A packed meeting room awaited a panel of techie librarians to address the question of whether Library 2.0 has lived up to its promise at July 14 LITA and the Internet Resources Services Interest Group session “The Ultimate Debate: Has Library 2.0 fulfilled its promise?” The panel couldn’t exactly agree on what Library 2.0 was, let alone whether it’s fulfilled its promise, but traditional ways of thinking may not even be sufficient to judge Lib2.0 effectiveness.
Audience of conference attendees watches moderator Roy Tennent and panelists David Lee King, Meredith Farkas, Michael Porter, and Cindi Trainor discuss the Library 2.0 promise.
Moderator Roy Tennant said that describing Library 2.0 was much like the tale of the blind men touching different parts of an elephant to learn what it was: by touching different parts of the elephant, each had a radically different description from the others. “The Library 1.0 Committee is still out on what the Library 2.0 promise is,” joked one panelist, noting that using Lib1.0 criteria to discuss Lib2.0 values misses the point.
“The first report I gave on Twitter effectiveness was a printout of the happy tweets and the angry tweets,” said panalist Michael Porter. He went on to say–and the panel agreed–that traditional metrics, such as traffic counts, circulation counts, and so forth are insufficient when it comes to gauging Lib2.0 effectiveness. Lib2.0 needs metrics that can track patron engagement.
The panel agreed that these Lib2.0 tools–blogs, wikis, widgets, social networking, and so forth–are usually free or very cheap but still take a lot of staff time implement effectively. Meredith Farkas noted that 2.0 librarians are still doing the same things they’ve always done at their jobs, and more. David Lee King, who admits that he often stays up late at night to get extra work done, agrees but suggests that librarians who say they have no time for Lib2.0 initiatives have bad time management. “If there’s enough time to push a book cart around synchronized to music,” he snarked, “you prrroooobably have enough time to use these technologies.”
“You may not have signed up for this job, but it’s the job you have. And the job is changing,” said Porter.
King added that if libraries are spending so much time practicing for book cart drill teams, they should put videos of the drill teams on YouTube for marketing, and even archiving, purposes. “Use these tools to work it, work it, work it,” he urged. King addressed managers in the room directly, with a charge to let their staff “go with” the technology.
Although the panel advocates for the power of these tools in libraries, their points were tempered with a sense of focus on the library’s mission. Farkas remarked that libraries should use Lib2.0 technologies to fill a need. “Technology is not a magic wand,” she said.
Uncertain of the actual productive uses of Lib2.0 technology, one audience member asked, “Isn’t it all just marketing?” Panelist Cindi Trainor agreed that marketing for the library is one good use of Lib2.0 technology, but there are other parts, she said: collaboration, connecting, sharing, and putting out half-baked ideas and seeing what people say. Trainor highlighted the power of using these tools for feedback and two-way communication. “It’s not just a wooden box in the corner that says ’suggestions.’”