Libraries need to have patrons as their advocates, and to listen to the needs of all of the people in their service area (including those people who don’t currently patronize the library for whatever reason). I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who is an avid reader and he says he misses the days when he would prowl the stacks looking for ideas, but now he gets what he needs from the net and when he wants a book he just buys it. When the literate people in your community abandon the library it’s a sign of trouble.

>>” Meredith says “I tell them ‘well that’s what I’m here for!’”

> Yep. I tell ‘em “That’s what they pay me for!” ”

I [used to] tell ‘em “That’s what YOU pay me for!”

Ryan. . .

I think you took something very personally that I didn’t mean to be that way at all. You are the one who coined the term Library 2.0, so all I was saying was that this was going on before you came on the scene and coined the term. It wasn’t meant to insult you; it was a statement of fact. The point was that you DIDN’T start a movement. People already were talking about this and doing great stuff. I NEVER said that you made any claims other than coining the term. I NEVER said that you don’t value libraries now and I never criticized you. In fact, looking back at my posts, I’ve only ever quoted you once in a post, and that was just to ask how we “Reach out to new users, invit[e] customer participation, and rely on constant change.” I was never criticizing PEOPLE, just an idea. And while you coined the phrase, I don’t think you’re responsible for everything that’s been written since.

Michael, you seem like a great guy and I hate to think that what I wrote insulted you. Believe me that I did not mean it in that way at all. I think we’re all reading way too much into other people’s writing and I, for one, know that I need a break from all this. My last post was trying to say “hey, let’s agree to disagree and keep making libraries better, which is what we all believe in. If Library 2.0 has legs, great. If not, let’s just keep trying to make libraries better no matter what.” But then that turned into a comment/criticism-fest and I started to feel like we could never just let it go and agree to disagree.

I hope we can just go back to sharing great ideas. I really enjoy your blog and I loved that post you wrote yesterday about how to get more integrated with local government. What a terrific idea! If you knew me, you’d know that I would never single anyone out for personal criticism. Well… except maybe Michael Gorman or George Bush.

What? When did I ever say I was the first to discuss any of these great ideas? I’ve got absolutely no problem crediting Michael Stephens and Jenny Levine and you and the many other great thinkers who have been discussing, for many years, ways to improve library service – I have tried to link to as many as possible in my blog posts. I think I have some ideas that will, I hope, add (in a constructive way) to the already ongoing discussions. The fact that so much of this discussion, and so many of the tools that would allow us to better serve our communities, were enabled by and came from the Web 2.0 world only made it seem logical to refer to this convergence of ideas as Library 2.0. Was I attempting to start a “movement”? No. Did I want to create a debate about the name/term/label/etc? No. But tell me, if I have an idea to bring together several dissimilar areas for change in library service delivery, how am I to refer to it without some name/term/label/etc? Many libraries try to change, but none that I’ve seen have tried to integrate it to the level I suggest. Many libraries want to attract new users, but none that I have seen have discussed it in the way Web 2.0 companies are discussing their efforts to go after the Long Tail of users. Am I completely original in all my thinking? Absolutely not, none of us are. But I think I have some new ideas to add to an already wonderful collection that so many great people have been discussing for a long time. I hope that we can talk about these ideas in the biblioblogsphere without people misinterpreting our blog discussions for white papers or treatises.

1. I totally agree that we need to serve our younger patrons better. We had NOTHING for young people at the public library I used to work at. We also had NOTHING (collections or program-wise) for non-English speakers and we didn’t let people from out of town use the Internet without paying for it in 1 hour increments. This was horrible, because the people who made up the area’s service industry could not afford to live in the city (even most of the librarians could not afford to live in the city). So we were denying access to people who probably had no other option for Internet access. Fine, they didn’t pay taxes in our area, but they made our city run! We offered no computer classes, not classes on how to do research, no classes at all. We had two storytimes (for babies and little kids) and a book discussion which was mostly attended by our elderly patrons. We didn’t even have books in other languages, in spite of the fact that we had decent-sized Hispanic and Haitian populations. Yes, it was important to have services for young people, but it was also important that we provide services for many of the other people who lived and worked in our community. Yes, gearing services towards young people is a bit more long-sighted (is that a word?) than what most libraries are doing, but focusing only on one population because they will be paying for your library’s existence in a decade disenfranchises the people who probably won’t ever have political clout. It’s their library too. And like Fiona rightly stated, the Boomers will still be an important political and financial force in our communities. Their needs are going to change and we will need to adapt to that as well. I was just surprised when John Blyberg said that we could keep services to the dwindling elderly and the boomers the same and improve services for young people. But I think we all agree that most libraries are providing terrible services to young people and that needs to change. There needs to be more cooperation between school, academic, and public libraries to transition these students and keep them as library users. I couldn’t agree more.

2. My goals for our library are what I see from my biased perspective. My job is to serve the distance learners, so my focus is on students. I think our faculty also needs a lot of education about library resources (which I mentioned). However, I think the situation our students are in (regarding their understanding of research and the usability of our library middleware) is terrible, and that’s my first priority. In addition, the distance learners are primarily between the ages of 30-60, so they’re not exactly youngsters. I totally agree that a lot of things benefit everyone, but certain populations do require different services and collections. I also wonder if students in every area have the same technology competencies and the same interests. Students certainly come to school with different abilities in terms of doing online research, and I know there are many undergrads at Norwich who really aren’t that tech-savvy. Though I’m pretty sure they’re all on Facebook

3. I don’t know if my students really are tagging. Maybe they are, but I haven’t found them on social software sites (other than Facebook and MySpace) and I have looked. I’ve looked on Flickr, and there are only one or two students who post photos there tagged with Norwich. 18 year olds aren’t exactly the same everywhere you go and they didn’t all grow up using the same tools. It’s an important thing to consider.

5. How would I have started this discussion? I think the discussion has been going on for a long time. We’ve been talking about social software and being change oriented since way before I started my blog. The Ann Arbor District Library redesign happened before we called things Library 2.0. So did many Wikis, blogs, etc. in libraries. You and Michael were talking about this stuff (and people were listening) way before this. I think the only change in the discussion has been the incessant use of a label; defining the label, defending the label, exalting the label. If Library 2.0 becomes a mainstream movement that revolutionizes library services, I’ll be happy to admit I’m wrong. I just don’t see it happening. I thought we were moving in this direction and were discussing all this well before Michael Casey came on the blog scene. But maybe I’m wrong. I just know that people at my library don’t know what Web 2.0 is much less Library 2.0. And if I used a term like that with them I would lose credibility. I’d be one of THOSE librarians who is always coming up with crazy ideas that everyone ignores because my head’s in the clouds and I don’t know how it really is in real libraries. My colleagues would respond better to specific concrete ideas to improve our library rather than a big sweeping movement. And I would guess a lot of people’s libraries are like that too (maybe not, I don’t know anything for sure). I just know there must be a reason that a whole lot of people who are into technology, social software, and user-oriented change are balking at the idea of a Library 2.0 movement. It isn’t just me.