Since the fall, I’ve pretty much been processing my thoughts about Library 2.0 on this blog in real-time. If one is going for ideological consistency, it’s probably not the best way to do things, but it is the most human way. I’ve been learning and reflecting and sharing those reflections with you. Walt’s excellent piece on how the thinking about Library 2.0 has evolved really helped clarify some of my own thoughts on the issue. My first reaction was that I’m not a fan of buzzwords, but if this particular buzzword got people talking about social software and improving services to patrons, then I was all for it. The concept seemed murky to me at the time and I didn’t really know what libraries were supposed to do to get to 2.0, but I thought it would get fleshed out as time went by. When I was asked to chair HigherEd BlogCon, I thought it would be a great opportunity to use a conference as a platform for describing what Library 2.0 is and how we can get there. I thought the main architects and proponents of Library 2.0 would be eager to share their ideas about Library 2.0 and social software in a conference that was designed to reach the largest number of people possible — anyone with an Internet connection. The whole idea of an online conference seemed pretty 2.0 to me, and I really hope that some of the idea people and the people who are doing terrific things in the libraries will step up and participate. I think it’s a great opportunity to bring all this stuff (both theory and practice) together in one place and to share it not only with librarians but with people involved in other areas of education and technology.
The more people have defined Library 2.0, the more confrontational the rhetoric has seemed. This “be a 2.0 library or be irrelevant” makes it sound like if libraries don’t join the movement, they are doomed. And what Jenny Levine wrote about the “L2 opponents” who feel “confusion and fear” over Library 2.0 really surprised me. Jenny is a nice person, a rational person, and I was really surprised to see what looked line a line in the sand being drawn. I really hope that Library 2.0 isn’t a polarizing force in the blogosphere because we all need to continue sharing our good ideas and success stories. From what John Blyberg has said, and correct me if I’m wrong, Library 2.0 means providing the same level of service to the elderly and the Boomers, but improving services only to young people. That really does concern me, because so many libraries also need to be providing better services to people over 40. And it’s not just an issue of age. What about providing services to people of different cultures, people who speak different languages, people with disabilities, people who’ve never used the Internet, homeless people, jobless people, people trying to start their own business, etc? We haven’t just been ignoring the young and the tech-savvy, and all I keep hearing is that we aren’t serving that demographic. But what about everyone else? We shouldn’t pretend that every library has the same specific gaps in service provision and that every library should use similar approaches to fill those gaps.
Based on what I’ve seen in my first semester working at my library and heard from students and faculty, here’s what I think are the most important things we need (or need to do) to serve our patrons better. Remember that this is only my biased view of the situation:
- An Open URL Link Resolver would make it SO MUCH easier for students to find what they’re looking for in our databases.
- We need to create instructional materials (Web guides, handouts, screencasts) on how to do research and search the databases. I’ve created some for the distance learners, but we don’t have any for the on-campus undergrads yet.
- We need to stop ignoring the fact that students are using Google for their research. We should teach them more advanced search strategies for searching the Web and how to critically evaluate what they find there. Ignoring the issue or saying “don’t do that” won’t make it go away.
- We so need wifi in the library.
- We need a full on PR campaign to make the library and its services more visible at the University.
- We need to do more liaison work to convince the faculty of the importance of information literacy instruction.
- We need to do more education of faculty as to what is available at the library. They can’t tell their students about it if they don’t know themselves.
- More information literacy courses tied to specific assignments. Students will only absorb information like that when it has a specific and immediate application (like a research paper).
- Make the reference desk more approachable.
- Make our Website more usable and useful.
Look, I would love to have people tagging the catalog, I’d love to create a blog for the distance learners and I’d love to introduce the faculty to social bookmarking for their classes, but in the hierarchy of needs, that’s not where we are. Creating tag clouds when our students don’t know how to use our databases is insanity. Are the goals listed above Library 2.0? I don’t know. Maybe Library 2.0 better applies to public libraries. I’m not worried about following a model, but following the needs of our patrons. I just want to help our students to do well academically and in later life. Our mission is to support the academic needs of the students and faculty of the University. The methods we will use for to meet that goal will change as populations change, but the mission never changes. I keep hearing that Library 2.0 requires a fundamental change in a library’s mission, but I don’t know how we should change ours.
Maybe Library 2.0 will inspire libraries. Maybe it will lead to great things. Maybe it will create false divisions where there are none (like the librarian who isn’t a Library 2.0 proponent but is change-oriented, user-focused, and info social software). Maybe the Library 2.0 label will turn people off outside of the blogosphere. Or maybe it will just get in the way of people understanding concretely how to improve their library. Jeff Barry of Endless Hybrids wrote the following:
I have absolutely no problem with the concepts behind all the Library 2.0 talk. Indeed, the concepts are great but it’s the term that I oppose. Sure, one can say that it’s just semantics and we don’t really need to worry about it. But as long as advocates use buzzwords to describe the concepts then there is the danger that the concepts are misunderstood while people try to understand the buzzwords.
I’m just going to keep trying to make things better at my library and share good ideas with other librarians. And I hope everyone continues to do the same, whether they’re doing it with Library 2.0 or without it. Because it’s now how you get there, but that you got there at all that matters. We all want to make libraries better, right?
Meredith,
Perhaps I mis-phrased my intent.
My point was not that we should abandon the pursuit of better service for any particular demographic. In addition to our current strategies, it’s imperative that we start engaging the younger segment of society whom, so far, tend to shun libraries for alternate sources of information and socialization. This wide swath of population to whom libraries are by-and-large irrelevant do represent “people of different cultures, people who speak different languages, people with disabilities, people who’ve never used the Internet, homeless people, jobless people, people trying to start their own business”. They’re just younger and they don’t see much value in the traditional library. We are certainly not entitled to their attention, but in ten, twenty years when they look at their property tax statements (with the exception of the homeless ones) and see the ‘library’ line-item, rest assured–they’ll take notice.
Well, I’m awfully glad to be wrong about your intent, John! 🙂 I also think many libraries need to be providing better services to teens and younger adults (Gens X and Y), including my own. However, in many communities, the needs of poor people, minorities, and immigrants are ignored by the library too. I just worry that the singular focus on youth and technology will overshadow the very important needs of people for whom the library is irrelevant AND who can’t just get their needs met by their local Borders.
Meredith, interesting thoughts.
I feel Jenny documented her comments well enough, and I’ve been following enough of the L2 discussion to agree that some people have had an add-water-to-acid reaction to the entire L2 discussion. But one nice point about the biblioblogosphere is the ability to agree to disagree.
I was interested in your comments that “in many communities, the needs of poor people, minorities, and immigrants are ignored by the library too.” Can you expand on this? Based on my experience in library administration in a variety of libraries, in some ways I agree; in some ways I disagree; but I’d be very interested to hear your take on this.
I also don’t see L2 as focusing overwhelmingly on youth and technology, and I do see it as relevant for your library. Your statement about making the reference desk more visible is intriguing–because one response would be that the reference desk most needs to be visible (and available) outside the library, or at least less focused on the physical point of service and more focused on where the students are at time of need. “It’s not the user who’s remote… it’s the librarian.”
My guess is L2 is like most guidance statements. You already do that stuff, you don’t need anyone telling you about it. But in my career, I have interacted with many lastgen administrators whose sensemaking is driven by assumptions based on an earlier era. I have been doing informal L2 coaching for nearly fifteen years now.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Blog away…
Meredith, great post.
@KG Schneider: my guess (and I hope Meredith will correct me if I am wrong) is that the “make the reference desk more approachable” item might be a bit academic library-specific. I know that at my college library, there are often many, many students in the library, and none of them at the reference desk. I can overhear them asking each other questions about library tools rather than coming to ask me. So making our desks and ourselves more approachable might help students who are mostly there for a quiet place to study, but never dream of asking a question.
Exactly right Steve. 🙂 Many of the students at my school don’t know that they can get help with their research at the Reference Desk. It’s just not something they think about, even when they are at the library. Some of them apologize for having a question about their research when they do come to the desk, and I tell them “well that’s what I’m here for!” 😉 I totally understand it since I never asked a question at the reference desk the entire time I was in college and grad school (I like to figure out things myself). So it’s about raising awareness about what we do and making us more approachable. I’m not quite sure how to do it, but I’m willing to try anything.
Great Post. One way of raising the profile of the Reference Desk might be to strategically promote it during term paper crunch time. This idea very much depends on staffing, but the undergraduate library at a university I attended promoted “Term Paper Counseling” when most students would be working on their papers. Students could drop in during certain hours and get a quick session with a LIS grad student who would get them started with research. It wasn’t much more than a quick reference consultation, but it seemed to make the desk more visible to students. Some professors would require that their students stop by before starting on their research.
Library2.0 is obviously a term created by library bloggers who already understand that web2.0 refers to certain new web tools such as technorati, del.icio.us, librarything, XML, RSS feeds, bloglines, etc. in which web users create identities for themselves and share information automatically & easily. Library2.0 is therefor simply a term that may be used by these tech savvy librarians to introduce their colleagues to new tools which may be of use, and also the testing of these tools with the new virtual patrons.
For instance how cool is Penn Tags?
http://tags.library.upenn.edu/
The way I see it is that ‘Library2.0’ implies a library in which virtual patrons are acknowledged and their access needs are met with these new tools. Folksonomies instead of LCSH, wish lists instead of Dewey, book reviews instead of subject terms all the while maintaining LCSH, Dewey and subject terms. It is important to reiterate that ‘Library2.0’ does not mean leaving .98, L2 backwards compatable. It’s simply the introduction of new tools which give more power to the technically inclined librarian and library users.
Meredith says “I tell them ‘well that’s what I’m here for!'”
Yep. I tell ’em “That’s what they pay me for!”
A Library 2.0 hangover
Alternate titles for this post: There is no such thing as Library 2.0 and this is a blog post about it. (Apologies for bastardizing the first line of Steven Shapin’s book The Scientific Revolution.) How many angels can dance on…
Oooooh, that’s a good idea Tangognat! I don’t know that we have enough staff for it, but it’s certainly something to consider for around the time when the students are doing their final term papers. I really wish we had more reference staff, because with more staff there are so many things we could do. I’m just excited that we’re going to be starting our IM Reference pilot project this coming Monday when the students get back. Woo hoo!
I completely agree with your perspective on some of the L2 (I hate buzzwords as much as anybody) developments not seeming hugely relevant to your users.
I work in pretty much the same position as you, and sometimes wonder if I spend too much time thinking about L2 related developments, because I’m interested in them, rather than because they’d make improvements for our users.
I also think that most of these things are very low cost, and actually improve my working efficiency, so I should stop feeling guilty.
I work in a library where we should theoretically have some of the most technically savvy users in the UK, and I am only just (and only occasionally) beginning to see users ask us if we provide feeds, or why they can’t download firefox in the library? The other day we had an academic ask us if there was a better way to receive email alerts, and I think we may have persuaded him of the benefits of RSS. Anyway, my point is, if future users do begin to depend more and more on things which we aren’t aware of, don’t we risk becoming more irrelevant? Focusing on the items in your list seems eminently sensible, but does it do any harm to think about the other things you mention?
P.S. – I’ve just had a look at your University’s website – could they make it any harder to find the library pages? How about adding something beneath your library opening hours along the lines of, ‘we can help with any type of enquiry (even unrelated to the library), please come to see us at the reference desk’? From my experience, many users feel that they can’t ask the library about certain things (they’re never quite sure what we are there for), if you’re willing to help them with anything (which I’m sure you are) they’re more likely to come back to you in future. Failing that, tell them they can’t come into the library unless they can think of a good question for you 😉
I haven’t seen the Library 2.0 manifesto, as I’ve been too busy over the past few months to follow the conversation closely, but it sounds like it is something along the lines of integrating new technology in libraries to support the needs of the generations that have grown up using social software and other networking tools. I think that’s a great idea, but it should also take into account where a library is at and what resources it has to get there.
On your list, my library has implemented 1, 2, 4, & 10; is working on 3, 6, 7, & 8; and needs improvement on 5 & 9. Our mission is to support the curriculum and research needs of our students and faculty, so not everything that falls under Library 2.0 will work for us, but we are at least thinking about some of those things. However, our budget is nowhere near the level it needs to be to fully support what we should have, much less what we are trying to currently maintain. Until that changes, the fancy gadgets aspect of Library 2.0 will have to wait.
Great post Meredith!
I don’t know if your list includes any 2.0 items or not either, but if those are the things your library needs then they are more important than most anything 2.0 .
And I agree with Karen, we need to stay civil but we can agree to disagree. If one only spends their time disagreeing then it is a waste, but the refinement of disagreements so that they are crystallized into the agreed upon parts can be a very useful exercise. Maybe that’s just the philosophy degree talking, but I’ve seen it in real life on a good day. And I am not referring to labels. They can be important, but can also come later. The content of concepts and the limits of our agreeing and disagreeing is what matters, not so much what we choose to call it.
Great clarifications, Meredith. Some questions to keep the conversation going:
1. “This ‘be a 2.0 library or be irrelevant’ makes it sound like if libraries don’t join the movement, they are doomed.” In the public library world, this is actually kind of true. Yes, there are a host of other issues that are also part of it, but as John Blyberg points out, in the coming years, the Google generation will be making funding decisions, and if we’re already seeing problems like Salinas, what should we expect if we don’t reach out to them more? In Illinois, tax-caps are a huge issue for public libraries, and losing future users along the way really does jeopardize the future of these libraries. We have no coordinated transition for users from public libraries to school libraries to academic libraries and back to public libraries, so they often drop out somewhere along the way. That seems to be happening at a younger age than in the past, yes? Is L2 the only way to resolve some of this? No. Is it a good place to start the discussion? I think so, but YMMV.
2. I think that also explains why some of us talk about big chunks of this in terms of younger users. Your list of things your library should be focusing on talks an awful lot about students, who I would consider to be part of this “younger users” demographic (again, that’s just me), so you’re targeting them, too. While I think this is very important, especially in your environment, wouldn’t all of the things on that list also help everyone else involved with the university? Could the same be true of L2 in the long run? (That’s an honest question, not a bait.)
You also state, “Our mission is to support the academic needs of the students and faculty of the University. The methods we will use to meet that goal will change as populations change, but the mission never changes.” So if the population skews towards these kids who have grown up thinking libraries are irrelevant, don’t you have to rethink those methods? (That’s how I read John Blyberg’s comments.) I think the OCLC Environmental Scan predicted MySpace.com in an interesting way, and libraries have yet to really discuss going where the users are online and infiltrating their social networks there. (Not a new concept in the physical world, as George Needham recently pointed out, but one we should talk about more in the context of the online world.)
3. “Creating tag clouds when our students don’t know how to use our databases is insanity.” I totally grok that, but if they get used to Gmail labels, Flickr tags, and Yahoo’s My Web tags, could we then use tag clouds to help teach how to use our databases in a context they understand in daily practice? Just trying to think out of the box here, since we all know how difficult it is to teach information literacy to users, especially ones that have grown up on Google.
4. “We shouldn’t pretend that every library has the same specific gaps in service provision and that every library should use similar approaches to fill those gaps.” Has there been a L2 proponent who proposed a one-size-fits-all solution for libraries? (I’m willing to admit I missed it if there is.) Personally, I think the best part about L2 is that your library evaluates all of these great new tools, services, ideas, etc. and figures out which ones might work best for you, as well as which ones you can actually support with the resources you have. However, few libraries have the ability to convince their administrations and build this stuff on their own, which is where the larger movement becomes important. Critical mass counts for a lot in libraryland (e.g., DVDs, RFID, online catalogs, websites, etc.).
5. Please forgive me if I’ve missed this in a previous post of yours as I’ve been offline quite a bit lately, but if you don’t like buzzwords or labels, how would you have started this discussion? You need to label big things under some type of umbrella just to have boundaries or a frame of reference, and this isn’t as easy as “blogs,” “RSS,” “RFID,” or “information literacy.” On the HigherEd BlogCon site, the royal “you” uses “the new tools of the Social Web,” which is a mouthful and won’t attract the attention of anyone outside of the blogosphere, either. So another honest question – if you don’t want to use the term “Library 2.0” to jumpstart the discussion, what would you propose instead? I honestly can’t think of a way to put the concepts on the radar of libraries at large without some kind of wraparound term, so I’m really interested to hear your thoughts on this.
Jenny –
1. As to your first point about transitioning users, perhaps looking overseas could be the answer. I’m hoping to visit the @orchard libraries next week in Singapore – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library@orchard which are all about youth. Everyone I know that has visited them has come back incredibly enthused.
“libraries have yet to really discuss going where the users are online and infiltrating their social networks there”
I find this happens incidentally in places where I personally spend my time online. I might be on a figure skating board and someone wants to find books, or a website etc. Or I might be on a music board and someone (a student) will be complaining about an assignment and they don’t know where to start with the library. When they thank me, I’ll tell them I’m a librarian. Those I’ve chatted to in this way are glad to get help from a regular member of the group who isn’t an interloper, and it isn’t pushing “the library” as the solution to their information needs, especially if they didn’t think of going to a library for what they needed in the first place.
3. I can’t quite work out how this would work “could we then use tag clouds to help teach how to use our databases in a context they understand in daily practice?”
Would this fall into the category of teaching people to brainstorm and visualise their searches? Or is it more about seeing the number of results in a database on a particular topic? (existing examples of visual searches I can think of are Kartoo and the topic maps in Xrefer)
Lastly – I would like to see more discussion about services for baby boomers. They are the immediate growth population in libraries. They will want to be active, use computers, and will have the energy to lobby libraries for services. Many will want part-time job seeking services. And sure, they will want IM and social software to keep in touch, but still their needs are not quite the same as youth. I wonder what needs they have can be made ‘hot’ like DDR nights.
Here’s a presentation on the topic from a recent conference – http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/meetings/rails/boomers.ppt
And I say the above because even though I was a youth development director at a community organisation only just a couple of years ago, youth really are very well served already by many information and entertainment sources in comparison to minority and disadvantaged populations.
5. New terms for library 2.0 – is there a way to make ‘outreach’ sound jazzier? 😉
Here are my answers to Jenny’s question (and maybe to some extent other people’s questions as well):
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.
“I thought we were moving in this direction and were discussing all this well before Michael Casey came on the blog scene.”
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.
Michael,
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. 😉
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># Steve Lawson Says:
>>” 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 don’t care what you call these discussions, just tag them all with library2.0 in delicious and I’ll find them all. Thanks.
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.
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I think the main thing about libraries is the number of resourses it has. The more the better and how you name it doesn’t matter.