasks ................................... 123 6 What Is the Internet?............................ 135 Internet Elevator Pitch .......................... 137 Internet Access................................ 138 What Is Our Internet?........................... 139 A Few Common Myths about the Internet ........... 140 The Web..................................... 142 Google, The .................................. 153 7 Email Is Everything ............................ 163 Break It Down—What Is Email Really? ............. 164 Contents ix So, You Need Email? ........................... 170 Email Parts................................... 175 Email Attachments............................. 176 Advanced Email—Tips to Improve the Experience..... 178 Non-web-based Email .......................... 179 Bad People and Email .......................... 180 8 Office Software, Databases, and Social Software ....... 183 Do You Know Word? ........................... 184 Bibliographic Instruction—Teaching Our Tools ....... 188 Social Software and Syndicated Sites ............... 192 9 When Things Go Wrong, or Right .................. 201 Troubleshooting and Supporting Your Systems ....... 202 Feedback and Assessment ....................... 210 10 Things That Work—Examples from the Field ........ 217 Informal Consortia in the Green Mountains and Elsewhere ................................ 218 MyKLOW—Consortial Blogging .................. 219 Technology Petting Zoo—Up Close and Personal...... 221 23 Things .................................... 222 Five Weeks to a Social Library—Collaborative Learning..................................... 224 11 Why This Matters and What to Do ................ 227 Appendix and Bibliography......................... 231 Notes .......................................... 247 Index .......................................... 251 Preface We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works. —Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt Why I Am Writing This Book I’m writing this book because it doesn’t already exist. The dig- ital divide is real; the need to engage it is pressing. Libraries are one of the few institutions with national presence and digital infrastruc- ture that are taking on this large project. And they could use help. IhavebeendoingbasictechnologyinstructionsinceIbegan library school in 1993, and rural technology instruction since 2002. If you want to get nitpicky about it, I’ve done technology instruc- tion since I showed my mom how to get the VCR to stop blinking 12:00. This would have been in about 1979. And the classic struggle is exactly the same. My mom knows how to push a button, how to tell time, and how to follow instructions. But somewhere along the line, the combination of steps required to do simple tasks—tasks with a technological aspect—started to seem impossible to her. There’s a whole body of work surrounding the idea of techno- stress and how it affects us and why, for example, people don’t set their VCR clocks when they’ll set every other clock in the house. Why inserting a computer into the steps involved in performing a task can sometimes cause people to not do the task at all. Until six months ago, I was driving around in a car with a clock that was an hour and seventeen minutes off because I couldn’t figure out how it worked. I am no stranger to either side of this issue. xii Preface However, this isn’t a psychology text, for the most part. This book gives you practical data for both technology instruction and general education. That said, part of technology instruction is not just being able to tell someone how to get their email or run a virus scan, it’s how to make technology