#16 Library 2.0

My job in this elementary school library has been more involved with day-to-day operations of the library than with philosophical discussions about the future of libraries.

But after reading these perspectives, I agree with Michael Stephens that we must be sure to plan for our users and base our services, materials and outreach on their needs and wants. This includes being a trendspotter and controlling technolust (neither of which are easy!). But perhaps the most important role is getting access to good reliable content. Chip Nilges says something similar when he talks about building better data.

I find myself somewhat in disagreement with Rick Anderson when he says we must "focus our attention, not on teaching research skills but on eliminating the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need so they spend as little time as possible wrestling with lousy search interfaces and as much time as possible actually reading and learning." I agree that we should eliminate as many barriers and lousy search interfaces as possible, but, as an elementary school library, we must teach good research skills. The biggest task facing all people today isn't finding information, it's sorting through the deluge of information to find reliable and relevant information. Not everything on the internet is true or objective.

I commend Nebraskaccess as a good example of Library 2.0 in getting good, reliable content, and for going the second mile, so to speak, in putting such good slideshows on Slideshare to teach people how to access the information they personally need. This, I think, is taking the library to the people, which I see as part of Library 2.0.