On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 (Ahhh, the power of the creature that is Librarian)While Library 2.0, henceforth referred to as L2.0, means many things to many different people - what it means to me is... ...another opportunity to provide a better service to our cutomers - both our current customrs and those we will have in the future..
My "brain dump", or what i like to call "mental vomit", about L2.0 and the issues raised in some of the articles suggested in this discovery exercise...
A lot of L2.0 is not applicable within the rigid structure that is Local government... the policies, autonomies and monetary barriers will hold up most initiatives.
To always be online & have access you need fast, reliable and cost effective methods of accessing the web and while these may exist overseas, in NZ it is just not feasible. We are still stagnating under the corporate umbrella of "you know who", and the lack of a truly universal way to connect. Until the aforementioned constraints let up and the technology catches up with all these good ideas and intentions we cannot have a true L2.0 community, let alone a truly worldwide online community.
I liked how Dr Wendy Schultz points out that even with user-cataloguing and tagging there will still be a need for 'superuser' librarian, or info deliverer. Considering all the different points of view in the world and the variety of unique ways people interpret the things they see and do, these people will be giving a different tag to even the simplest concepts... So there still remains a need for standardisation of cataloguing terms because if you type in egg you don't want to get omelettes unless you have asked for eggs AND cookery...
It really comes down in the end to the fact what people really want is a shortcut to really finding the data they are interested in, and really what else are Libraries and Librarians except the ultimate shortcut and shortcut providers...
Response to "To better bibliographic services"
Metadata is a great idea but not just everything in a jumble there still need to be limits to what you are searching... and Librarians are going to be needed to provide the expertise to determine those limits.
Still not sure about the adopting of web features like user review submissions and user tagging, as in Amazon or Google... It's that whole how many ways can you describe an elephant question...
All in all there are some really good ideas in this article but some of it seems to be trying to introduce more work than we are paid for at the moment (or likely to get paid in the future), some of the ideas we already do, e.g. some of the eLGAR initiatives, and some seem to want us to perform tasks already taken by other vendors... do we really want to just become a big researching bookstore?
Response to "To more powerful ways to co-operate"
I like the notion that we have to build better data so that the quantity and quality of our metadata is such that it will be solid enough to last the whole of the process from input to output without suffering any information loss.
Response to "Into the new world of librarianship"
A transparent library - the cynicism in me just goes, "Yeah right!".
Using wikis and blogs to highlight our collections is a great idea - because we need to do this for those collections that are not in the public eye as much as say loanable collections.
Love the quote at the end of the article...
"Librarian 2.0... never stops dreaming about the best library services."
Response to "Away from the 'icebergs' "
Personally I do not think we are in the "post-print era" yet. And unfortunatley for users due to several constraints not limited to monetary and physical constraints, some items in our collections are still ONLY accessible within the physical library itself.
Also I don't think Librarians are that close-minded as to fail to acknowledge this change that is coming and to change with it...
In some of the additional readings, I found this interview, and it has helped address some of the barriers to L2.0 I thought up...
Some of the major points I liked were:
"Funding issues are also part of the whole L2 equation—every library has a different starting point, and every library has different capabilities when finances are considered. Being able to effectively use your limited resources is critical to Library 2.0. Finding out what will bring in new users and then constantly re-evaluating those services is crucial."
"I think a big part of L2 is examining our rules and procedures for library-made impediments to users getting to information as well letting go of micromanaging everything to death (a la Abram at CPL)."
Reference to this blog...
And I loved this comment posted at the end of the interview by a reader...
Here is another cool quote that I found during this exercise...
“when librarians study something to death, we forget that death was not the original goal." - Stephen Abram (in a cautionary tone)
