INLS 490-121: Collaborative Writing Exercise/What is Library 2.0

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Well, first of all, what is Web 2.0?

The Pew Internet and American Life Project defines Web 2.0 as, "an umbrella term that is used to refer to a new era of Web-enabled applications that are built around user-generated or user-manipulated content, such as wikis, blogs, podcasts, and social networking sites."

O'Reilly's (2005) core competencies of Web 2.0 companies:

  • Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
  • Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
  • Trusting users as co-developers
  • Harnessing collective intelligence
  • Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
  • Software above the level of a single device
  • Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models

What does this mean for libraries?

Library spaces 2.0

Libraries have been forced to acknowledge changing models of patron service; we can no longer sit at a desk and ask, "May I help you?" One way that libraries have responded to these changes is the implementation of learning (or information) commons. A learning commons, according to UMass Amherst, is a "space [that] brings together library, technology, and other campus services in an environment that fosters informal, collaborative work, and social interaction." This trend is growing, as more and more libraries transform their existing spaces.

Just a few libraries that have a learning/information commons:

Library services 2.0

Casey and Savastinuk (2006) write, "Any service, physical or virtual, that successfully reaches users, is evaluated frequently, and makes use of customer input is a Library 2.0 service. Even older, traditional services can be Library 2.0 if criteria are met. Similarly, being new is not enough to make a service Library 2.0." Can it be that simple? Have libraries been 2.0 all along?

Still, we can see libraries moving toward new models by examining library websites and evolving adaptations to user needs.

Library patrons 2.0

Library patrons in a 2.0 world have new expectations and new skills. In particular, younger patrons (millennials!) may be more tech-savvy than even the librarians who are serving them. As such, Library 2.0 includes the adoption of new models for information literacy and library instruction.

References

Casey, M.E. & Savastinuk, L.C. (2006, September 1). Library 2.0: service for the next generation library. Library Journal.

O'Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0. O'Reilly Media [blog].

University of Massachusetts Amherst. The learning commons. (2009).

Web 2.0 (n.d.). Pew Internet and American Life Project.