Library 2.0 Theory: Web 2.0 and Its Implications for Libraries

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implications keep very close to the history and mission of libraries, they still necessitate a new paradigm for librarianship

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collaborative in nature, interactive, dynamic, and the line between the creation and consumption of content in these environments was blurred (users created the content in these sites as much as they consumed it). The term is now widely used and interpreted, but Web 2.0, essentially, is not a web of textual publication, but a web of multi-sensory communication. It is a matrix of dialogues, not a collection of monologues. It is a user-centered Web in ways it has not been thus far.

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line between the creation and consumption of content in these environments was blurred

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a matrix of dialogues, not a collection of monologues

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The term is now widely used and interpreted, but Web 2.0, essentially, is not a web of textual publication, but a web of multi-sensory communication. It is a matrix of dialogues, not a collection of monologues. It is a user-centered Web in ways it has not been thus far.

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a more interactive, multi-media driven technological space

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the Web is indeed evolving into a more interactive, multi-media driven technological space, and this understanding of the term is used in this paper. As O'Reilly (2005) observes in what is often cited as the seminal work on Web 2.0, personal web-pages are evolving into blogs, encyclopedias into Wikipedia, text-based tutorials into streaming media applications, taxonomies into “folksonomies,” and question-answer/email customer support infrastructures into instant messaging (IM) services.

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the application of Web 2.0 thinking

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online public access catalogs (OPACs) require users to search for information, and though many are beginning to incorporate Web 2.0 techniques by gathering data regarding a user (checked-out items, preferred searches, search alerts), they do not respond with recommendations, as does Amazon.com, a more dynamic, Web 2.0 service. Similarly, the first generation of online library instruction was provided via text-based tutorials that are static and do not respond to users’ needs nor allow users to interact with one another. These, however, have begun evolving into more interactive, media-rich tutorials, using animation programming and more sophisticated database quizzes. Libraries are already moving into Web 2.0, but the move has only just begun.

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the application of Web 2.0 thinking and technologies to library services and collections has been widely framed as "Library 2.0"

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This paper defines “Library 2.0” as “the application of interactive, collaborative, and multi-media web-based technologies to web-based library services and collections,” and suggests this definition be adopted by the library science community.

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A theory for Library 2.0 could be understood to have these four essential elements:

It is user-centered.

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This paper defines “Library 2.0” as “the application of interactive, collaborative, and multi-media web-based technologies to web-based library services and collections,” and suggests this definition be adopted by the library science community. Limiting the definition to web-based services, and not library services more generally, avoids potential confusion and sufficiently allows the term to be researched, further theorized, and renders it more useful in professional discourse

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It provides a multi-media experience

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It is socially rich

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It is communally innovative

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four essential elements:

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It is user-centered. Users participate in the creation of the content and services they view within the library's web-presence, OPAC, etc. The consumption and creation of content is dynamic, and thus the roles of librarian and user are not always clear.

It provides a multi-media experience . Both the collections and services of Library 2.0 contain video and audio components. While this is not often cited as a function of Library 2.0, it is here suggested that it should be.

It is socially rich . The library's web-presence includes users' presences. There are both synchronous (e.g. IM) and asynchronous (e.g. wikis) ways for users to communicate with one another and with librarians.

It is communally innovative. This is perhaps the single most important aspect of Library 2.0. It rests on the foundation of libraries as a community service, but understands that as communities change, libraries must not only change with them, they must allow users to change the library. It seeks to continually change its services, to find new ways to allow communities, not just individuals to seek, find, and utilize information.

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This paper defines “Library 2.0” as “the application of interactive, collaborative, and multi-media web-based technologies to web-based library services and collections,” and suggests this definition be adopted by the library science community.

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It is a much more useful theory if it is focused on web-services, much as Abrams (2005) has defined it.

A theory for Library 2.0 could be understood to have these four essential elements:

It is user-centered. Users participate in the creation of the content and services they view within the library's web-presence, OPAC, etc. The consumption and creation of content is dynamic, and thus the roles of librarian and user are not always clear.
It provides a multi-media experience . Both the collections and services of Library 2.0 contain video and audio components. While this is not often cited as a function of Library 2.0, it is here suggested that it should be.
It is socially rich . The library's web-presence includes users' presences. There are both synchronous (e.g. IM) and asynchronous (e.g. wikis) ways for users to communicate with one another and with librarians.
It is communally innovative. This is perhaps the single most important aspect of Library 2.0. It rests on the foundation of libraries as a community service, but understands that as communities change, libraries must not only change with them, they must allow users to change the library. It seeks to continually change its services, to find new ways to allow communities, not just individuals to seek, find, and utilize information.

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It is communally innovative

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Library 2.0 is a user-centered virtual community. It is a socially rich, often egalitarian electronic space.

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It is user-centered. Users participate in the creation of the content and services they view within the library's web-presence, OPAC, etc. The consumption and creation of content is dynamic, and thus the roles of librarian and user are not always clear.

It provides a multi-media experience . Both the collections and services of Library 2.0 contain video and audio components. While this is not often cited as a function of Library 2.0, it is here suggested that it should be.

It is socially rich . The library's web-presence includes users' presences. There are both synchronous (e.g. IM) and asynchronous (e.g. wikis) ways for users to communicate with one another and with librarians.

It is communally innovative. This is perhaps the single most important aspect of Library 2.0. It rests on the foundation of libraries as a community service, but understands that as communities change, libraries must not only change with them, they must allow users to change the library. It seeks to continually change its services, to find new ways to allow communities, not just individuals to seek, find, and utilize information.

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Users interact with and create resources with one another and with librarians

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A library's presence on the Web in Library 2.0 includes the presence of that library's constituency and utilizes the same applications and technologies as its community, a concept Habib (2006) recognizes in a very useful model for Library 2.0 in regards to academic libraries.

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it must evolve into a multi-media presence that allows users to be present as well,

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Users interact with and create resources with one another and with librarians. In some ways, it is a virtual reality for libraries, a Web manifestation of the library as place.

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It could be that Library 2.0 blurs the line between librarian and patron, creator and consumer, authority and novice. The potential for this dramatic change is very real and immediate, a fact that places an incredible amount of importance on information literacy. In a world where no information is inherently authoritative and valid, the critical thinking skills of information literacy are paramount to all other forms of learning

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Tagging

Tagging essentially enables users to create subject headings for the object at hand. As Shanhi (2006) describes, tagging is essentially Web 2.0 because it allows users to add and change not only content (data), but content describing content (metadata). In Flickr, users tag pictures. In LibraryThing, they tag books. In Library 2.0, users could tag the library's collection and thereby participate in the cataloging process.

Tagging simply makes lateral searching easier. The often-cited example of the U.S. Library of Congress's Subject Heading “cookery,” which no English speaker would use when referring to “cookbooks,” illustrates the problem of standardized classification. Tagging would turn the useless “cookery” to the useful “cookbooks” instantaneously, and lateral searching would be greatly facilitated.

Of course, tags and standardized subjects are not mutually exclusive. The catalog of Library 2.0 would enable users to follow both standardized and user-tagged subjects; whichever makes most sense to them. In turn, they can add tags to resources. The user responds to the system, the system to the user. This tagged catalog is an open catalog, a customized, user-centered catalog. It is library science at its best.

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Other social networks are noteworthy as well. LibraryThing enables users to catalog their books and view what other users share those books. The implications of this site on how librarians recommend reading to users are apparent. LibraryThing enables users, thousands of them potentially, to recommend books to one another simply by viewing one another's collections. It also enables them to communicate asynchronously, blog, and “tag” their books.

It does not require much imagination to begin seeing a library as a social network itself. In fact, much of libraries' role throughout history has been as a communal gathering place, one of shared identity, communication, and action. Social networking could enable librarians and patrons not only to interact, but to share and change resources dynamically in an electronic medium. Users can create accounts with the library network, see what other users have in common to their information needs, recommend resources to one another, and the network recommends resources to users, based on similar profiles, demographics, previously-accessed sources, and a host of data that users provide. And, of course, these networks would enable users to choose what is public and what is not, a notion that could help circumvent the privacy issues Library 2.0 raises and which Litwin (2006) well enumerates.

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Of all the social aspects of Web 2.0, it could be that the social network and its successors most greatly mirror that of the traditional library. Social networks, in some sense, are Library 2.0. The face of the library's web-presence in the future may look very much like a social network interface.

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Tagging essentially enables users to create subject headings for the object at hand. As Shanhi (2006) describes, tagging is essentially Web 2.0 because it allows users to add and change not only content (data), but content describing content (metadata).

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Tagging simply makes lateral searching easier.

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The library's services will change, focusing more on the facilitation of information transfer and information literacy rather than providing controlled access to it.

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This paper posits four conceptual underpinnings to Library 2.0: it is user-centered; a multi-media experience; socially rich; and communally innovative.

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Mashups are perhaps the single conceptual underpinning to all the technologies discussed in this article. They are ostensibly hybrid applications, where two or more technologies or services are conflated into a completely new, novel service.

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While Library 2.0 is a change, it is of a nature close to the tradition and mission of libraries. It enables the access to information across society, the sharing of that information, and the utilization of it for the progress of the society.

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Library 2.0 remembers a user when they log in. It allows the user to edit OPAC data and metadata, saves the user's tags, IM conversations with librarians, wiki entries with other users (and catalogs all of these for others to use), and the user is able to make all or part of their profile public; users can see what other users have similar items checked-out, borrow and lend tags, and a giant user-driven catalog is created and mashed with the traditional catalog.

Library 2.0 is completely user-centered and user-driven. It is a mashup of traditional library services and innovative Web 2.0 services. It is a library for the 21st century, rich in content, interactivity, and social activity.

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Library 2.0 is a mashup. It is a hybrid of blogs, wikis, streaming media, content aggregators, instant messaging, and social networks.

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t is still a major paradigmatic shift for librarianship to open not just access to their catalogs and collections, but access to their control

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ess on secured inventory systems and more on collaborative discovery systems

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A profession steeped in decades of a culture of control and predictability will need to continue moving toward embracing facilitation and ambiguity.

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The library's services will change, focusing more on the facilitation of information transfer and information literacy rather than providing controlled access to it. This paper posits four conceptual underpinnings to Library 2.0: it is user-centered; a multi-media experience; socially rich; and communally innovative. It also espouses a focused definition for the term: “The application of interactive, collaborative, and multi-media web-based technologies to web-based library services and collections.”

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In this "perpetual beta" (O'Reilly, 2005), any stability other than the acceptance of instability is insufficient.

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collaborative discovery systems.

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Rather than creating systems and services for patrons, librarians will enable users to create them for themselves.

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on 2008-05-28 by helennetskills

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