I went out to dinner with a friend last night who asked what I was currently working on for class.
“Oh, a paper about the modern library and how to improve service.”
“Okay,” he responded. “But what specifically are you saying?”
I realized half-way through my explanation that I’ve become specialized in my field (as any good graduate student should) because as I saw his eyes glaze and I knew that I was speaking some sort of library gibberish.
So who is this Ranganathan fellow, and why do we care about him today?
Long before computers, the Internet boom, digital collections, and self-checkout stations, S.R. Ranganathan composed a simple list of fundamental values for librarianship. Touted the “Five Laws of Library Science” (1931), Ranganathan’s ideals are incredibly progressive, even by today’s standards. When backed by the meme Library 2.0, the Five Laws are increasingly powerful, offering a modern and dynamic way of serving users in an ever-changing environment. This paper attempts to reexamine Ranganathan’s convictions, now nearly 80 years old, under the light of participatory service, adding a contemporary appraisal of his five fundamental principles.
I’m sure I’m not the only one to feel a bit overwhelmed by the influx of gadgets that 2.0 has brought forth. My head is buzzing with passwords and screen names and ideas that link the technologies together or make better use of the platforms.
But again, I emphasize the word overwhelmed. I feel I’m better able to communicate with others, but between switching between my Twitteriffic, matt, Adium, and GTalk, I get buried in windows and can easily overlook people attempting to reach me.
I had a bit of a breakthrough this week when I realized that Adium would support GTalk and import my entire contact list onto its platform. Which means (eee!) I can have all my instant messages running from one place.
I had gotten really good at forgetting about an open chat I was having with someone via my Gmail window, which was the 3rd of 7 tabs open in one window that, in order to simplify, I’d minimized and let sit for a good half hour before remembering that my poor friend living abroad was trying to ask my advice on something that I’d failed to respond to. Whew.
Crisis averted. All too late… but averted none-the-less.
There was something about talking to my friends via AIM (AmericaOnline Instant Messenger) that made conversing so much cooler. Thinking back, it was through that little pop-up window that I learned to type–or at least picked up speed in my keystrokes because it was important to have a quick reply when chatting on the web. Why were we so enamored with this technology? My friends and I had been discussing the same mindless things as we had sat in the junior high classroom only hours earlier. We could also have been talking over the phone. But instead we were busy taking up the phoneline and chatting via the sparkly new Internet. Little did I know that my “Buddy List” was the dawning of a new era–a time when text-based interactions would increase while vowels and full-sentence usage would decrease. I was privy to something my parents didn’t quite understand, but I couldn’t get enough of.
Despite the technological changes made since then, I still use AIM (well, now Adium thanks to Mac) as a major form of communication. One could argue that my distinct list of friends isn’t a structured community in the same vein as message boards, but from the IM came a more global community: emoticons, away messages, buddy profiles, user icons. And if you didn’t have a screen name, then really, where were were you in the world?
I’ll admit that it wasn’t until about 10 months ago that I changed my screen name. That seventh-grade identifier had grown beyond stale–but despite this, it was a difficult change. Even though “evilkeight” was no longer a representation of myself, it was what my friends identified me as. I continue to have to explain who “msmaven” is when I send a new message.
Also of note (and not that I’m bragging…maybe I am…) I was on facebook as one of the orginal users. Back when only 3 schools had permission on the interface and all my friends brushed it off as “stalkerbook” I was one of the few and proud to have a profile. I wanted to be a part of the buzz. Still do.
The blog Infomancy describes one aspect of Library 2.0 as “harnessing patron intelligence.” I noticed this theme running through a number of the L2 articles that defined and supported the label at its inception. This definition serves as an excellent talking point, for it encompasses so much of the concept and gives concrete verbiage to buzz-terms as “social networking” and “user collaboration.“ Publishing–whether audio, visual, or the written word–has moved from a context in which information was disseminated from a focal source to numerous consumers. The advent of the Internet and Web 2.0 movement has changed this single communication channel to a multi-faceted network, in which users not only read, but also respond to, interact with, and manipulate information.
Need we be reminded that libraries (broadly defined) are keepers and disseminators of information—and if information changes, we too must change. Blyberg, as one of his 11 reasons why Library 2.0 exists and matters states “L2 requires a fundamental change in a library’s mission.” I would argue that a library’s mission (again, generally stated) is to provide access and serve users—it might not require complete change, but perhaps a reinterpretation. The library’s job has always been to be of assistance to patrons, but as patrons change, we too must continue to serve them.
Admittedly, I sometimes find myself a bit skeptical—is this all just fluffy rhetoric? Are users really going to care? What exactly can we, especially as nearly graduated MLIS students, do?
The next few weeks will provide concrete substance to the above paragraphs and arm me with more than just ideas and a smile when I enter the workplace. As G.I. Joe tells us, “knowing is half the battle”—but the other half is practicing what you believe in.
