Week 6 ~ Thing 15

Library 2.0 ~ It's many things to many people. What does it mean to you?

I found myself nodding in agreement with Rick Anderson, from the University of Nevada libraries, who presented an interesting perspective on how libraries need to be thinking. "Icebergs" that we need to navigate around, include the "just in case collection." He ponders whether it makes sense to house significant collections that may not be used with the availability of digital everywhere. Let me see, do I like the idea of replacing books with podcast centers or blogging nooks? Not completely. And yes, change is hard, but I agree it is something we must do. Does it mean books will go the way of dinosaurs? Of course not. Libraries will have books, but does it make sense to house an extensive business reference collection if this same material is available digitally.
I compare libraries to newspapers in the way they have had to evolve. Think about metropolitan daily newspapers and the way they have had to change their delivery of services (ie., the news) over the past 20 years with the emergence of the internet/cable. Gone are the days when the news can be gotten only from print or the big three networks. Our customers will expect quick access to everything, and yes, we can probably provide it. Digital collections of journals, books, podcasts, blogs are all on the block here.

The second iceberg is "reliance on user education." Here, too, I think Anderson makes sense. Instead of teaching research skills we will be making sure information barriers are brought down, or at least, minimized to a greater degree. Getting the information to customers quickly in as expeditious manner as possible will be the key. Cumbersome, complicated search engines will have to be eliminated. It will be more "fast food" instead of "sit-down gourmet."
This Maryland 23 assignment is an example of how some things work better than others. Finding a quick "blog this" button, such as on Flickr, helped move my learning experience along better than sifting through a mountain of instructional, antecdotal information.

Finally, I agree that libraries need to be ubiquitous and indispensible. The challenge will be getting there.