Library 2.0 and Beyond, chapter 1

Library 2.0 and Beyond, edited by Nancy Courtney

Response to Reading

I wanted to be one of those people who didn’t care about convention and order and just read a chapter later in the book first--like the chapter on wikis. But I must admit that the reality of my life is that I have been immersed in a world of laundry and changing diapers for the last eight years, and I am clearly out of the technology loop. So, I gave up hope of spontaneity and settled in to read chapter one.

For days, I read a paragraph or page here and there, whenever I could steal a minute, but today, I had a whole hour of uninterrupted time to read (enter angels rejoicing). I wanted to keep the textbook pristine, so I could resell it when the class is over and recoup some of my investment. But soon, I abandoned that goal and couldn’t resist highlighting and marking notes in the margins. This book will be a keeper. I am behind the times and I am ready to catch up. At the end of chapter one, I had the uncontrollable urge to reflect on what I have read. So I had to start with notebook and pen and get to the computer later. Whoever asked me to blog my thoughts has no idea what they are getting into. I apologize ahead of time for the endlessness of my rambling.

I enjoyed a lot of the new vocabulary of this chapter. Many of the tech terms that are familiar to people are pretty foreign to me, so there were a lot of "aha's" as I read the chapter. The concept of Web 2.0 is a "user-friendly" way of thinking about how times have changed with ultra modern changes in technology. I hadn't been familiar with the concepts of syndication or mashups, but anxiously await learning more about these unselfish and generous sharing methods of using technology. I can agree with the idea that how we use the internet has evolved so that more users are creating and not just viewing or using what the internet offers. Cool! I love the quote by Shell Holtz that the "Internet's real significance was its promise to democratize communication."

I loved the idea of
"the Millennials, those born between 1982 and 2002 as being "born with the chip." These young people have grown up with computers and don't think of them as technology." (p. 5)
I was intrigued by the list of descriptors to categorize this new generation: format agnostics, nomadic, multitaskers, collaborative.
Another author (Lee Rainie) refers to this generation as "digital natives"--love this term!
Six realities of life for the digital native:
1. Media and gadgets are common throughout everyday life
2. Digital natives enjoy media and carry on communications anywhere they wish
3. Internet is at the center; Internet and web are ubiquitous
4. Multitasking is a way of life
5. An ordinary citizen has a greater opportunity to be a publisher, moviemaker, artist, song creator, and storyteller.
6. Everything will change more in the coming years.
I put all these here because I totally see all of this happening! I wanted to comment on the author's assertion, "To the digital natives, or Millennials, Web 2.0 is not a change. It is the expected way of being." Wow! I think of it like this: my children have never known a world without certain things that I know have not always existed. They have never known a world without a microwave, for instance. In their minds, this is how we all warm up food. They have never known a world without computers or the Internet, so it is how we all communicate and find out what we need to know. They have no knowledge of encyclopedias in the form of books. They only know what they have seen and touched and been exposed to. I agree with the author in that we need to respect the needs of the library consumer by keeping up with the various avenues that technology travels.

I knew that Wikipedia was an encyclopedia on the web, but I have rarely seen or used anything from it. I did not know what a wiki was, so I was grateful to find out its history. I find it so intriguing that wikis are written by multiple authors. What a concept! The author pointed out that wikipedia has pros and cons. It may not be considered authoritative as a reference source, but there is an enormous amount of content with remarkably few errors, given the nature of the sources.
There were other terms brought out by the author that I have not had much personal experience with at all, so I look forward to learning more about these: folksonomies, social bookmarking, mashups. I know a little about MySpace and Facebook, but have so far avoided creating an account of my own. They seem too much like drugs to me--you know, "why don't you join and create an account? . . . Everybody's doing it . . ." My husband has an account on Facebook, and I can see the addictive potential.

This chapter also discusses the concept of Library 2.0, that the library of the future must move along or evolve with technology. I really like the assertion by T. Scott Plutchak that the changes in libraries are not radical but "evolutionary," The author summarizes, "When librarians embrace the changes in technology and society to find new and more effective ways to serve their patrons, they are not acting in brand-new 2.0 ways, they are simply being good librarians." (page 11) Way to go!

Change is coming in terms of how our libraries look and how they work. Libraries as we know them have the potential of dying, especially if the "physical third places" described by the author do really get replaced more and more by the "virtual third places." I think about how we are interacting through technology and the Internet and this course. Meeting in a virtual world to share and discuss ideas is foreign to me but I see its value. I agree with the author that all these changes in the uses of technology create challenges but are full of potential for librarians.