"The Internet of Things and what it means for librarians"

Presented by Lee Rainie, Pew Research Center Internet Project

The Internet of Things (IoT) is defined as the development of the Internet in which everyday objects have network connectivity, allowing them to send and receive data (OED definition). This allows smart machines to communicate with each other even without human intervention.

Examples he gave of current or future appliances and other "things" that can use the Internet: wearable baby monitors, smart dispenser caps for medicine, pill sensors (that detect when medicines work in your body), monitors for family members.  Smart devices can include thermostats, electrical outlets, home sensors (are repairs needed?), plant sensors (detecting when water or fertilizer is needed), and trash bins (that notify waste management when full). IoT can provide data on available parking, pollution warnings, track water, help protect wildlife, and detect mudslides.

At libraries, Rainie believes that the IoT will affect people (changing our roles), place (library space and media) and platform (the role libraries play in communities).

Rainie drew his conclusions from Pew's surveys of the future of the Internet, focusing on its social impact. Pew has been doing the surveys since 2004, and they have predicted such trends as the rise of cyber attacks. the move to mobile-preferred connectivity, degradation of traditional publishing/knowledge businesses and growing concerns about privacy.

Survey respondents (scientists and other subject experts contacted by Pew) believe that the Internet will become like electricity, less visible yet more deeply embedded in people’s lives.

Upsides: Enhanced health, convenience, productivity, safety, and vastly more useful information
Downsides: privacy challenges, over-hyped expectations, tech complexity, lagging human adaptation to new realities (things will break and we won’t know how to fix them), possibility of greater digital divide among the rich and the poor

It will affect the insurance industry: Allowing sensors to be placed in their cars may lower customers' insurance rates.  Allowing sensors to be placed in their bodies could lower people's health insurance rates. 

Rainie has ambitious hopes that in this envisioned future, library staff can become tech experts, master teachers in an age of lifelong learning, visionaries for the knowledge economy, experts in sense-making and context, and curators of most relevant and useful material. He believes that librarians will be vital in helping people deal with the cultural disruptions that IoT will bring.

He sees the library as a platform (similar language from the session on start-ups) and a community resource.  He hopes that libraries can be trusted institutions and privacy watchdogs; advocates for free and open resources and for closing digital divides; data and collections repositories; entrepreneur enablers; civic specialists and gap fillers.