Monday, March 26, 2007

Week Six, Thing Fifteen

What do I think of Library 2.0 and the future of libraries? My thoughts are a bit bipolar. In some ways I'm very excited about web 2.0, its implications for libraries, and the opportunities it provides for discussion and connectivity. But I'm also overwhelmed and exhausted at times by how quickly the world of information expands and evolves. I guess what I'm saying is that my views of it as a participant are sometimes different from those I have as a professional.

In many ways, Learning 2.0 has been the best professional exercise I've experienced since moving to the west coast. I am giddy with the possibilities of what web 2.0 has to offer, yet I also feel torn. Technology and time has a way of altering everything on its own schedule. I like how the library profession is changing on some levels, such as making services more user-friendly, libraries more patron focused, incorporating more and more media into collections, providing more virtual services, and so on.

And although I enjoy the new I also get nostalgic for the old. I love the physical collection. I like working with the physical collections of libraries; reading reviews, selecting items, cataloging them, creating reading lists, displays, weeding materials, and in general, managing the physical collections of the library. That role in libraries has been slipping away from me and I miss it. But with its fading comes new opportunties to manage virtual collections and web content, from webliographies to ebooks to bookmarking information into social networks like del.icio.us to using web 2.0 technologies to share information with patrons in their own virtual time and place.

So I agree with Rick Anderson and I see the icebergs he warns us about: We need to think more about virtual collections, make our services more intuitive and user friendly, and create libraries that are more relevant and accessible to people who may not have the time, interest, or inclination to visit libraries virtually or physically. It's the last item in particular that makes me dizzy. But so does a strong cup of coffee, a good book, and a long conversation with an old friend. And I certainly wouldn't give up any of those things.

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