Can’t afford $895+ to attend expensive seminars about Library2.0? Me neither. Here then, is a quickie definition of Library2.0 and a few resources for further reading.

What is Library2.0?

Library 2.0 includes the application of Web2.0 technologies and tools to our libraries, but it goes further than this and involves rethinking where the library boundaries lie and looking at the user’s experience and what they think we are all about.

Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model Basic v2 uploaded to Flickr August 22, 2006 by habibmi

Web2.0 in your library

The “Web2.0 in your Library” part of the defininition includes using tools and attitudes like the list below – if it is applicable for your users:

• 24/7 access
• Social networking
• Read/write web
• The ‘net, not a single PC, as a workspace
• User controlled tagging
• Collaborative creation
• “Humanized” institution where you can hear the voices of real people inside it
• Focussing on the needs of the user, not what suits the organisation best
• Mashing up and value adding on top of available software
• Focuses on open source, not proprietary software
• Profiles, ratings, reviews, chat, “friending”
• Perpetual beta
• Tools like RSS, wikis, blogs, forums, photo sharing, SMS
• Access via many devices – mobile, handheld,desktop,telephony

Beyond Web2.0 in your library

When you look beyond the tools and IT, Library2.0 means starting from the user’s experience of the library, ditching what is there for our convenience but is an obstacle to them, and taking on some non-traditional things that fit into our core brief to connect information and people. Some of the practical steps that libraries are taking are:

• Allowing mobile phones in the library, given that it is the primary form of information access for many clients
• Introducing gaming facilities for teens and families
• Letting people request items online before they join the library, and trusting that the ID will be shown when the items are collected
• Online chat reference
• Volunteering in our communities and making links with our users
• Freely sharing , collaborating and communicating our ideas with people in other libraries – the “steal this idea” movement
• Evaluating whether proprietary or open source software will do a better job
• Online, grassroots classes created by librarians for other librarians. (eg. Fives weeks to a social library or Learning2.0/23 things )
• Looking at ways our OPACs suck
• Not using librarianspeak to our patrons (eg. using “book” instead of “monograph”)
• Valuing and enhancing our role as a centrally accessible, trusted, free and safe community space
• Controlling technolust. Looking at the problem any technology is meant to solve and asking whether this is a problem for our users in our library and whether we can solve it in other ways.

Library2.0 Reading List

• Library 2.0 in Wikipedia
• Do libraries matter?: The rise of Library 2.0. A white paper by Ken Chad and Paul Miller
• Web 2.0, Library 2.0, and Librarian 2.0: Preparing for the 2.0 World by Stephen Abram
• 11 Reasons Why Library2.0 exists and matters by John Blyberg
• A Librarian’s 2.0 Manifesto Mashup on YouTube by Kingrss from a blog post by Laura Cohen

Blogs to subscribe to if you want to know about Library2.0

• Librarian in Black
• Information wants to be free
• Tame the Web
• The Shifted Librarian
• Library2.0: An Academic’s Perspective
• ALA Techsource Blog
• Techessence

UPDATE 10 May 2007: Add to the list of readings Walt Crawford’s Library2.0 and “Library2.0” from the Cites and Insights Midwinter edition 2006, especially the 62 views and 7 definitions section.