The nature of truth, libraries and tourism

A while ago now I did a talk about the nature of truth, and how it is changing in a digitally enabled world. The conclusions weren’t ground breaking but covered such things as:

Negotiated truth (the idea that truth can be reached via dialectic between two or more sources ala Wikipedia) vs Absolute truth (where one source defines what it sees as true. ala the Encyclopedia Britannica).

For young audiences the former seems to be the model for what is true and whilst there is widespread understanding that Wikipedia should not be used for university essay’s it is still the source they tend to turn to check a fact.

Amongst the other things we touched on was, sources of truth. From the research we carried out young people have a completely different set of trusted sources to say over 25’s. Now this isn’t surprising in a modern age – the kids are much happier to read around a news source online and draw their own conclusions.

I was chatting to a chum the other day who happens to work for a well known red-top. We were chatting about truth and papers and what’s going on with digital in that industry. One of the interesting things he said to me was that lately, his paper was being turned to by football fans checking their facts. They were literally e-mailing or picking up the phone to check on transfer rumours… interesting isn’t it.

We’re all really happy to read around a topic, but certain topics have traditional authority figures who we still turn to.

Again, the other day I was talking to someone about libraries. They came up with the fact that in the UK 85% of casual library visits (i.e. people who don’t routinely use the library) are tourist enquiries. Funny eh? Aside from books libraries are most trusted as sources of local tourist information. I think this is really interesting.

In a world where digital access and apps (library applications are there or there abouts) are all the vogue it’s really important to understand exactly what it is a consumer wants from you, what he or she trusts you to deliver… and then to deliver it. And then maybe monetise it.

This week saw the 100^th anniversary of New York’s Library. I noticed because I live in Norwich, and Norwich was the first city in the world to have a public library. I love libraries and I worry for them. I also love e-readers… I wonder what the future holds. Maybe I’ll have a think.