Week Six of 23 Things

CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO if you didn't already: The Machine is Us/ing Us

It's way too soon for me to say much about an emerging concept about which I know so little, but a few thoughts crossed my mind while I was reading about Library 2.0.

"With information and ideas flowing in both directions -- from the library to the user and from the user to the library -- library services have the ability to evolve and improve on a constant and rapid basis. The user is participant, co-creator, builder and consultant -- whether the product is virtual or physical." - from the Wikipedia Overview

• what else evolves constantly and rapidly? is evolving the same as improving? on what can a patron depend depend in a constantly changing library environment? who is defining this core service?
• when the user is co-creator and builder and consultant and participant, who defines the goals, the boundaries and the measures of success? why do I feel like trying to grasp this concept in practical reality is like trying to stretch slime across a building frame to make a shelter?

Probably I'm reacting to the overwhelming broadness of the descriptions of Library 2.0 in the reading. When a new concept is being promulgated, the proponents can try too hard not to leave anything out. Academic, special interest and public libraries are already different from each other. That's okay. Might they become even more different? That would be okay too.

Great images from the reading...

from Wendy Shultz

• "convocations of people, ideas, and artifacts in dynamic exchange...libraries are communities." sounds so cool, what does it mean?
• "a rising ladder of value progressing from commodity to product to service to experience...superimposed on the Library 2.0 debate." so, what is the experience public libraries want to provide?

from Rick Anderson

• "In fact, it may no longer make sense to 'collect' in the traditional sense at all." totally close to home -- this paradigm shift can take us places!
• "We need to focus our efforts not on teaching research skills but on eliminating the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need..." yes, yes, yes -- and what do they need that they can't get for themselves??? over and over we have to ask who we are serving and why will they come to us instead of their own home computers, a bookstore, an internet cafe? we aren't in competition if we're providing essential service that elsewhere is not so accessible.
• "it can be equally disastrous when a profession fails to acknowledge and adapt to radical fundamental change in the marketplace it serves." go training! go planning! go research! expect change!