What is Library 2.0?

I’ve been blogging with Pete a lot about Library 2.0. When I posted Amazon is Library 2.0, he countered with asking the question what is Library 2.0? Do we have any actual examples of Library 2.0? What exactly is it that we’re asking of ourselves when we talk about Library 2.0???

Library 2.0 might have started as a neologism, but, as the discussion thread for the topic on the Wikipedia states:

“Library 2.0 is as much, if not more, of an offshoot of Business 2.0 [and] has has since moved on to become something that is likely to change the way librarians think about the profession”

From all my reading lately, Library 2.0 is about librarians talking to librarians about where they want to be in the future. If it is really about Business 2.0, then hopefully, librarians are talking about innovation. If it includes Web 2.0 - the social web - then librarians should be talking about about people, and about community building, enabled through the participation that social computing brings. They should be talking about achieving this through trust and encouraging users to share ideas through writing, rating, and commenting against everything in the library’s collection, even to the extent of making the collection open to developers to use, re-use and improve!

Are librarians talking about this? Yes! - the bloggsphere is alive with this chatter. But are they walking-the-walk as well? Are they actually being innovative with their internal business? Are they being innovative with the services they offer? If so, then are they talking to users about this? Are they doing market research in order to find that niche community they can service with Web 2.0 products? Are the services they intend on delivering interesting enough for users to talk to other users about so that it spreads like wildfire in the same way social computing projects like Flickr did?

… or are libraries just playing catch-up? Rather than changing the way librarians think about the profession, shouldn’t they be changing the way others think about the profession?

Library 2.0 is a nice dream. I think it’s now time to wake up and act. I want my Library 2.0 now!

M

Amazon is Library 2.0

I’ve been chattering with Pete Smith and Brad Hinton about Library 2.0. It’s been very interesting. Today, relating some of our recent talks on examples of Library 2.0 with my colleague Andrew Boyd, he made the following suggestion to me:

“Amazon is Library 2.0″

I laughed, knowing how much of a stir it would cause amongst some readers, but was Andrew very far from the truth?

Of course some people will say Amazon is just about buying books, but it really is much more than that. Amazon is about people, about community building, enabled through the participation that social computing brings. It achieves this through trust and encouraging users to write, rate, and comment against everything in their collection. It even makes the collection open to developers to use, re-use and improve!

These are all fundamental aspects of Web 2.0. If libraries are to evolve toward Library 2.0, then I think they need to look at social computing models like Amazon and learn from it.

For example, David Lee King, in presenting on Web 2.0, suggests that ordering a book from Amazon is better experience than interacting with an OPAC system.

Garrett Hungerford of Zen Library asks some poignant questions of those considering Library 2.0 and points to Amazon as having some answers:

“Do you know what book was the most popular at your library last year? Amazon knows what theirs was and can recommend 4 other books that you’d like as well, automatically.

“Could I please have better search results? I want results to resemble an Amazon product page. This information IS useful:

• Anonymous patron gave title A, 4 of 5 stars
• 98% of people that check out this book, also, checked out title B

Amazon has an Internet Movie Database. Why haven’t libraries formed an Internet Book Database? And no, WorldCat doesn’t count. I want to see what’s upcoming, what readers have to say, what books have received awards, etc.

I’m not saying that Amazon has all the answers, but it does understand its users, it does understand that it needs to constantly improve itself, and it does have services that people want and use in a collaborative way that centres on those needs over and above the need to control and manage its collection. It’s about as close to Library 2.0 as I’ve seen or read about (and no, I’m not including prototypes, alphas, betas, or closed library systems that can only be accessed inside the library).

As Garrett Hungerford so eloquently puts it, “library users are not going to change the system; they will seek other outlets and means of getting the information they need”. Right now, that means if you’re a library, Amazon could be your competition.

…so what are you doing about it?

M

L2 - Library 2.0

I think I’ve got 2.0-itis, but I couldn’t help but check out the concept of Library 2.0 after receiving comments from Pete on the issue.

As an Information Architect, Knowledge Manager, and Social Psychologist, I find it interesting to see libraries, like other information intensive enterprises, evolving and embracing the social computing software that we’ve seen for some years now in the Web 2.0 space and in the fundamental principles of Enterprise 2.0.

Proponents of Library 2.0, such as Stephen Abram [1], Michael Stephens [2], Paul Miller [3] and others, argue that while individual pieces of Library 2.0 have been part of the service philosophies of many library reformers since the 19th century, the convergence of these service goals and Web 2.0 technologies will lead to a new generation of library service.

Investigating these principles, Michael Casey and Laura Savastinuk have blogged about service for the next-generation library. Among other things, they talk about the customer as collaborator:

“Customers, should they desire, will be able to tailor library services to best meet their own needs. This can be done electronically, such as through the personalization of library web pages, or physically through new service options such as allowing customers to call impromptu book talks or discussion groups. Such collaborative efforts require librarians to develop a more intensive routine of soliciting customer response and regularly evaluating and updating services”.

Personalisation? Hmmm… what about users helping other users? What about users making comments against books and references in the library system? What about librarians commenting on resources they find help others? What about users commenting on librarians’ comments? What about the social interaction of users with users?

I’ve blogged about the social web before. Most organisations are yet to understand that it’s not about installing a blog here or a wiki there. Just because you create an artificial online social construct it doesn’t necessarily follow that the people will come or that people will use it. I think many businesses make that mistake because they don’t understand the social psychological dynamic of their people, or the organisation’s culture, and, therefore, don’t understand how to support their knowledge work activities with online tools. After all, knowledge work is primarily social in nature because that’s how people most efficiently share knowledge and information. Tom Davenport of Harvard Business Online agrees. He suggests that:

“Most of the barriers that prevent knowledge from flowing freely in organizations – power differentials, lack of trust, missing incentives, unsupportive cultures, and the general busyness of employees today – won’t be addressed or substantially changed by technology alone. For a set of technologies to bring about such changes, they would have to be truly magical, and Enterprise 2.0 tools [alone] fall short of magic”

Laura Cohen, though, shows an enlightened organisation ready to embrace the Enterprise 2.0/Web 2.0 world - and it’s a library. Podcasts! Wikis! and Blogs! Oh my! Laura’s comments on her library’s Action Plan for L2.0 shows amazing promise, particularly in addressing Davenport’s conerns regarding ‘trust’. Social web evangelists, like Stephen Collins, Anne Zelenka, and others, remind us that this trust is an important factor in wanting to share information, adopting appropriate tools and using them effectively:

If you want [users] to feel both accountable and authorized to work independently … you need to trust them. Saying, “I trust you” to a new colleague is a powerful way to make them feel both competent and committed. Taking a “prove you are worthy” stance will make them more likely to doubt themselves and consequently less likely to take risks for the team.

What about other facets of Web2.0? What about folksonomies rather than the taxonomies of Dewey or Library of Congress for organising information? What about users tagging the library’s collection? What about both taxonomies and folksonomies working together? What about multiple world-views of information classification connected through a topic map? Some of these issues may be core to the L 2.o debate, but I wonder whether librarians the world over are ready to open up their doors and allow users to comment, rate, link and discuss, both with other users and with librarians, the outward facing resources and services that libraries offer?

… I hope so. Only time will tell.

M
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[1] Abram, S., Casey, M., Blyberg, J., & Stephens, M. (2006). A SirsiDynix Institute Conversation: The 2.0 Meme - Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Librarian 2.0, February 2006.
[2] Casey, M. & Stephens, M. (2006). Better Library Services for More People, ALA TechSource Blog, January 2006.
[3] Miller, P., Chad, K. (2005). Do libraries matter? - The rise of Library 2.0, Talis November 2005.