Thing 2 - What is Library 2.0

[I really liked the "Wall of Books!"]

Time certainly is an issue!! My last post was mid-February. I thought I would work on this during my vacation, but my dial-up connection seems slower than ever. I am trying to squeeze this in here, and there. I will just have to not worry about the deadline.

I am participating in 23 Things on a Stick to learn things to help me in my job. I don't think that I am likely to use many of the 2.0 communication devices in my regular life, but I may be so impressed with the technology that I will.

The Internet allows near immediate gratification of many information needs. If I want to know who the actor was in a certain movie, I can access that information quickly. Then I can see what other movies the actor made. I can find biographical information, I can even find out how tall someone is and compare their height to another actor that they have worked with. Much of my personal use of the Internet is in pursuit of idle information. I don't really need to know the answer, but I can crawl around finding out lots of bits about very little.

For work, the Internet can be an informational life saver. If I have no idea what someone is asking me about, I can use the internet to get a quick overview of a topic so that I can better mine our physical library collection or on-line databases. But, sometimes, the information on the web is superior. I love the CIA World Factbook, the information is continually being updated.

I have low domain knowledge of the use of Web 2.0 tools. Our library does have 5 blogs, and we take reference questions by e-mail,... but that is probably Web 1.0.

Patrons can say if they like a book in the blog, but they can't create their own tagging through our catalog. We don't have "chat with a librarian" capability.

Actually, we do have a "write a review" of library materials on our Teen page, but very few teens actually do. And, I suppose that if 2.0 is about communication, this is an attempt at asking for patrons to communicate with us.