Finally, A Much Better Discussion

January 27, 2008

Library 2.0 – what does the term really mean? Honestly, I’ve followed the discussions in the library world for the past couple of years pretty closely, and I still have no idea. Neither do I think it is important to actually have a hard and fast definition. It is a label that I suspect means many different things to many different people – and should have different meanings. While I think that some of the discussions that have taken place around Library 2.0 have been important, I was extremely bothered by the subtle thread of hostility that often crept into the debates. There seemed to be some unspoken belief that Library 2.0 would save libraries and that if your weren’t on board, you would be contributing to the demise of the library. The 2.0 concept seemed to be one that had the ability to divide the library world into two separate camps rather than helping librarians work together to solve real problems.

To me, the recent discussions taking place about Library 2.0 are much more important. They are real, more honest – and I think they offer a better glimpse of reality in today’s library world.

Some of the posts:

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Posted by Jennifer

Library 2.0 Roundup – Redux

September 4, 2007

I’ve been meaning to update this list for quite a while – but school, life and work took precedence. However, there has been some recent conversation about Library 2.0 amongst library bloggers – and this compelled me to get started.  One caveat: this is a work in progress, and I will be continuing to update this post over the next month (or two or three – I have a huge backload of posts that need to be added).

Blog Posts 

ALA TechSource

Annoyed Libarian 

Ballad in Plain E

Basically – by Megan

Blyberg.net- by John Blyberg

cheese and crackers -  by Laura

clifflandis.net - by Cliff Landis

dave’s blog – by David King

David Lee King

davidrothman.net - by David Rothman

DIY Librarian - by Tara Murray

DrWeb’s Domain

Free Range Librarian – by K.G. Schneider

Gather No Dust -by Jeff Scott

The Geek Librarian

The Goblin in the Library- by Joshua M. Neff

Knowledge-at-work

knowledgecontact.com – by Cass Nevada

heyjude – by Judy O’Connell

Idaho Commission for Libraries Blog

If This Be The Method . . .

Information Wants To Be Free- by Meredith Farkas

IT Matters @ SCSL

j’s scratchpad

jamie’s blog for the library – by Jamie

Jersey Girl Librarian

Knowledge-at-work -by Denham Gray 

The Krafty Librarian

La-La-Librarian - by Lisa Harrington

Last Clear Chance

The Laughing Librarian - by Brian Smith

lauren’s library blog – by Lauren Pressley

Learning Express - by Lori Reed 

libdev

librarian.net

LibrarianInBlack.net- by Sarah Houghton-Jan

Librarians Matter – by Kathryn Greenhill

Libraries and Life – by Dr. Curtis Rogers

librariesinteract.info – Blog Central for Libraries in Australia

Library 2.0: An Academic’s Perspective – Laura Cohen

Library Dust - by Michael McGorty

Library Journeys . . .  – by Marie Palmer

Library Juice

Library News - by Alice 

library of primitive art

Library of Terror

Library Stuff – by Steven M. Cohen

Library Voice - by Chad Boeninger 

Library Web Chic

Library Zen -by Garrett Hungerford

LibraryBytes - by Helene Blowers

LibraryCrunch – by Michael Casey

Life As I Know It - by Jennifer Macaulay

Life Is Better With Commas

LIS::Michael Habib: On Librarianship and the Information Sciences- by Michael Habib

Lis.dom – by Laura Crossett

ltnt*prnts 

Lyndy the Librarian

MaisonBisson

Max Power Blogs

Miss Information -

Nevertheless

The Other Librarian- by Ryan Deschamps

Participation Literacy

Pattern Recognition – by Jason Griffey 

The Questing Librarian – Christie BW

Reference Services

Sarah Ann Long – North Suburban Library Director

The Searching Librarian

See Also . .  – by Steve Lawson

Something New Every Day

Subject/Object -by Steven Chabot 

Stephen’s Lighthouse – by Stephen Abram 

Talking with Talis

Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology 

think:lab

Thoughts from a Library Administrator- by Michael A. Golrick

Tom Roper’s Weblog

The Ubiquitous Librarian

Walt at Random  - by Walt Crawford

A Wandering Eyre - by Jane/Michelle Boule

Wanderings of a Student Librarian - by Joy Weese Moll

What I Learned Today . . .- by Nicole Engard

Yarra Plenty Online Learning

 

Miscellaneous

 

Articles

Library 2.0 Blogs

Presentations

Other Stuff

10 Comments | library 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Jennifer

Library 2.0 In Retrospect

August 15, 2007

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the library 2.0 movement and what is has meant now that much of the hype surrounding it has died down. Imagine my surprise when I saw Ryan Deschamps’ We Asked for 2.0 Libraries and We Got 2.0 Librarians post over at The Other Librarian. I find it a pretty fair and accurate assessment of where we stand with library 2.0 at the moment. I agree with Ryan that the use of library 2.0 has waned – and I think that is a good thing. When a concept is new, we tend to focus too much on defining it, arguing or disagreeing about it and even thinking about it. At some point, people get tired of hearing about it. Personally, I think more is accomplished after we stop hyping things – and get back to business.

I find the following to be the most important points of Ryan’s post:

  • “There’s no doubt that Library 2.0 got librarians to learn about themselves and the world of information they live in.”
  • Change in the ILS has been (and I think will continue) to be slow. There have been some exciting developments that may bode well for the future of our systems.
  • The changes that have taken place are not very visible to library patrons.
  • The most radical changes have taken place in librarians – hence the librarian 2.0.

To end his post, Ryan writes: 

So, while the term and hype dies down or changes to something else, rest assured that change has occurred in big ways and that libraries are adapting to the world.   They are not doing this through the institutions themselves, but through a steadily increasing change of heart in librarians on the whole. Harp on hype all you want — Library 2.0 needed to happen and the world is better off because of it.

Ryan makes some great points about library 2.0, what it has meant to libraries and about its importance. For me, the most important part of library 2.0 has been the discussions that have taken place around it. It has made me work to view the library and its services from a different angle, to take a step outside of my comfort zone and to challenge my previously held thoughts and beliefs. Has it created significant changes in the way that I do things? Honestly, no. It has altered the ways in which I think about end goals of my projects – but not necessarily changed the projects themselves. To me, this means that I agree with Ryan about the importance of library 2.0. However, I would not elevate it above other, earlier trends in librarianship – ripe with their own buzzwords that made the rounds of library literature and conferences. It was the time for library 2.0 – and in the near future it will be time for the next movement.

1 Comment | library 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Jennifer

Academia & Library 2.0

January 16, 2007

Laura Cohen from Library 2.0: An Academic’s Perspective had two great posts this week: Academic Libraries, Captive Audiences and Transformation and 2.0 Projects and Scalability. In the first post, the author discusses the fact that many academic libraries see themselves as a monopoly on campuses. Because of this, academic libraries are slow to see the need to transform. After all, they have a captive audience – and don’t tend to see the need to court their clientele. I think Laura Cohen has a real point about why academic libraries may be slow to adopt 2.0 technologies. From the post:

Do academic libraries have a captive audience? Yes, but this audience is being drawn away from us and the situation will probably get worse. If things keep on going as they are, in ten years’ time we’ll still have users, but the disjunction between our information culture and theirs will be vast. We’ll have a captive audience, all right, but one that will use us grudgingly, that will not enjoy dealing with our off-putting, complex, rigid information systems that are light years behind the interactive, participatory, open systems that define their information culture.

Honestly, I think that some of these predictions may actually already be the reality for many of our constituents.

In the second post, Laura Cohen pointed me to Karen A. Coomb’s January 2007 article from Computers in Libraries, Building a Library Web Site on the Pillars of Web 2.0. In the article, Karen Coombs describes the process of rebuilding her library’s web site based on web 2.0 technologies – which makes Laura Cohen think about ways that we can make this easier. She hopes that “we can develop a culture of sharing successful projects across libraries.” I agree. I doubt that we can succeed at transforming libraries without serious collaboration.

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Posted by Jennifer

Inviting Participation

January 3, 2007

Participation is one of the key tenets of Web 2.0 – and thus, of Library 2.0. I, personally, have been amazed at the success of ventures like Wikipedia – which owes is existence to wide participation. I’ve always been rather curious about what actually motivates people to participate in online arenas – and what makes a particular sites inviting over others. As such, I was quite intrigued by David Lee King’s blog post on the topic – Invitation Participation to Web 2.0. He writes: “For the most part, no one has actually explained HOW to start conversations, HOW to build community digitally, and HOW to tell your story in the digital space. In essence, how to invite participation using web 2.0 tools.” It is easy to be dissatisfied with what we have, but not so easy to figure out how to make things better.

I can’t wait for the follow up posts.

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Posted by Jennifer

Can Social Software Really Save The Library?

November 3, 2006

References to Marilyn R. Pukkila’s Just How Connected Are They? question on ACRLog are popping up all over the blogosphere – and rightfully so. Marilyn asks some great questions about how deeply today’s college students are wedded to social software sites. Do we have any idea of how students use social technology? We might have a clue about the popularity of MySpace, Facebook, IM and iPods – but we certainly don’t have concrete information about how users might interact with the library using the tools of Library 2.0.  I want to be clear that I don’t think that we in the library world are wrong to be investigating these tools and how they can help provide better service to our patrons, but before we can make determinations about the usefulness of these tools, we need to better understand our patrons and how they use, collect, find and distribute information.

One of my favorite responses to Marilyn Pukkila’s question, is Steve Lawson’s Why bother with social software at the liberal arts college?on See Also . . . Steve writes (and I love this quote): ”. . . I think that it is a huge mistake to conflate all these social software sites and expect that they will somehow help us better relate to our students.” I think this is a very important point. We are desperately trying to find ways to relate to our patrons. Using sites like Flickr and Del.ico.us are not going to magically make us cool. They might be tools that we can use to interact with patrons. However, if our students think we are out of touch, unreachable and unapproachable, using  social software and social tools won’t change those perceptions. We can be just an remote via a MySpace account as in person.

Later, Steve writes of the exploration of social tools: “And let those experiences change and shape you as a person and as a professional, and affect how you think of the potential of the web, not just for “outreach” but for teaching and learning and collection development and providing services of all kinds.” We need to play, have fun, explore the tool of Library 2.0 – and to remember that we are there to teach and help our students learn. These tools won’t solve our problems, but they may provide us ways to help serve our patrons better.  And in the long run, it doesn’t really matter how we end up serving our patrons better, it just matters that we find a way to accomplish it.

1 Comment | library 2.0, library musings | Permalink
Posted by Jennifer

Library 2.0 Roundup

October 19, 2006

I’ve put together my Library 2.0 resources. This is pretty much a work in progress to which I will be adding more sites and more citations.

Update – 9/6/2007 – I have updated this list – see Library 2.0 Roundup – Redux.

Blog Posts 

ALA TechSource

Basically – by Megan

Blyberg.net- by John Blyberg

dave’s blog – by David King

David Lee King

davidrothman.net - by David Rothman

DrWeb’s Domain

Free Range Librarian – by K.G. Schneider

The Geek Librarian

The Goblin in the Library- by Joshua M. Neff

heyjude – by Judy O’Connell

Idaho Commission for Libraries Blog

Information Wants To Be Free- by Meredith Farkas

IT Matters @ SCSL

j’s scratchpad

jamie’s blog for the library – by Jamie

Jersey Girl Librarian

Knowledge-at-work -by Denham Gray 

The Krafty Librarian

La-La-Librarian - by Lisa Harrington

Last Clear Chance

lauren’s library blog – by Lauren Pressley

Learning Express - by Lori Reed 

libdev

librarian.net

LibrarianInBlack.net- by Sarah Houghton-Jan

Libraries and Life – by Dr. Curtis Rogers

librariesinteract.info – Blog Central for Libraries in Australia

Library Journeys . . .  – by Marie Palmer

Library Juice

library of primitive art

Library of Terror

Library Stuff – by Steven M. Cohen

Library Voice - by Chad Boeninger 

Library Web Chic

Library Zen -by Garrett Hungerford

LibraryCrunch – by Michael Casey

Life Is Better With Commas

LIS::Michael Habib: On Librarianship and the Information Sciences- by Michael Habib

Lis.dom – by Laura Crossett

Lyndy the Librarian

MaisonBisson

Max Power Blogs

Nevertheless

The Other Librarian- by Ryan Deschamps

Participation Literacy

The Questing Librarian – Christie BW

Reference Services

See Also . .  – by Steve Lawson

Something New Every Day

Subject/Object -by Steven Chabot 

Talking with Talis

Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology 

think:lab

Thoughts from a Library Administrator- by Michael A. Golrick

Tom Roper’s Weblog

The Ubiquitous Librarian

A Wandering Eyre - by Jane/Michelle Boule

Wanderings of a Student Librarian - by Joy Weese Moll

What I Learned Today . . .- by Nicole Engard

Yarra Plenty Online Learning

 

Miscellaneous

 

Articles

  • Albanese, Andrew Richard. Campus Library 2.0. Library Journal, April 15, 2004, 129(7), pp.30-33. 
  • Casey, Michael E. and Laura Savastinuk. Library 2.0. Library Journal, September 1, 2006.
  • Crawford, Walt. Finding a Balance, Libraries and Librarians. Cites and Insights, 6:9, July 2006, pp.2-19.
  • Crawford, Walt. Library 2.0 and “Library 2.0.” Cites and Insights. 6:2, Midwinter 2006, pp.1-32.
  • Harder, Geoff. Connecting the Dots: Social Software and the Social Nature of Libraries. Feliciter, 2006, 52(2), pp.54-55.
  • Harris, Christopher. School Library 2.0. School Library Journal, May 2006, 52(5), pp.50-53.
  • Maness, Jack M. Library 2.0 Theory: Web 2.0 and Its Implications for Libraries. Webology, 3(2), June 2006.
  • Miller, Dr. Paul. Coming Together Around Library 2.0. D-Lib Magazine, April 2006.
  • Notess, Greg R. The Terrible Twos: Web 2.0, Library 2.0, and More. Online. May/June 2006, 30(3), p.40-42.
  • Stephens, Michael.  Web 2.0 and Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software. Library Technology Reports, 42:4, Jul/August 2006 .
  • Straight Answers from Edward Vielmetti. American Libraries, 37(9), September 2006, p.15.

Library 2.0 Blogs

Presentations

17 Comments | library 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Jennifer

LIS Education – Vocational Training or Rigourous Intellectual Engagement?

October 18, 2006

What do we want from our LIS education? Laura Cohen has a list of suggested skills, which she calls foundations skills, for LIS programs in today’s world of Library 2.0. I like the list – think that most of the items are extremely important for people to have a handle on in order to be successful at librarianship. In response, Steven Chabot, from Subject/Object, posts an interesting comment. In the comment (available on his blog also), Steven writes: “While I agree somewhat with what you have listed, was not the degree conceived as Library Science? Many of the things you have mentioned, at least in terms of having to teach or learn them, could be picked up with a few hours of an O’Reilly book. Am I paying thousands of dollars to evaluate URLs?“

Recently, Steven has been bemoaning the lack of academic rigour in his MLS program. Without a doubt, Steven has a point. Many of the technical skills can be learned on one’s own or in workshops. Yet, one problem is that there is a contingent of MLS students who have no library experience – and not much in the way of technical experience. LIS school must endeavor to train students with divergent backgrounds. How can I with over ten years of experience in libraries and extensive experience with technology have the same educational needs as someone who has never worked in a library and is not comfortable with technology? How do schools account for different experiences and varied levels of knowledge? Honestly, I don’t think schools themselves do account for such variables. Should they? Or should that be left to individual instructors? In my experience in graduate school, it is the professor that takes into account the varying degrees of knowledge held by students. I must add that some are exceedingly proficient at this – and some are not.

I have to wonder if in this time of uncertainty about libraries and their purpose if that same uncertainty does not plague library schools. Are MLS programs vocational in nature or theoretical? Which should they be in order to best educate librarians? Should students with differing levels of experience be allowed to have different programs of study? If the MLS becomes something that people just want “get through” is not the library profession as a whole going to suffer? I don’t really have any answers to these questions. Ultimately, I believe that a person who wants to learn how to be a librarian, who cares about the information needs of library users, wants to help people find information and believes in librarianship will do well whether they are self-taught, educated via a vocational MLS program, educated via a theoretical MLS program or taught through experience.  I believe in the value of the MLS (I wouldn’t be going otherwise), but believe strongly that we are all hold responsibility for our own educational experience.

7 Comments | library 2.0, library school, mls | Permalink
Posted by Jennifer

How To Be Unremarkable

October 17, 2006

Garrett Hungerford’s (Library Zen) second post in his Purple Library mini-blog series is about how to fail at being remarkable. I think this is a very comprehensive list – and that actively following these 11 points will make your library very unremarkable indeed. One of my favorite points is “Ignore the niches within your community.” Of course, this makes me want to ask: Do we even know what the niches are within our community? I personally don’t think we have a great handle on the niche populations that use our services – and identifying them gets more and more difficult as significant portions of our patrons user our services remotely.

Related Posts:

1 Comment | library 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Jennifer

Nelinet’s IT Conference on Social Networking

October 14, 2006

Yesterday, I attended Nelinet’s IT Conference, Social Networking: Plugging New England Libraries into Web 2.0, held at Bentley College. Overall, it was definitely worth attending. I had thought (and hoped) that some of the presentations might be more technical in nature, but that was not to be. Most of the presenters discussed (and evaluated) their implementations of social software in their libraries.

Chad Boeninger, from Ohio University, was one of the day’s presenters. Additionally, he blogged the conference over at Library Voice.

I really enjoyed Ben Vershbow’s keynote address. His take on his presentation can be found in post titled books in time on the if:book blog.

Leave a Comment » | library 2.0, library musings | Permalink
Posted by Jennifer

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