Lesson #15

For this lesson, I am to read a few articles on Web 2.0 and discuss one.

The first article I read was called "Away from the “icebergs". While the article was written by a director of a University library, I think it applies to public libraries as well.

The first part of the article was about the "just in case" collection. This collection is comprised of the "we need this title just in case a patron needs it" items. I agree 100% with what he is saying, but the problem goes further than just to those who select the material. In school, we are trained to purchase the "just in case" collection. As far as I can remember, librarians were always considering what's best for the patron, instead of what the patron wants. Examples throughout history are with the reluctance of librarians to include items like paperbacks, romance, graphic novels, and video games. All of these were considered of low value to libraries at one point or another as they were not what the patron should be reading or doing. This is finally slowly changing for the better, but it still really takes way to long for libraries to embrace what is popular.

The second part of the article was about relying on educating the user. Again I agree with this section of the article. My favorite line out of this section was "But if our services can’t be used without training, then it’s the services that need to be fixed—not our patrons." We make things too complicated.

The "Come to us" section of the article is what I found to be the squishiest. I think libraries have been doing away with mentality for a while now. Libraries first embraced this idea with its online databases that can be accessed from home; Then with services such as Overdrive.

I read a few other articles, but I felt a lot goes back to the idea of it sometimes takes libraries to long to jump on board with what is popular. I am now starting to see discussions of Library 3.0. What happened to 2.0? Most libraries (a guess on my part) toyed around with 2.0, but never really did anything with it. It takes money and manpower to incorporate the concepts of library 2.0 into practice. The entire branch also needs to be involved, not just a few people in it. Each person needs to advertise what the branch is doing with library 2.o. If they don't, chances are that the patrons we are trying to socialize with won't hear us. Also in my experience, we can talk about 2.0 all day long, but unless a person is allowed to spend a few hours a week minimum working on it, without the fear of looking like they are goofing of or talking to much, library 2.0 will not work.

My 2 cents.