Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Librarian 2.0

and why it's no big deal, seriously

Jessamyn West
librarian.net

librarian.net/talks/aus2.0

march07

"We are waking up and linking to each other.
We are watching. But we are not waiting."
1.     Markets are conversations
6.     The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.
The web started out as lots of scientists and CS students making online projects and evolved to let you upload a picture of your cat. Then word got out that the Internet was big business. Everyone wanted to capitalize of the tv model where advertising would dominate, content would bring people to advertising and businesspeople would remain fat and happy. BUT... something happened. Not content to just be passive receptors of content, people began using the internet to talk to each other. And they talked to each other about... well, cats, and online cs projects, but also the advertisers and businesspeople themselves who were increasingly looking like outsiders in this whole new conversation. People started to notice in that "who's the narc?" sort of way. There's a new conversation between and among your market and your workers. It's making them smarter and it's enabling them to discover their human voices. You have two choices. You can continue to lock yourself behind facile corporate words and happytalk brochures.... Or you can join the conversation.
Further reading: Read the whole book or just the manifesto.

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Further reading: O'Reilly's definition of Web 2.0

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Web 2.0 design patterns
1. The Long Tail
2. Data is the Next Intel Inside
3. Users Add Value
4. Network Effects by Default
5. Some Rights Reserved.
6. The Perpetual Beta
7. Cooperate, Don't Control
8. Software Above the Level of a Single Device

Web 2.0 - "a popular (though ill-defined and often criticized) buzzword amongst certain technical and marketing communities."
[cite, image credit]
Further reading: ; The New Shape of Knowledge by David Weinberger; Top Ten Web 2.0 Moments of 2005 by Richard MacManus; Web 2.0 Thinking Game by Jeffrey Zeldman.

Further reading: The Long Tail by Chris Anderson and Long Tail Blog and The Long Tail Manifesto; This is Broken - user experience weblog; More than just faith: Radical trust by John Blyberg; Participatory Networks, the library as conversation

• w2 and l2
• read/write web
• long tail
• "radical trust"
• user experience
• the whole "conversation" thing
• perpetual beta

Further Reading: Web 2.0...The Machine is Us/ing Us and responses (we'll watch it later) Walmart's ability to offer three colors of Kitchenaid blender, versus 57 on the Amazon site
it's all about the data, in the aggregate, data that users provide. what else: looser IP models, less control, less platform specific development (will it work on a phone? a PDA?)

That's natural.

Library 2.0 - "services are constantly updated and reevaluated to best serve library users. Library 2.0 also attempts to harness the library user in the design and implementation of library services by encouraging feedback and participation." [cite] Librarian 2.0 - "the guru of the information age." [cite]

Further reading: Library 2.0 and "Library 2.0" excellent overview by Walt Crawford; Library 2.0, the road ahead by John Blyberg; Do Libraries Matter, the Rise of Library 2.0 by Paul Miller and Ken Chad; The Most Important Traits of Librarian 2.0 by Sharyn Heili; Into a new world of librarianship by Michael Stephens; L2 Squidoo Lens - L2 via W2; original image credit

Remember this guy?

1. Books are for use.
2. Every person his or her book.
3. Every book its reader.
4. Save the time of the reader.
5. The library is a growing organism.

Further reading: A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto

Closed Stacks Collection Development Walk-in Services "read only" catalog print newsletter mailed out

Open stacks Library suggestion box 24/7 services, anywhere Amazon-style comments Team-built blog

Further reading: L1 vs. L2, adapted from O'Reilly (source of the above examples) by Karen Schneider; Ryan Deschamps' Top-ten Library 2.0 No-brainers for Public Libraries (also in "no tech" flavor)

[machine picture original]
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• Ann Arbor District Library
• Rutland Free Library Flickr photoset
• Booklover's Wiki at Princeton Public Library
• Click a Story at Tommy Ford Memorial Library - storytime podcasts
• Library Thing - a non-library library... thing
• InfoIsland - a virtual library with real librarians in Second Life, a virtual world
• Information Wants to be Free has a few more examples

[more silliness at the Library 2.0 equation generator]

privacy | "be a 2.0 library or be irrelevant" | just for techies?
There is definitely the dork factor more recently: the dark side of library 2.0: part 1, part 2, part 3

The Slow Library movement is getting up and running... slowly.

Some notes on a Slow Library talk and some more discussion.

[image source]
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At the end of the day you have to ask yourself "does this solve a problem for me? does this solve a problem for my patrons?"

Jessamyn West is a community technology librarian and the editor of the weblog librarian.net. She teaches email classes for seniors, builds tiny websites for tiny libraries and advocates for sensible technology use for everyone.

IM her at iamthebestartist.

All images were grabbed hither and yon, if one belongs to you and you object to its use, let me know.

This presentation was created in HTML using CSS. There was no PowerPoint involved except as a nagging bad example. The layout and stylesheet are available to borrow via a share and share alike creative commons license. See source code for details. << slides | printable >>