# 17 ON LIBRARY 2.0 and WEB 2.0

" Library 2.0" is an amorphous and nebulous term, and means different things to different people.
At the best it encompasses attempts to see library collections and services from a users point of view; rather than from the traditional view regarding the organization of, and access to, a library's collection, held by librarians.
Hence the push to make libraries more user friendly by simplifying access to information, and engaging users input into library processes.
At the worst, "Library 2.0" is not much more than a convenient marketing label, encompassing a wide range of largely unrelated technical "applications", stemming from the IT industry.
A repackaging and supplementing of "Web 2.0"?
Is "Library 2.0" really a single separate entity?
On an individual basis, some "Web 2.0" applications may have their place in the day to day activities of habitual internet users- RSS,Social Bookmarking, Tagging,Video Sharing ,etc.
They suit some people living in the fast lane, hooked on rapidly finding and consuming an ever increasing barrage of largely brief, shallow, and trite trivia, cascading through the internet.
But should a major reference library plunge headlong into this inevitably dumbing down process?
The central aspect of "Library 2.0" seems to be an obsession with "customer participation", users becoming "engaged", "user generated contact and interaction" with libraries, and libraries "actively creating a digital community".
Libraries are to provide "customer driven offerings".
Umbopo asks: Is all this code for dumbing down?
Ours is a major REFERENCE LIBRARY, with a unique historical research collection.
Its role and function is quite diferent from that of your local suburban library branch.
Obviously SLV is no longer a nineteenth century gentlemen's reading room.
We face a different kind of public today, than we did a few decades ago.
Further education is no longer restricted to an "intellectual" elite.Clearly we have to keep that in mind as we continue to re-evaluate our library services.As always, we need to monitor library users needs,in particular ,where , how, and why they fail to find what they seek. Many users still continue to fail at the most basic level.
But we should maintain standards, and attempt to elevate an increasing number of potential users to that standard.
By all means make use of new technology to improve the utility of the SLV catalogues.
Worldcat is impresive.
Library Labs less so... it is cluttered with junk opinions and defacto ads.
Perhaps we have something to learn from Worldcat, with its useful clustered search results.
But Umbopo says: Beware of COMMUNITY blogs, wikis, tags, and other "user engagement tools"!
Lets not be stampeded by downmarket fads!
Lets not jump on every passing bandwagon!
Improving results obtained by library users does not neccessarily mean imposing more and more electronic playthings!
Just because something flickers, beeps, and is coloured,does not mean it is a better source of information!
Already the SLV has undergone a significant dumbing down process.
A significant number of people come in only to do free hotmails, watch pornography, join chat groups, play computergames, download rock groups, gamble, purchase goods online , do their banking , etc etc.
Naturally all this activates the clickers at the door.
This provides statistics re "visitor experience"!
This in turn results in more funding for more electronic playthings, coming from a populist government.
We experience more and more "happenings".
We experience more crowds and more noise.
We experience endless streams of primary school children herded through the premises to play with paper Ned Kelly masks , etc, etc.
(But this results in more clicks at the door)
Academics , scholars, researchers, and historians are now using the Baillieu as their preferred port of call.
(Fewer clicks at the door lost here)
Umbopo asks: Perhaps we are already experiencing our own version of " Libraries 2.0"?
Umbopo is saddened and worried , lest the SLV be gradually transformed into a free CBD electronic fun park, an electronic amusement centre: geared for, aimed at, and driven by the demands of the lowest common denominator!
Is this " Library 2.0"? Is this the heralded "Big Bang" ?
Umbopo started work here as a reference librarian, but now faces the prospect of retiring as a fun park attendant.
Such is Umbopo's world.



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