February 8, 2009
A Reflection on Library 2.0 and Participatory Service
After reading and thinking about Library 2.0, it is clear that libraries need to reframe themselves to better meet the needs of current users and to court new ones as well. It’s this idea of getting people back in the library. Outside of my friends working within the library community, I can’t say that I know many people who regularly visit a library or use its services online. To them, it’s not about the the library being an afterthought. In their world, the library is something even less than an afterthought. Ouch.
How do we make the library relevant again? While it has been established that the library is competing with Borders, Amazon and Google, it doesn’t mean that libraries can’t learn from these services and exist alongside them. I loved Jenny Levine’s suggestion from “New Approaches for Libraries – Jenny Levine in Conversation” about libraries working with Google. When someone types a search into Google, there could be some kind of link to that person’s local library which would automatically display alongside the Google results. The idea is that the user still might not be able to find what they are looking for amongst the Google results. If a librarian from a local library steps in and offers to help, then users can see the benefits of local, human information service. Utilizing technology for geo-targeting could go a long way for libraries.
I also really liked the Aarhus Public Libraries Transformation Lab video, just as an example of what libraries could become. The news lab especially interested me, as it seemed like a successful way of creating an experience while still meeting the needs of the patrons. If anyone has ever been to the Harold Washington Library international and the U.S. newspaper area on the 3rd floor near the computer workstations, there’s not a whole lot to “experience” there. It seems that there could be an opportunity to pull users in and offer them news content in a way that is more than just stacks of newspapers. (Disclaimer: I would like to point out that I do not mean to criticize Harold Washington Library specifically. I am merely using it as an example as that is the public library I frequent.)
