Things 4 and 5: Web 2.0 and Library 2.0

Just some random thoughts on the 3 articles I read:

1. Into a new world of librarianship:
- Yes, we as a library need to expand our scope in exploring trends. I like the author's advice that we need to look outside the library into the business world to see how technology is impacting users. No doubt this idea appeals to my previous life from the business world.

- Planning and Getting content. Yep, we need it, but in our system we also need bandwidth and some autonomy to run our "business" as we see fit. sigh...

- Control "technolust"? why, who ever heard of such a thing! oh yeah, i know what they're talking about. just because i can get a message on my voicemail and then forward that to my email and then forward that back to my cell phone, does this mean that i should? just because i can buy a hummer, does that mean that i should??

- Embracing Web 2.0 tools: i just wonder what students learn in library school these days. i can tell you that back in the mid 90's, there wasn't a whole lot of technology going on - much to my disappointment. and heaven forbid one should mention using a search engine for reference help! don't you know that NOTHING on the internet can be trusted??!!

2. Away from the icebergs:
- reliance on user education. the author says: "if our services can't be used without training, then it's the services that need to be fixed - not our patrons." hmm, i'm not sure about this. i know where he's coming from and it's a valid point. on the other hand, it sounds like we're dumbing down the library! let's make it all as simple as a push of one button so nobody has to think anymore. and if it's more complicated than plugging in a wii, let's not deal with it... ??? is this what he's saying? sure we need to have faceted searching, but we also need to give our users a little credit, too. they may not be satisifed with a pat answer and may want to go deeper for something more difficult to find but more valuable to them.

- just in case collection...here, too, i think the author makes a valid point, but may go a bit far. i got into a discussion over the thanksgiving holiday with my neighbor about how libraries are changing... how some are considering not keeping items if they don't circ - even if they're classics! my neighbor was horrified and i think we all should be. let's not throw trade shakespeare for britney on dvd!

3. better bibliographic services:
- pushing and packaging metadata - i'm all for it!
- adopting web features like submitting reviews, tagging, etc - i'm all for it!
- broaden relevance ranking: sure, keywords are important, but wouldn't it be great if we could also sort a hitlist by most popular checkouts for example!

i'd love to continue this topic, but i have to go investigate rss feeds from our catalog...no promises...