Lancaster writes:
At many libraries now, all you see are people hunched over terminals. There’s no direct, face-to-face socialization. Technology has contributed to a loss of camaraderie.

in response to:
A recent column by LJ’s Digital Libraries columnist Roy Tennant (LJ 1/99, p. 39) identifies nine “skills for the new millennium”–skills that, the author maintains, are needed to “create and manage digital library collections and services.” The skills are imaging technologies, optical character recognition, markup languages, cataloging and metadata, indexing and database technology, user interface design, programming, web technology, and project management.

Nearly a decade later, it’s clear that Roy’s game was just ramping up in 1999, while Lancaster’s was winding down. Roy’s comments are as true today as they were eight years ago. I do see a lot of people sitting at terminals at our library, but I also see the rest of the library being utilized.

Furthermore, the idea that we’ve lost our sense of camaraderie is just not true. Like I was trying to convey in my post, technology–in the way that its use has evolved–is teaching us how to meet in an entire new collaborative space. It’s rubbed our noses in the fact that the type of information our users want is sometimes more important than the quality of it. So we find ourselves playing the role of information mediator, not the information dispenser.

I can appreciate Lancaster’s article insomuch as it cautions against a bleak possibility–something to which we should all be vigilant. The concerns of this decade are far different than those of the last.

I think web 2.0 made all these things more accessible to the “normal” person. In some cases, easier to use - in others, simply more press = more popularity.

But yes, I’ll give you that one. Even were I completely correct, web 20 came to be because of web 1.0, which came to be because of all those muds, moos, and gophers… and not all that long ago, either!

I don’t expect to “revisit Library 2.0″ as such. As this post explains, I had considered reissuing the special issue and the followup half-issue in book form–but decided it was a bad use of my time.

I continue to be involved in the discussion in at least two ways:

1. My book, Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change is in many ways my continuation and broadening of the discussion–explicitly so.

2. The Making it Work essays in Cites & Insights, which may spin off into a separate epublication depending on how my future “employment” pans out, also in part continue this discussion–but with relatively little focus on the term itself.

Thanks.

I’d say you’re partially correct on the first point. Web 2.0 is the wholesale adoption of the values that it represents, but I would suggest that Web 2.0 was simply an inevitability. Let’s not forget that the same type of collaboration was taking place online long before even hypertext. Remember MOOs and MUDs, for instance? They were the first “second lifers” who collaborated on building entire worlds, albeit text-based. Different protocol, same behavior.

I can completely appreciate your second point, and yes our people need to be transformed too. I suppose I could go either way on that. Maybe I just don’t want to recreate my illustrations. At any rate, you’re right–something to chew on.

1. There would be no Library 2.0 without the Internet - I’d say without web 2.0. L2 would never have sprung up from gopher, for example! I think it’s the fairly recent web developments that have spurred new thinking and new ways of working.

2. leaving out People. Yes, I agree - people are in each of your 4 areas. No doubt about that. But - I feel strongly that there’s a transformative realm for people. Because the other realms you list - tech, policy, etc, all happen OUTSIDE the individual (it’s all stuff, so to speak). But there’s a HUGE transformation that needs to take place WITHIN individuals, too - L2 doesn’t happen until employees embrace the outside changes taking place in the tech, the policy, the building, etc.

Just some thoughts to chew on…