#16: Library 2.0

From the tools we've seen in these exercises, I think the most salient feature of Web 2.0 is the social aspect, specifically a democratization of creating, selecting and evaluating resources. Opposed to traditional library modes, Library 2.0 would seem to indicate a shift to more public participation in areas where we have had near-exclusive control. What, if any, control of these traditional library functions would libraries be willing to relinquish? Which could we relinquish and still feel that we are true to our mission as libraries? Or, does our sense of what is core to being a library need to change?

Of the other articles I read, the points that I feel are most realistic to our situation are about ways we can be "out there" or engaged and participating in the Web 2.0 world. I think of examples like the tools created by librarians to work with browsers and Web 2.0 services. I also think we could have more of a role in adding content or tags to Web 2.0 services. Couldn't librarians be editing Wikipedia articles or at least adding notes and links giving authorative sources? Shouldn't we be adding authorative content to del.icio.us?

I contrast this perspective to suggestions that we fit existing library functions within the more constrained online environments. What I've seen of online "libraries" is that they are all poor substitutes for the real thing. For instance, in the one demo I've seen of Second Life, "books" were kept in trunks and your avatar had pass nearby in order to see the titles contained there. A text- or Web-based catalog is so much more powerful than these constrained virtual worlds. Should we settle for such shallow solutions just because they are the current thing?

Instead I think we should be trying to raise the quality of Web 2.0 resources. For instance, I've been adding bookmarks from my user guides to del.icio.us and finding that in many cases I'm the first person to add an important link. I think librarians should be concerned that there are 25,000 links to a video of a dog skateboarding and none to the Census Bureau.

Similarly, when searching for pre-exisiting searchrolls in Rollyo, I found one created by another library. To me, that had some authority. I'm guessing other users might feel the same. Yet, it isn't possible at this point to find searchrolls created by source, specifically by a library. Maybe we -- librarians collectively -- should be working with services like to this to get library-generated sources acknowledged and weighted accordingly. I'm sure there are dozens of such opportunities where libraries can have a visible role in Web 2.0 and make a corresponding difference in quality.

For even more ambitious projects, we could be looking to the information science side of the house for ways to make sense or consistency of some of the more chaotic and unbalanced aspects of Web 2.0. For instance, "folksonomy" has some benefits but the debit side is considerable. Is there some way to automatically classify items based on popular tags (perhaps combined with other elements of the record)? What about the way interest groups get their sites better rankings by "bombing" (I think that's the term) the search engines. So Dianetics and Atlas Shrugged always make it into the list of the 100 greatest books of all time. Pollsters know how to measure "generated" responses and compensate for them in their analysis, so why can't we do the same?

I like that we could display librarything tags within our catalog records. librarything already pulls records from LC. Why not try to use some of the overlap between popular tags and ossified LC classification to come up with something both current and structured?

I think there are a lot of opportunities in Web 2.0 for libraries but I'm concerned that most of the discussion is marked by two wrong-headed responses: throw aside all traditional library functions in order to pursue the latest shiny geegaw or ignore anything that we can't control absolutely no matter how irrelevant we may become. I'd like to see a strong, concerted contingent of librarians who are not afraid of new modes (but not easily distracted by things just because they are new) and respect what is still valuable about traditional library functions (but won't cling to every dusty artefact of the profession out of misdirected loyalty).