Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Thing #15: Perspectives on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 & the future of libraries



Library 2.0 is a shift from static, print only based libraries to very interactive, fluid and Web driven services. Rather than sitting stationary on the shelf, Library 2.0 is taking flight into the digital world.
*************
After looking at another blog from someone doing 23 Things in Cecil County here is an interesting perspective: http://www.xanga.com/mme_jesonis/602335713/week-6-thing-15.html She is concerned that as librarians increase tech learning, the gap between haves and have-nots is widening The have-nots may feel threatened by "those who know" what they do not. Take a look at her blog.
*****************
From Wikipedia: "The key principles of Library 2.0 are not just about access to books and information. It is about innovation, about people, and about community building, enabled through the participation that social computing brings."

In Rick Anderson's article Away from the “icebergs”, he says that remnants of a bygone information age are threats to our future success. We may have difficulty letting go, but our patrons have no such qualms. He says that "as a Web 2.0 reality continues to emerge and develop, our patrons will expect access to everything – digital collections of journals, books, blogs, podcasts, etc. You think they can’t have everything? Think again. This may be our great opportunity."
He also says that we need to eliminate "the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need, so they can spend as little time as possible wrestling with lousy search interfaces and as much time as possible actually reading and learning. One-button commands, such as Flickr’s “Blog This,” and easy-to-use programs like Google Page Creator, offer promising models for this kind of user-centric service."

"We need to shift direction, and we can’t wait for the big ship of our profession to change course first. It’s going to have to happen one library—one little boat—at a time."

Web 2.0 Where will the next generation Web take libraries? by Tom Storey states that Web 2.0 is "the open, programmable Web, and quite a change from monolithic, proprietary operating systems and programs of the past characterized by long development times and software release cycles. Consider the roaring success of sites that embody Web 2.0 principles of simplicity, rich interactivity, user participation, collective intelligence, self-service, novel and remixed content—Flickr, MySpace, FaceBook, del.icio.us, YouTube, LibraryThing—to name a few. The potential network effects of Web 2.0 have not gone unnoticed in the library community."

Michael Stephens comments in his article Into a new world of librarianship: One of the principles I would add to the Library 2.0 meme is that “the Library is human” because it makes the library a social and emotionally engaging center for learning and experience.

Dr. Wendy Schultz's perspectives on the future of libraries are fascinating and far reaching. "What are libraries? Libraries are not just collections of documents and books, they are conversations, they are convocations of people, ideas, and artifacts in dynamic exchange. Libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities..." She looks into the future and sees virtual librarian avatars. She sees "the library as aesthetic experience will have space for all the library’s incarnations: storage (archives, treasures); data retrieval (networks—reference rooms); and commentary and annotation (salon)." She sees the library as a "knowledge spa".



  • I appreciate CCPL as being one of the library systems that is on the forefront --- teaching staff about Web 2.0 and Libraries 2.0. Giving us time to explore and try out new technologies. We as a system are envisioning the future in libraries and preparing staff members to be a part of that future.

















No comments: