Web 2.0, Library 2.0

My Goodness, if we had any doubt that a revolution is upon us then this Excersise lays it to rest. I see that the Prophets have been foreseeing what is afoot as far back as 2005 judging by the Perspectives taken from the OGLC Next Space Newsletter.

But first things first, let me begin with the Web 2.0 phenomenon video clip. It was cerainly very polished, but if it was meant to be an Instruction Tool, then I found it a bit on the "fast & slick" side and more of a Brilliant Advert for the product. Did I miss something here? Then I moved onto the Next Space Newsletters and here are a few quotes that struck me.

Tom Storey pointed out in his article "Where will the next generation Web take libraries?" that "The Web moves from simply being sites and search engines to a shared network space that drives work, research, education, entertainment and social activities—essentially everything people do."

Rick Anderson in his "Away form the Icebergs" states that "Libraries are poorly equipped and insufficiently staffed for teaching. Ask yourself what your patron-to-librarian ratio is (at the University of Nevada it’s about 680 to 1) and then ask yourself how you’re going to train all those patrons. We need to focus our efforts not on teaching research skills but on eliminating the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need, so they can spend as little time as possible wrestling with lousy search interfaces and as much time as possible actually reading and learning. Obviously, we’ll help and educate patrons when we can, and when they want us to, and the more we can integrate our services with local curricula, the better. But if our services can’t be used without training, then it’s the services that need to be fixed—not our patrons." Phew, I bet we never thought we were that bad!

But let me add that there are still people out there that either due to age, circumstance or just simply being scared of the Pace of Development that will still need the good old fashioned TLC on a one to one basis. It is a mistake to take it for granted that everyone has upskilled at the same rate that the Library expects of us I will confess that I have struggled at times to get my head around it all and have surprised myself that I am still here at excersise #10!