I'm sitting in the Sacramento Airport on my way home from the California Library Association Legislative Committee meeting and taking advantage of a long wait for my flight home to check in on some of my favorite blogs. John Blyberg has a very interesting post on the perils of ignoring what he calls the "information ecology" in which he talks about the dangers of "arbitrarily introducing technology that isn't properly integrated into our overarching information framework".
He goes on to say "Of course, that means we have to have a working framework to begin with that compliments and adheres to our tradition of solid, proven librarianship. In other words, when we use technology, it should be transparent, intuitive, and a natural extension of the patron experience. If it can't be transparent, then it should be so overwhelmingly beneficial to the user that it is canonized not by the techies, but the users themselves." A good reminder for someone like me, who can get quite smitten by the latest technology toy!
John's comments about the risks of vendors adopting the language and some of the "web 2.0" tools and "mimicking the Web 2.0 widget–the deliverable" and then selling their products to libraries who are grasping for some way of "doing web 2.0/library 2.0" really resonated. One of the things I have enjoyed most about working with Beth Jefferson at Bibliocommons is how she and her team are working with libraries and library users to develop not just a software tool but a conceptual model for how the library catalog can offer real library users, most of whom are NOT fluent in the tools and language of Web 2.0, new and richer ways of interacting with the library collection and with one another. Library 2.0 is not just about adding user reviews to the catalog or a Meebo widget to the website its about taking the time to think deeply about what we (libraries) do and what we want to be and about to integrate new models, concepts, and technologies into that vision.
As John says so much better than I could - "The true pursuit of Library 2.0 involves a thorough recalibration of process, policy, physical spaces, staffing, and technology so that any hand-offs in the patron's library experience are truly seamless. We can learn a lot about collaboration and individual empowerment from Web 2.0, but we cannot be subsumed by it because we have a mission that eclipses "don't be evil" which is the closest thing to a conscience the Web will ever have."
John's post was sparked by a post by Kate Sheehan, who blogs at www.loosecannonlibrarian.net and will soon be joining John at the Darien Public Library. I hadn't known about Kate's blog, but it's now on my Bloglines list. Kate reports on a conversation with librarian/blogger Andrea Mercado (another new add to my Bloglines list!) and asks Are librarians culturally self-aware? in terms of their real understanding of the real cultures of social networks. The whole chain of comments on Kate's post makes some great points (no doubt because the commenters are some of the most thoughtful library bloggers around) but I particularly loved Andrea's comment that "User-centric design and use of social networking isn't just about *being* in Rome, but also doing as the Romans do, even if it's different from what we do."
In reading John, Kate, and Andrea this afternoon I was reminded of two personal experiences. The first dates back more than 15 years when my husband and I were working on a large information systems implementation in Australia. I was leading the team that was redesigning virtually every business process in the company based on the capabilities of the new software system, and my husband was working on the development of user training and documentation using a methodology called Information Mapping, which appeared deceptively simple but really was quite a detailed, labor intensive and rigorous way of presenting complex information. It was tempting for many people to make documents look like they had been "information mapped" without doing the hard analytical work, and the project team coined the term "pidgin mapping" to describe this phenomenon. Much of what we see in libraries seems to be "pidgin Library 2.0" – adopting technologies and tools without doing the hard work of integrating them into a thoughtful conceptual model and vision for the future.
The second experience is much more recent. The PVLD Board of Trustees recently had the opportunity to appoint a new Trustee. One of the (ultimately unsuccessful) applicants has made a career heading business development efforts for Internet companies. In his application he raised a concern with the PVLD strategic plan, one component of which he read as an effort by the library to compete with bookstores, coffee shops, etc. He and I met for coffee a few days ago to talk about how he might be able to help PVLD in other capacities, and he said to me something along the lines of "If the public library thinks it can win a competition with Borders or Starbucks you might as well give up now. That battle is lost. What you need to do identify what it is you do that no one else can do, and then find ways to apply new business models and technologies to do it even better. That might involve adopting some of what Borders or Starbucks do, and even partnering with them, but it's not about out-competing them."
How do we do that? We can develop and nurture a deep sense of what is unique about what we offer and what we do. We can immerse ourselves in new concepts, ideas and technologies so that we understand them at a gut level – to paraphrase Andrea we can "become Roman". Those of us who weren't born into the world of online communities and networks will never be natives, but we can be fully integrated immigrants. We can stop speaking "pidgin 2.0" and looking for "in a box" solutions and start doing the hard work of developing our own unique models. We can continue to conversations like the one that John, Kate, and Andrea have been having in their blogs – because from conversation comes learning. And maybe most importantly of all, we can get over our inferiority complex. This is a profession made up of smart, thoughtful, and articulate people. If we can't develop the awareness and knowledge to sustain and grow our libraries in this new and changing environment its hard to imagine who could.
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