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.)
February 1, 2009
Post 1: Introduction
My name is Mary. I work in the library of a marketing agency. We have around 200 users, most of which are either account folks or creative folks at the agency. While we regularly assist the account teams with research requests, we are still looking for ways to provide services to the creative teams beyond simply offering books and magazines. We want to support and inspire innovative ideas.
As part of our reference service, we are constantly telling our users about new technology and media which can be utilized within a marketing context. Yet, we don’t always use these same tools to communicate with our users. Slowly, we are getting there. A colleague recently launched a blog as a way to showcase innovative thinking and to start a dialogue, via comments, with the agency. He’s still tweaking it, though, and trying to figure out the best way to organize the content and promote it.
I’m hoping to take ideas learned from this class and apply them to our library. Throughout this blog, I hope to give examples of what we are currently doing in our space and also consider what else we might be able to add to the mix.
