Blogpost #3--Learning Library 2.0

“Technology isn’t the story anymore. It’s what people are doing with it”.

That’s a quote from Hopping into Library 2.0: Experiencing Lifelong Learning, a SirsiDynix Institute Web seminar. I recently discovered these seminars on the Institute’s website and highly recommend them. They’re free, and you can attend the live feeds while sitting at your desk or listen to archived presentations 24/7. Visitors to the site have the option of viewing presentations or listening to them via podcasts (also available on iTunes), and supplemental material is available via PDF files. This particular seminar by the Yarra Plenta Regional Library, Melbourne Australia also enabled attendees to interact by participating in two polls.

The Yarra library’s seminar piggy backs on an earlier presentation , Learning 2.0 : Make "Play" Your New Year's resolution by Helene Blowers, Technology Director, Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and presented in January of this year. Both of these seminars discuss how 2.0 activities enable users to find information, learn, create content and celebrate culture. Sometimes there’s so much emphasis on the technology, that we lose sight of the reasons why we use it. These seminars place 2.0 technologies in the framework of services.

Both libraries give examples of how they sought to empower and educate their staff in a “playful” environment in hopes of eliminating their fears. The PLCMC came up with a voluntary learning program for its staff, 23 Learning 2.0 Things which allowed them to spend as little as 15 minutes a day over a nine week period exploring Web 2.0. Their list was specific, and the activities were hands on. (Thank you, Michael. We’ve already learned about many of these technologies in LIS753!).

In our last class meeting, Michael asked our opinions about having LIS701 students begin their first class session creating a blog or using another Library 2.0 technology. I responded with a resounding, “No”. Reflecting back on my first 701 class session, I would have felt lost and intimated if these activities had been mandated. After having a look at both of these SirsiDynix seminars and reading PLCMC’s 23 Learning list, I’ve changed my mind. There is a way to safely ease new learners into the new technologies, and for those who don’t have the advantage of enrollment in a LIS753-type class, both of these libraries have shown us how to do it.

Blog Post #2 Future of Libraries-Online Conversation

Knowledge is created through conversation.

Libraries are in the knowledge business.

Therefore, libraries are in the conversation business.

That’s a goal of the library as discussed in Participatory Networks The Library as Conversation produced by the Information Institute of Syracuse University for the ALA's Office for Information Technology Policy.

The paper, presented at the ALA midwinter meeting, is a comprehensive overview of social networks and other technological enhancements currently used in some libraries and under consideration in others. The authors begin the discussion by identifying a conceptual framework for participatory technology and add brief, concise explanations of these services. They close the paper addressing the challenges and opportunities with regards to operations, policies and ethics.

What I found particularly fascinating in this paper, and why I recommend reading it, is that the authors begin their discussion with the premise that “libraries are in the conversation business”. Until now, none of the definitions of “library” I’ve studied have included this concept. The Institute observes, for example, that while brick-and-mortar libraries have exemplified this concept, i.e. speaker series, and book groups, their online systems, i.e. their catalogs, are one-way conversations. Participatory networks of Web 2.0 provide libraries with the opportunity for online conversations with their patrons.

The paper identifies, defines, and gives examples of the following characteristics of Web 2.0 : Social Networks (Flickr, The Alexandrian Public Library on MySpace); Wisdom of Crowds (LibraryThing, Wikipedia); Loosely Coupled APIs (YouTube); Mashups (ChicagoCrime); Permanent Betas (Google Labs); Software Gets Better the More People Use It (Amazon) and Folksonomies (PennTags).

Not to worry. I wasn’t familiar with all of these characteristics of Web 2.0 nor many of the sites listed. That’s what’s invaluable about this brief. While the authors define these Web 2.0 tools and give examples of them, they discuss these technologies relative to the concept of the library as a place of conversation.

Finally, one of the most exciting developments of participatory librarianship discussed in the paper is the reference blog. We know that face-to-face, IM, and chat reference transactions are, indeed, conversations. However, reference blogs would enable “multiple librarians and other users to be a part of a question-answering community. Reference done online creates artifacts of reference conversations: electronic files than can be cleaned of personal information and placed in a knowledge base and used as a resource for other users”. Wouldn’t it be rewarding to know that your initial reference question led to a discussion and an answer that ultimately became part of a library’s collection?