#15 Read a few perspectives on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 & the future of libraries

Discovery Exercise:

1.Read two or three of the perspectives on Library 2.0 from the list above.
2.Create a blog post about your thoughts on any one of these.


One of the chief faults of the pirate-librarian is that I have this ability to see things from multiple perspectives... so in some regards, I can see where the library 2.0 proponents are coming from...and I can see where the people who say that components of "library 2.0" have always been with the profession.

But in particular, I think I'd like to comment on
"Away from the Iceburgs".

The way I was reading it, the author says that the library notion of a "just in case" collection is a detriment, or at the very least a hinderance to the "progress" of the profession. There is a part of me that can see his point, but at the same time I find the view a bit disturbing. So all that is new is progress and the only thing to be desired?? To me that's a dangerous notion. Yes, progress should be embraced, but what about those who can't or won't use these new technologies to acess information?

I'm thinking in terms of those who perhaps can't afford internet access --- and yes, I realize that many of these folks at least have the opportunity for online access here at the library. But at the same time, some of these technologies take time to learn... in an effort to make acess available to greater numbers of people, libraries often have to (as a matter of course) limit how long a particular customer can be on a particular machine. Which of course means that those who have unlimited time (a computer with internet acess at home) are the ones who will benefit most from a 2.0 persepective with libraries linking databases, etc online.

Then, too, there are people who are not comfortable with these 'new' technologies. These are not the people who are going to demand that all of our content be online.

And the notion of user education: "Libraries are poorly equipped and insufficiently staffed for teaching. Ask yourself what your patron-to-librarian ratio is (at the University of Nevada it’s about 680 to 1) and then ask yourself how you’re going to train all those patrons.".

His point is valid that libraries are largely poorly equipped and inefficiently staffed for teaching. But my own comment is that while there are some people who want to be taught how to find information themselves, there is an even greater number who have no intrest in learning how... Call me cynical, but I personally call it the "McLibrary" syndrome. These are the folks that for whatever reason (lack of time, intrest, etc) do not want to know HOW to find the information, they want the librarian to find it for them.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this to be honest... its interesting to think about!