Library 2.0

A lot of this library 2.0 stuff sounds great especially in the weeding down of our reference book collection. The main thing it means to me is using technology to adapt to the information needs of our users and giving users more control over how they organize and access the information. People need information and are used to getting it as quickly and chaaply as possible and by using the search tools they are most comforatble with.

The hard part is I can not imagine our city government or its IT department addressing all of these issues and being able to adapt to rapid change. We can barely keep our webpage up to date as it is and we are supposed to be adding all this new webpage based content to it. There are new library technology tools and software that we bought months ago (and paid tens of thousands of dollars for) that I still can not use because they have not been installed on any staff PCs. And regular librarians are not allowed to install anything on their computers on their own. And this does address the fact that I mentioned a few posts ago about how many of our users, either a large minority or a small minority, are technologically illiterate.

I would love it if our library was ready to make it 2.0 and we are starting to do that by providing things like downloadable books, but all of the library and the city that runs its IT system has to be on board for thsi to happen.