Library 2.0 with Librarian 1.0?
Rochelle reflects a lot of my feelings about the Library 2.0 Future-is-Now vibe. I get it, I grok it, I want more of it. However, it’s a slow sell some places and a tough slow sell in other places. I spend a lot of time just trying to drop 2.0 words into conversations I have with the librarians on my route just so they’ll have some familiarity with them when they make their technology plans, or when the local wireless salesman knocks on their door. Even thinking about some of Michael’s great suggestions for an “easy” 2.0 upgrade requires paradigm shifts in the way many of the librarians I work with were trained to think. Does this mean it’s impossible? Surely not. Does it mean that baby steps may be in order, or more groundwork needs to be laid? Absolutely.
Folks who know me know I’m not a naysayer, but talking about sending a librarian to a Gaming Symposium when staff do not get time off, funding, or even dues reimbursement for ALA or even VLA is somewhat more optimistic and futuristic than it may seem from an urban or suburban library system perspective. When change happens, it will happen fast, no doubt about it, and it will be useful to have people alread “on the ground” to greet it when it arrives, but let’s work on the all boats part of the “rising tide lifts all boats” aphorism and make sure we’re not all heading to 2.0 when some of us are still in 0.98 beta.
November 29th, 2005 at 4:55
3 Degrees of Separation: Libraries, Technology, and Administration
I was having a brief IM conversation with Michael Stephens yesterday and we discussed the problem many librarians face when discussing Library 2.0 technologies with administrative staff – the issue of “hot” words such as blog and wik…
November 29th, 2005 at 10:00
Bridging a Different Kind of Divide
The Bridge Generation“I am a generation X librarian. While prevailing stereotypes make many of us reluctant to assume that GenX label (no, I am not a slacker, and, no, I am not especially cynical), I take pride in my generation’s…
November 30th, 2005 at 11:02
[...] Library 2.0 這個名詞誕生雖才不一個多月，便在美國圖資界 Blogosphere (部落圈) 卻引起相當多的討論。一些重量級的 bloggers，如 Michael Stephens、Michael Casey都在大力推廣 Library 2.0的觀念。不過也有一些其他的聲音出來了… Michael Casey 在 3 Degrees of Separation: Libraries, Technology, and Administration 這篇提到了 Jessamyn West 等人所談到人的問題。即當大多數的圖書館員還停留在舊思維、Library 1.0 或 0.98 的時候，要實現 Library 2.0 是相當不容易的，特別是圖書館管理階層對 Library 2.0 的了解與支持程度最是關鍵。 [...]
November 30th, 2005 at 11:03
[...] Library 2.0 這個名詞誕生雖才不一個多月，便在美國圖資界 Blogosphere (部落圈) 卻引起相當多的討論。一些重量級的 bloggers，如 Michael Stephens、Michael Casey都在大力推廣 Library 2.0的觀念。不過也有一些其他的聲音出來了… Michael Casey 在 3 Degrees of Separation: Libraries, Technology, and Administration 這篇提到了 Jessamyn West 等人所談到人的問題。即當大多數的圖書館員還停留在舊思維、Library 1.0 或 0.98 的時候，要實現 Library 2.0 是相當不容易的，特別是圖書館管理階層對 Library 2.0 的了解與支持程度最是關鍵。 [...]
December 1st, 2005 at 11:40
[...] As I’ve said before, I’m both optimistic and critical of web-based apps, and web 2.0. I’ve been attempting to write a post that outlines my thoughts on this for some time, with difficulty. A few posts recently have reinforced that opinion, and a conversation I had last night with other local bloggers helped too. Jessamyn reminds web 2.0 advocates that they should not leave the web 0.98 world behind. And Meredith said a lot of what I’m thinking today. As much as I like using with Flickr, del.icio.us, et cetera, my web world is far from being entirely 2.0, and I’d like to keep it that way. I still don’t see any progress towards making backup and exporting of settings and files in most web 2.0 apps any easier. Like the dot com boom, web 2.0 companies are changing hands father than lightning (Riya being the latest rumoured example), and it is foolish to assume that there will be any sustainability. [...]
January 6th, 2006 at 2:54
[...] I agree completely with the sentiment, but think that the terminology is pointless. “Library 2.0″ as a term seems to represent a feeling that technology will save libraries from irrelevance, that without technology libraries are nothing (the philosophy behind information commons in some ways). Technology is a tool - wavecrests on the ocean, but not the ocean itself; I fear that adhering to “Library 2.0″ conceptually, we will come to mistake the waves for the ocean, as it were. Technology can never replace service, but it can enhance it. That’s why it seems to me that we should be focusing on the service philosophy that underpins what we want to indicate when we say “Library 2.0″ - that librarians and libraries need to be more open and responsive to their respective communities rather than blithely running along inside of some insular feedback loop. If I were to talk more broadly about librarianship today (and I may at some point), I wouldn’t focus on the tech stuff/social software, but on the groundswell of discussions focusing on the user (e.g., the user is not stupid if they can’t use our catalogs or prefer to search using a Google interface - see, for example, Meredith’s post on “dumbing down the catalog“). By taking a bigger-picture approach (stepping back from the techne and looking at the underlying intention), we create a more inclusive philosophy of librarianship, one that can accomodate libraries running library 1.0 (or 0.0!) all the way to library 2.0.1 and beyond. [...]
January 13th, 2006 at 7:03
[...] Michael Stephens reiterates that library 2.0 is more than technology, to which, I imagine, some of us are saying, “Well, thank goodness!” Not all of us have us have huge budgets to send people to conferences or the space/time/staff support/equipment to hold DDR nights or coworkers who are hip to (or interested in being hip to) the latest hot tags on del.icio.us. Many of us are still operating in .98 beta. [...]
March 2nd, 2006 at 2:15
[...] Also check out Library 2.0 with Librarian 1.0?, Rejoicing and Crying over “Upgrading to Library 2.0″, and 3 Degrees of Separation: Libraries, Technology, and Administration for a discussion about the problems of implementing “Library 2.0″ in libraries in their current state. I will have to agree with the small step approach. [...]
November 9th, 2006 at 8:33
[...] Library 2.0 with librarian 1.0? - posted on November 28, 2005. [...]
December 29th, 2006 at 3:19
[...] Also check out Library 2.0 with Librarian 1.0?, Rejoicing and Crying over “Upgrading to Library 2.0″, and 3 Degrees of Separation: Libraries, Technology, and Administration for a discussion about the problems of implementing “Library 2.0″ in libraries in their current state. I will have to agree with the small step approach. [...]