Thing #15: LIbraries 2.0

Web 2.0?  Librarian 2.0?  When I first heard these terms I said "what the heck are they talking about"?  So I read several articles about Librarian 2.0 and they were talking about things like libraries of the future, interactive libraries, and the new librarian.  HUH?  So then I looked in good ole' Wikipedia and found this definition : "a loosely defined model for a modernized form of library service that reflects a transition within the library world in the way that services are delivered to users. The focus is on user-centered change and participation in the creation of content and community.^[1]".  Okay.  Now I was starting to understand. I started reading again and what I found interesting was the following comparisons made in the artice "To a Temporary Place in time:  On  the Way to the  Library Experience of the Future":
Library 1.0: Commodity The library from Alexandria to the industrial era: Books are commodities, collected, inventoried, categorised and warehoused within libraries. Libraries represent a resource base, contributing to educating the labour force, to supporting innovation processes fueling growth, and to informing the present and the future—whether in the neighborhood, in academia, or in business.
Library 2.0: Product How should the library package its commodity—books—as products in an environment which disintermediates, dematerialises, and decentralises? Chad and Miller’s essay, and the debates and conversations around it, raise this question and answer it with the characteristics of our emerging information infrastructure: the library is everywhere, barrier-free, and participatory. Collaborate with Amazon; provide digital downloads of books; create a global, and globally accessible, catalog; invite readers to tag and comment. Yet as more information becomes more accessible, people will still need experienced tour guides—Amazon’s customer recommendations are notoriously open to manipulation; tagclouds offer diverse connections, not focussed expertise. This will drive the transition to Library 3.0:  the 3D service.
Library 3.0—Web 3D to Library 3D: Service There are SecondLife3 subscribers who spend more than forty hours a week online, immersed in its virtual graphic world. Digital natives take 2.0 for granted; they are buzzing over Web 3D. Carrying Chad and Miller’s argument through this next phase transition, we arrive at virtual collections in the 3D world, where books themselves may have avatars and online personalities. But the avalanche of material available will put a premium on service, on tailoring information to needs, and on developing participatory relationships with customers. So while books may get in your 3D face all by themselves, people will prefer personal introductions—they will want a VR info coach. Who’s the best librarian avatar? How many Amazon stars has your avatar collected from satisfied customers? This could create librarian “superstars” based on buzz and customer ratings. People will collect librarians rather than books—the ability not just to organise, but also to annotate and compare books and other information sources, from a variety of useful perspectives. Retrieved from:  http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/6.htm

Wow.  That is interesting.  Collecting Librarians rathar than books?  I guess that makes sense.  There will be so much information available from so many sources people will be bewildered as to where to find the best information and by whom.  They will need someone who can save them the time and headaches this type of organization and analysis takes.