Friday, June 15, 2007

Thing 15 - web 2.0 perspectives

Thing 15 is to read a few perspectives on web 2.0, library 2.0 and the future of libraries. The first link goes to a wikipedia article. I wish it didn't. It's quite an active article, with over 43 edits in the last week. Who's to know what authoritative and what's not.

The other link leads to a Walt Crawford Cites & Insights article. I've enjoyed reading Walt Crawford's Cites and Insights for many years and also enjoy reading his blog, Walt at Random.

I find myself agreeing with almost everything he says in this article. Library service is evolutionary, not revolutionary. The battle cry of "Library 2.0" is too divisive, but many Web 2.0 technologies can be incorporated into library services if it enhances services yet still provides for the basics without pulling resources away from where they are needed.

I particularly agreed with this paragraph "For example, although I'm not a toolbar person, I'm certainly not opposed to libraries producing such toolbars. I'd love to see measures as to how many people (other than librarians!) download them and what effect they have on use of library services. In general, I'm hoping there will be measurement of these services, particularly in those cases where there's friction between providing new services and maintaining old ones."

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