Library 2.0 and Web 2.0

Topic: "What does Library 2.0 mean to you?"

Library 2.0 means to me a changing model of library services that incorporates new technologies, emphasizing the public’s shaping of the product.

Library 2.0 orients library staff and users to the affluent and the future, in particular to a patron base with a majority of internet-savvy patrons with access to computers and the internet. Such a patron base already exists in more affluent societies.

Library 2.0 requires continuing education of library staff. Library workers should be able to converse with their patrons about the patrons’ preferred internet tools for information gathering and sharing.

Library 2.0 uses willing contributors of information who do not fit traditional qualifications of authority.

Library 2.0 implicitly identifies a decreasing role for books. In my experience, a decreasing value on quiet spaces to read and work accompanies this change.

Motivation for espousing Library 2.0 philosophies and implementing their practices derives from desire to assist patrons who prefer interactive internet activity to traditional library use, and from a self-preservation need to stay relevant to one’s community.

I read the perspectives cited in the OCLC Next Space Newsletter about Web 2.0, and the Wikipedia article. I note that Wikipedia is itself a result of Web 2.0 software and activity.

I find the Library 2.0 model easier to understand when concretely exemplified. The Learn and Play exercises have largely filled this need.

Almost all the software applications explored in Learn and Play so far provide diversion, if not education, for someone who is regularly online and does not mind leaving an electronic footprint in many places. However, they differ in the degree to which I understand their filling my public library's needs.