#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0...

I have come to find that I entered librarianship at a unique time; 14 years ago there was no internet in our public library and the only technology was the catalog and things to listen to music on, which we did not provide. Today, it seems that we, and I, are always feeling a little behind. That is a horrible feeling for a librarian, and a profession, who are in the information dissemination field to feel. I have come to learn a little about what we are now calling Library 2.0 and Web 2.0 through necessity and this project. However, after reading the OCLC Web 2.0, it stills come back to what I have always known about serving the public in a library, we should be customer service driven. To me, Web 2.0, which is user-centered change is simply responded to what, but more importantly, how, the user wants/needs to interact with the library. To be customer service oriented is to be tailoring the services to our users, known and unknown. Only now, we do need to go to the customer; instead of providing them with sites, we need to be sharing resources where they are. I really liked Rick Anderson's article, although i disagree about one thing. I do think we need to reevaluate the "Just in Case" collections and also give up the customer coming to us and instead integrate where they are, but I disagree that we need to give up "User Education". So many public library customers need us to be the experts and we need to make sure we can help them get to where they want to go or else they too will not be able to participate in the latest whatever. It is easy to get left behind and who else is going to assist the public, certainly no one but us will do it for free and correctly. There is a role for us to play here. Finally, I will give the link here for myself, and anyone else who cares on the OCLC Nextspace articles as I am sure to come back to it. The Wikipedia entry on Library 2.0 give great resources which will certainly change as we move on. Enjoy. www.oclc.org/nextspace/002.6.htmI.