information behaviour of the researcher of the future

I just was pointed at a report commisioned by JISC and the British library on the information behaviour of the Google Generation in the future. This can be found at: http://www.bl.uk/news/pdf/googlegen.pdf. It has been around for a while (since January 2008) but still seems quite applicable.
One trend they discern is 'power browsing': quickly scanning materials across the broad collection of information on offer. Information literacy is and remains extremely important.
Interestingly they fear that there will be less of a role for the library. I am not sure that I share this worry. I feel that it is up to the library to change and offer a new physical space which matches the demand of the student and researcher of the future. Their walls no longer hold a monopoly so they must give the user a good reason to come and visit. And as the netgen is also a social generation, certainly offer them room for social interaction.

I do find the report is slightly more applicable to students than to researchers. Some points (e.g. power browsing) they acknowledge are not unique to the Google Generation but actually have been adopted by researchers of all generations.

How to cite tweets and keep them available...

Twitter is definitely taking off as a popular medium despite the brevity and 'media-poorness' of the messages. If you are going to train your students in correctly quoting the internet, how about tweets? In the article http://gunther-eysenbach.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-cite-twitter-how-to-cite-tweets.html the author links to some nice articles.

He also raises a far more challenging question. How to keep twitter messages retrievable. The author describes the 'Webcite' tool which will archive citations on the web for you.

To try it out I have just created a Webcitation of a tweet I sent out a few days ago. It is a little work, especially adding the metadata, but at least you are assured that the webpage will be retrievable. I do wonder how long the webcite service will be available.

Is there one Generation Y?

I just skimmed through the ACRL 2009 strategic thinking guide. This is interesting input for my present work, although some points are related to the situation in America. I did find three interesting observations regarding students:
" • Increasingly, multiple generations make up the student enrollment at most colleges (either virtually or physically). This trend is likely to persist as the unemployed return to retool and reskill."
This combines nicely with the ideas regarding Life Long Learning on this side of the Atlantic...

"• We are all “becoming” Generation Y (also known as the Net or Millennial generation). New research shows that increased access to sophisticated technological social tools and increased connectivity via smart phones, laptops, and other handheld devices is changing the behavior of several generations; other generations are taking on the characteristics of Generation Y. Frequently cited generational differences are beginning to blur."
I like the 'we' in this quote. Does this mean that this is not a generation as in an age group, but rather a portion of the population? This would connect nicely with the findings that there are large differences within the young age group regarding technology uptake and attitude. This also matches the findings that older generations (e.g. the old X gen) are taking on social networking, gaming, twittering etc. more and more seriously...

"• The gadget-savvy Millennial students do not fully comprehend the complex networked
information world: “students may have confidence because they are unaware of the complexities involved [in using the Internet effectively] or just because they have grown up with technology. This potential gap between actual and perceived skills and literacy is important to understand and factor into strategies for teaching and learning at the institution.”
OK, I interpret this as follows, but correct me if I'm wrong: they think they are smart, but they do need some training in Information Literacy. This is a point which does keep on popping up.