Thing 15--Library 2.0 And My Growing Headache

Thing 15 will be simple. Thing 15 will be quick. Just read a couple of articles and write my opinion. No problem. Ha! In fact, double Ha! This has been the trickiest Thing to date.

I'd already watched "The Machine is Us/ing Us" by Michael Wesch at the beginning of my 23 Things journey. And I remember how it got me excited, how pithy and clever it seemed, how the music and the video fooled me into believing I was hip, on the cutting edge or bleeding edge (no, hipper, I am coining "gangrenous edge"--it's so cutting edge that it is already too late to cut!). So, I moved on to the next assignment. Oh, I read the innocently titled "Web 2.0: Where will the next generation of the web take libraries?," which led me to"Away from Icebergs," and then to"Into a new world of librarianship," and finally to Wikipedia's entry for Library 2.0. But these raised many more questions than they answered.

Reading these made me go in search of more information. Some of which included:

• OCLC Pattern Recognition, which turned out to be a report described as follows--“The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition report was produced for OCLC’s worldwide membership to examine the significant issues and trends impacting OCLC, libraries, museums, archives and other allied organizations, both now and in the future. The scan provides a high-level view of the information landscape, intended both to inform and stimulate discussion about future strategic directions.” The main conclusions to this scan seem to revolve around, “An examination of how young people's social interaction and technology skills have created a seamless sphere fusing work, play and information.” http://www.oclc.org/reports/escan/
• OCLC User Perception Reports, which, thanks to Elaine Johnson, I'd already read something about, but ultimately showcases how most people have a "meh" attitude of the services libraries provide. http://www.oclc.org/reports/2005perceptions.htm
• The ClueTrain Manifesto, which turns out to be a book, a blog, and a movement about how big business (including libraries) needs to wake up and smell the customer (or is it e-consumer or i-patron) and acknowledge that he/she/e/i is human and that the market, thanks to technology, is becoming smarter, faster, better, and more human (more human because of technology--beautiful irony), etc. http://www.cluetrain.com/
• Open WorldCat--a big open online catalog. http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/
• WebJunction--an online community for librarians (which I dutifully joined). http://www.webjunction.org/do/Home
• Openly Infomatics--I think it is something that helps OCLC make the Open WorldCat work--still exploring this. http://www.openly.com/
• G5 Libraries (everybody knows about this, but I'm trying to learn more).
  
• And what is meant by The Long Tail. “The phrase The Long Tail (as a proper noun with capitalized letters) was first coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article^[1] to describe certain business and economic models such as Amazon.com or Netflix. Businesses with distribution power can sell a greater volume of otherwise hard-to-find items at small volumes than of popular items at large volumes. The term long tail is also generally used in statistics, often applied in relation to wealth distributions or vocabulary use.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail And I'm still trying to figure out how libraries might make this concept work better for them (Specialization? Go Central!)

But the biggies I took away from all of these articles are:

• Get rid of the superfluous "just in case" collections (I still think that applies more to reference rather than fiction or children's).
• Skip educating the user and make the technology easier (I am on board with this. I've heard techie folks lament that librarians need to "quit being lazy and explore all the options," but all I can say is "Spend a day on the desk where you are often critic, sheriff, lawyer, doctor, babysitter, whipping boy, bartender, career specialist, confessor, and best bud"--just to name a few. So, it seems to me either more intuitive technology is needed or podcasts or tutorials need to be designed to help patrons, or maybe patrons should be able to write their own Help Desk tickets).
• Forget the "come to us" model of service (which makes sense except that we are being a bit elitist in assuming that everyone can sit at home with a computer and Internet access or confidence or understanding of computers to access info on their own. Let's not make the same mistake as merchandisers and assume that everyone is under 25 and of upper-middle-class income).
• Avoid technolust (Hallelujah!).
• Listen to customers and openly discuss successes AND FAILURES (an interesting concept for an organization that offers no upward or 360 evaluations).
• Be trendspotters and have time to play and learn (who has time for this? I want to, but here I am at home, at the zero hour, trying to finish 23 Things).
• Build better data (can I get another Hallelujah?).
• And "harness collective intelligence" (which suggests, among other innovations in these articles, a more horizontally structured library system; it may be time for the ancient hierarchies to say "Bye, Bye.").

But perhaps I've said too much; or maybe I've not said enough. I think I need some Ibuprofen and a good night's sleep. Then again...

P.S. Please note all the bullet points. It's still long-winded, but I tried.