I really like Sarah Houghton’s definition of Library 2.0, especially “more interactive, collaborative, and driven by community needs.” I also recognize how important it is to, as she describes, “get people back into the library by making the library relevant to what they want and need in their daily lives.” I have countless friends and acquaintances that simply don’t make use of their local libraries. When I talk to them about it, they say agreeably, “yeah, I should check it out.”
To me, Library 2.0 has a lot to do with making the library more interactive and opening it up to ideas that haven’t been done before. Like the blyberg.net article says, “L2 challenges library orthodoxy on almost every level.” By opening up a library’s website to comments, feedback, ratings, and reviews, providing downloadable materials from the comfort of one’s home, providing a gaming night in an allocated space in the library, and reaching out to tech savvy users via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as blogs, Library 2.0 concepts are increasingly becoming more common in libraries. And while the argument exists that much of the technology is costly, many of these features that are available are absolutely cost-free.
If there is proof that the concept of Library 2.0 is increasing, it is evident in the location where I work. I handle bindery shipments of periodicals that are bound into volumes and shelved in the Main Library for users to peruse. Every year an increasing number of periodicals are being canceled (subscriptions for physical copies) in favor of online databases that provide electronic versions of the same periodicals, which can then be accessed remotely by users from their homes or library computers. In this sense, the library is fulfilling a need for access to library materials from outside the library. Sure, there will still be users who come into the library to read the physical copies of newspapers and magazines, but this service of providing remote access to materials is another way of recognizing “community needs.”
Have you found a difference in the type of periodical you're getting? I have a friend who is doing periodicals for our community library and I'm trying to think about the type of periodicals we are keeping in the physical form.
ReplyDeleteIt's sort of all over the map but mostly the types of periodicals that the library is continuing to subscribe to are popular titles like Newsweek, People, New Yorker, etc. that people tend to read in the library. It's the academic journals and more specific-focused periodicals that are being canceled in favor of their electronic versions.
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