On the whole, I like the ideas/thoughts on the direction of Library 2.0. While it seems to me, that much of what is talked about in terms of Library 2.0 is already happening, this might be in direct response to the Library 2.0 movement - and it is also happening quite slowly. Some thoughts on the ideas:
Cutting back on the print collection, in favour of digital copies stored online has happened, and will continue - particularly in terms of e-journals, but I feel that the turning point will be when these "items" in the collection can be accessed in a different manner than by sitting at a screen or printing documents. The beauty of books is their tactile quality, and computers have a loooooong way to catch up in that respect. Some e-book devices have tried to bridge that gap...
Cutting back on the print collection, in favour of digital copies stored online has happened, and will continue - particularly in terms of e-journals, but I feel that the turning point will be when these "items" in the collection can be accessed in a different manner than by sitting at a screen or printing documents. The beauty of books is their tactile quality, and computers have a loooooong way to catch up in that respect. Some e-book devices have tried to bridge that gap...
The development of e-paper is a step towards creating books that can store several electronic versions of texts, with the ability to load and re-load text on a "screen" that has qualities similar to paper.
Sites like Project Gutenberg step in this direction, offering electronic versions of "cultural works" which are in the public domain for free download - now cataloging over 20, 000 free books. LibriVox is a similar site that offers audiobooks in the public domain.
Collect User Intelligence: I'm a big fan of this. By tapping into the hive mind, we can often skip past much of the research stages of "What I'm looking for", and jump straight to "Found it!". This also includes "Don't know what I want" > "Found it!".
Broaden relevance ranking: I've often thought that we should include other data in search results, such as circulation activity, so patrons can see, not only the title and location, but information on the book's activity - a much more social sense of information gathering.
Adopting web features: It seems the new library website will begin this phase, and it is a good idea, from the page:
Collect User Intelligence: I'm a big fan of this. By tapping into the hive mind, we can often skip past much of the research stages of "What I'm looking for", and jump straight to "Found it!". This also includes "Don't know what I want" > "Found it!".
Broaden relevance ranking: I've often thought that we should include other data in search results, such as circulation activity, so patrons can see, not only the title and location, but information on the book's activity - a much more social sense of information gathering.
Adopting web features: It seems the new library website will begin this phase, and it is a good idea, from the page:
The features of Amazon and Google of interest to students and scholars ought to be incorporated into the services libraries make available. Libraries should welcome the submission of reviews, assignment of keywords (“tagging”), addition of scholarly commentary, and other forms of user participation.Not only will the patron's understanding of computers become more and more web-based, but this will make the integration/mashup of other sites into the ACL site easier for patrons to use and understand.
1 comment:
Excellent work on this blogpost! Lots of great insight, and I love the idea of e-paper as an alternative to just computer screens! :)
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