LISA V: S. Abram, Web 2.0

Stephen Abram, all around library dude, gave the second invited talk for Tuesday. These are my notes on his talk, not detailed transcriptions (not that you can get a detailed transcript of such an energetic and entertaining speaker!). His talk will be online at his blog. General consensus amongst the folks I talked to at the coffee break right afterwards was who needs coffee after a kick like this talk!

Web 2.0: The Library 2.0 In Your Future

Overall perception, not the details… we’re facing another shift in the library world away from the technological details and back towards the service aspect. We can’t define ourselves in terms of the technology anymore, but in terms of our patrons. Also must stop investing our energy in “protecting the book” – there is no evidence that books are at risk. But we have to be more aware of the search engine optimization and the way it bends results.

MySpace, Facebook, etc and their impact. Game theory. Second Life. Open Croquet.

We need to stop building paths the way we think people should do things, and learn how the people want to do things and then design from there. Context and comfort are very important. Information density is NOT a bad thing!

Millenials are very, very different, and they approach things very differently…we need to adapt ourselves to understand how they learn, and provide them learning in those ways that are comfortable to them.

SirsiDynix is implementing SchoolRooms – VERY neat idea – across Ohio, and will be rolling out in other states and countries in the future. Also starting to roll out in universities. Check it out!

We need to stop teaching searching skills and start teaching finding skills –

Web 2.0 is not just happening to us – it’s happening across the board.

- Web as platform
- Harnessing collective intelligence
- Data valuable as functionality
- Boundaryless software

At what point do we realize it’s not about delivering information but putting ourselves back in the equation to help find the right question? We run the risk of letting the search engine optimizers decide what people will see….

Microsoft Live Academic, Google Scholar….

We have to look at the why’s of this 2.0 paradigm.

Academichi (Facebook for academics)… check it out!!

Grokker; OCLC open records; Don’t believe everyone learns from text-based learning methods! Social networks and socially driven content, social bookmarking; Cooperation!!!! Library 2.0 is about learning, research, productivity and collaboration. The smartphones are coming…be prepared.

Align services with the technologies the users are using.

Librarian 2.0 plays more!


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