I met our author Susan Gibbons for the first time at the Charleston Conference last week. We were both leaving a plenary session. Susan was headed down the street to the College of Charleston’s Addlestone Library, where she was a co-presenter on a “Lively Lunch” discussion of e-books. To go from the main hotel to the Addlestone Library one crossed the gate into the College of Charleston’s campus, sharing the sidewalk with the “net generation,” whose social (software) behavior was the topic of so much talk. A sort of visual affirmation.

Similarly, last night on my train ride home, I paged through Susan Gibbons’ The Academic Library and the Net Gen Student. Coincidentally, a student had sat in the seat across the aisle from me. She immediately laid down on her seat, knees propped up, and put in her earbuds, not the norm among us nine-to-fivers commuting back to the suburbs. Not long after I was reading through Susan’s description of the helicopter parents and how libraries can develop programs for them, the student was on her cell phone, presumably talking with a parent, apologizing that she had messed up, plaintively noting that she “felt like shit,” and offering assurance that she had tried to explain things to her professor.

We see the Net Gen all around us, or at least in front of us at Starbucks ordering complicated drinks. Susan Gibbons, associate dean for public services and collection development at University of Rochester River Campus Libraries, had the advantage of grant funded anthropologist studying her students. For more information, see the report, available as downloadable PDF and in print, or listen to a podcast interview of three researchers. Drawing on a perspective from the research results as well as Clayton Christensen’s “disruptive technology” concept and successful business models described in Jim Collins’ Good to Great, Susan offers an intelligent, convincing, and readable synthesis on how academic libraries can respond with action.

ALA HQ’s neighborhood is home to the newest ING Cafe. With very little effort, one can imagine it as a library branch. Here’s what’s on offer:

• Full coffee/espresso drink menu, a decent variety of pastries, prepackaged sandwiches, and juices, all at low prices
• Staff equally trained in pulling espresso and helping you with your online banking
• A seminar room that’s free for public use (by reservation) when not occupied by the occasional ING presentation
• Free wireless
• 10 terminals
• Free newspapers and financial magazines for use on site
• 6 flat-screen TVs (all on CNN, all muted)
• Branded merchandise (duffle bags, computer bags, portfolios, travel mugs, etc.) and a few financial tools (books, mechanical savings bank for kids) for sale
• Strong return visit incentive: buy four coffee drinks and the fifth is free

I wasn’t supposed to take pictures (against bank policy), but they did agree to let me take a shot of the media wall, which gives you a sense of the ubiquitous branding. One-third of the tv screen real estate is occupied by the ING logo and scrolling advertisings of banking services. Branding and ING advertisements also line both sides of every browser window.

I asked one of the employees if there was any resentment about having to serve coffee when, arguably, the employees had more valuable banking service skills to offer. He said no, because everyone working there knew the arrangement going into the job.

I asked about Internet filtering. He said there were restrictions on access, both for security purposes related to banking (he didn’t elaborate) and for “adult” sites. He noted that he expected that access to adult sites would be self-regulating, as all of the monitors faced the interior public space or allowed people to view the screen from the sidewalk outside, through the large front window. I chuckled a bit at this notion, which is when he said that they also have privacy screens on order, ostensibly to allow people privacy during their banking transactions, but he could imagine requiring a customer to use one if someone complained about his or her viewing habits. I suspect they’ll find out soon enough how complicated that can be, even without a freedom of access mission.

You don’t need to be an ING customer to use the facility. In fact, most people just drink coffee (Peet’s!) and check e-mail. As soon as school starts, I’m sure there will be a huge influx of Loyola college students from the dorm that’s just one block away. I wonder if the students will realize that they can access their library’s online resources from there?