eSmart Libraries Evaluation Report: Wave Two Findings

eSmart Libraries is a behaviour-change initiative developed by the Alannah & Madeline Foundation in partnership with the Telstra Foundation; collaborating with Australia’s library network to connect libraries and their users with tools and resources to improve cybersafety and wellbeing online, and facilitate digital inclusion in the community. The initiative was developed in response to a concern that an increasing digital divide was leaving some of Australian society’s most vulnerable members lacking in the skills and knowledge to be smart, safe and responsible users of technology (AMF, 2012). This report is the second in a series of three reports that looks at the success factors and barriers to implementation of the eSmart Libraries framework for library services. In this second wave of data collection there were over 500 participants across 12 library service sites nationally. The research team conducted focus groups, interviews and surveys with seven library services, including three that had participated in the first wave of data collection. In addition, the research team undertook interviews only with five further library services, five library industry representatives and three members of the eSmart Libraries Team at the AMF. The report is structured according to the four key evaluation topics: Area 1: Impact; Area 2: Implementation; Area 3: Partner and Industry Objectives; Area 4: Perceptions. The implementation of the eSmart Libraries initiative comes at a time when the role of library services in their communities is significantly transforming. The traditional, transactional relationship between library staff and users is changing as technology provides new ways of delivering services. More and more public libraries are playing a key role as digital hubs for local communities. By providing access and education programs, they actively contribute to improving digital participation within those communities. The combination of locality and free access to devices, connectivity and education uniquely positions public libraries as places and spaces where digital participation can be promoted and supported (Jaeger, Bertot, Thompson, Katz, & DeCoster, 2012). The eSmart Libraries initiative offers library services a holistic framework, grounded in social and behavioural change communication theory (SBCC), which targets library leadership; policy, procedures and strategy; staff knowledge and capability; guidance and learning for library users; and community engagement

eSmart Libraries Evaluation Final Report

This report prepared for The Alannah & Madeline Foundation, brings together the two waves of findings of the eSmart Libraries evaluation, undertaken between May 2014 and May 2017 by the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre (Young and Well CRC) and Western Sydney University. The evaluation engaged over 1000 library managers, staff, users and industry representatives, across 15 library services in surveys, interviews and focus groups. Findings highlighted the excellent progress the eSmart Libraries initiative is making in supporting library services to enhance the digital literacy and online safety of staff, users and the broader community. The eSmart Libraries initiative was found to support participating library services to better respond to and develop library users’ digital literacy and cybersafety needs. This was achieved through building management and staff confidence, introducing or improving internet access policy and procedures, delivering training and support to library users, and engaging more broadly in the community

Addressing a volatile subject : adaptive measurement of Australian digital capacities

Measuring the dynamic shape of digital practices and their near-ubiquitous relationship to daily life is an elusive quest, one that must contend with temporal and relational limits. Research instruments employing categories and indicators struggle with the transient and interconnected character of the digital ‘social fact’. Longitudinal studies pose special difficulties: a 1990s study of browsing and searching would need to be updated to account for the rise of blogging, gaming and media sharing in the 2000s, and again for mobile devices, virtual reality and home automation in the 2010s. Accounting for the volatility of digital life requires, we argue, an adaptive theoretical approach that acknowledges its integral temporal and relational character. We introduce ‘digital capacity’ as the key organising concept for this approach. Alongside the productive capacities of digital objects, the concept doubles as a description of the responsive and generative abilities of digital users. Such capacities are not invariant, and evolve reflexively through multiple sociotechnical milieu: local neighbourhoods, regional configurations of law and infrastructure, and global networks, standards and platforms. Today, capacities respond, for example, to complex arrangements of face-to-face relations, nation-state norms, and the increasing prevalence of mobile devices, telecommunications and platforms. Despite the rapidity and complexity of this change, practitioner and research communities need some stability in definitions and measures of capacities, and we further discuss an approach, based on community indicator work, to research instrument design that admits both comparison and sensitivity to time, place and context. We include illustrative data from a pilot study of Australian digital capacities

Tackling Maternal Anxiety in the Perinatal Period: Reconceptualising Mothering Narratives

For many mothers in Australia, worries about pregnancy, birth and parenthood have become a source of considerable anxiety. Although apprehension and heightened concern are normal responses to change, raised expectations, contradictory information, the increased surveillance of mental health issues and a fragmented health system may contribute to the higher prevalence of anxiety. In this paper, we identify challenges surrounding maternal anxiety, including the limitations of current approaches to prevention and treatment, and the role the ‘good mother’ narrative may play in increasing anxiety. An overview of our research at Western Sydney University (WSU) demonstrates how working with mothers, and those who support them, can optimise resilience and hope and allow for new ways to celebrate the diverse experience of motherhood within our communities. Our ultimate goal is to transform the narrative from one that pathologises mothers, and those who support them, to one that normalises, embraces and celebrates the diverse, natural concerns about parenting