IM...Red Carpet Detour from the Socio-Digital Divide

There is an aspect of the feverish procession to IM that troubles me. Were it accompanied by commensurate outreach to disadvantaged users, it might be more laudable. Where it coexists with policies that needlessly constrain those who lack access to basic technology, it signals a woeful retreat from our fundamental institutional charge to decry social inequity and ameliorate its effects. Shame on libraries that fawn on the privileged and exacerbate the digital divide!

Resources allocated to court the digitally privileged are more responsibly spent in empowering the digitally impoverished. Energy expended to lure the immature into ever more superficial exchange is more productively (and honorably) spent in dismantling the obstacles (some imposed by libraries themselves) that thwart engagement on the part of masses that are already seeking us out, and that, unlike the IM-intoxicated, lack viable alternatives.
instant messaging
social responsibility
library 2.0