Web 2.0 and Library 2.0; It's all about the stuff.

Meredith Farkas has written a thought provoking post: The essence of Library 2.0? | Information Wants To Be Free which I wanted to comment on. Probably best if you have a quick read of what she said first, then come back here. I'll make some tea.

Right. Maybe there's a UK/US divide here - to be honest I'd be surprised if there wasn't, but the emphasis here has always seemed to me to be on Web 2.0, rather than Library 2.0. My book is called 'How to use Web 2.0 in your library' rather than a focus on a specific type of Web 2 application, or 'How to turn your library into Library 2.0' or suchlike. I'm aware that there are lots of discussions about what it is, isn't, should be, could be - heck, I've participated in a good few of them. In fact, I spend almost all my time at the moment teaching the subject, and what I'm seeing is a very different situation. More to the point, I'm presenting a different situation as well.

Something that I say very early on when I'm taking a class in this subject area is 'Forget the labels. Call it 'stuff'. There's a whole bunch of stuff out there which allows you to do your job better. Explore it, use some of it, throw some of it away. Don't get hung up on defining who you are or what you are, just use the stuff to make things better.' Maybe it's because I'm not an academic I don't know, but I really don't care that much about these long discussions - I don't want to talk about these things, I want to use them. I've had librarians say to me 'Come and teach us how to be a Web 2.0 library' (note that 'Library 2.0' is missing here) and my response is generally 'Nope. I won't, because that's not what you want. What you WANT is to be better at what you do, and I can show you stuff that will do that for you.'

I agree and disagree with things Meredith says in about equal measure. I think that if you get hung up on 'Library 2.0' that can be detrimental to what you're trying to achieve, and you end up blindfold in a cellar in the dark looking for a black cat that isn't there. For me, it's not about 'Can we change into Library 2.0?' it's 'Explore what's out there, and if it's good, incorporate it. You can't snap your fingers and change into something - though you can, and should, evolve.' Like Meredith, I don't use Library 2.0 very often, mainly because it doesn't have much currency over here, and partly because if I do that I'm going to have to define it, and if I define it I'm telling people what it is, and that's not how it works for me. It's all about the stuff - finding it, playing with it, incorporating it and then moving on. Call yourself whatever you like, I don't care. Do a better job, that's what's important.

I also agree with Meredith when she says that some librarians have lost their way when they implement things like blogs, Flickr accounts and so on. What they're doing is looking at the trappings of Web 2.0/Library 2.0 and thinking 'that's what we need to do', without thinking 'why do we want to do that?' There are many good reasons for having these resources, and using this stuff, but 'because everyone else is' is not quite frankly one of them. You need to look at this stuff to see how it works. Then, when you've got that, decide if, and how it will improve what you do already, or allow you to do something different, or let you do something you've not been able to before. If the stuff is helpful, then use it. If it's not, don't. It really is that simple.

I diverge from her opinion when she talks about 'not every library needs a public facing blog'. A blog is a superb way of keeping people up to date, of archiving information, of responding quickly and of engaging in a two way dialogue with users (I'm a Brit, we have users, forget the 'patrons' bit). Blogs are about communicating. I take her point that we need to focus on the needs of the user, *however* that shouldn't just be current needs, but it should be future needs, and it should be about discovering needs that they didn't realise until they're pointed out. This is where the experimenting comes into play. She says 'the focus should never be on the tools'. Hmm, yes and no. You have to have a focus on the tool in order to see how it can be used in the best possible way. And then use it that way. If you've got a Flickr account that's not been used for months, it's not necessarily because it's wrong, useless or you don't need it, you've maybe just misunderstood it. But the focus of the tool needs to be understanding it, assessing it,  deploying/discarding it, re-assessing it,  blending it into the job.  (I  think she and I are probably fairly close together on this one actually).

I echo what Meredith says  (and I do hope that she'll forgive the familiarity of first names since I've not met her!) about giving staff time to do all of this. Again, I think the problem here is that management have this idea of 'Oh, we must be 2.0' without fully understanding what that means. As much as anything else, and this is again something that I'm always banging on about, is that 2.0 is a state of mind. Yes, it's the stuff, but that's the outward display of a change in attitude. And that attitude is what is important. What we can start to do, in ways that I really don't think have ever been possible before is to take more control. A management structure says 'we need to run a cost analysis to see if we use this tool'. Not when it's free you don't. 'We need to invest in staff training, we don't have the time'. Not when it's pretty straightforward you don't. 'We need to get the technical staff to implement this'. Not anymore you don't, when all you need is cut and paste. 'We need to be perfect before we use it'. No, really it doesn't need to be perfect, just fit for purpose. They come up with a whole host of other reasons, most of which really only make sense in a 1.0 paradigm, and 2.0 lets you get around most of them one way or another. What 2.0 stuff does I think, is highlight the fact that staff need time for professional development - they should have this anyway, it's insane not to. It takes me all my time to keep my Web 2.0 weblog up to date, and it's not possible for anyone not working full time on this to do so, but even a small amount of time to explore will help.

A lot of the 2.0 stuff isn't revolutionary in and of itself.  Some of the stuff lets you talk to users. Wow! No, really, it does. Sure, you've been talking to them for years, BUT you can now do it differently, with instant Q&A via a chat box, without the users being there. Now, some will say that's no big deal, others will see that it is. Do I care? Not a jot. It's stuff you can use to do your job better. However, if it doesn't work that way for you (and it would surprise me, but I'll take your word for it) don't use it. It's the same with all the other stuff.

There's an interesting argument to be had over 'doing what the users want'. On the one hand, some users are saying 'we want video games in the library' and so some librarians are giving them games. Other librarians say 'this is nonsense! This is a library for gods sake, and we have books!' We need to walk a tightrope, and quite frankly I'm a bit sick of the brigade who say 'we need to just do what our users tell us'. I'm sorry, but I didn't spend 4 years in library school learning about this to be told by an 18 year old that he or she knows what is best. Call me elitist if you like, I don't care. Sometimes information professionals DO know best.  (The clue is in the word 'professional' by the way). We've had the whole 'Google generation' thing where we've actually found out that the teenagers don't always know search better than the rest of us, which shouldn't come as a surprise but oddly has. Teenagers and other users are saying that they don't want the library in their Facebook etc. Well, if they don't want the library there, don't become a fan, don't use the resource, don't subscribe to the group. If you don't want a real life library - just don't come into it! It's not exactly rocket science is it? And yet... and yet.. some librarians are saying 'Oh, they know best. They're the patrons. They're the Google generation. They're younger and more tech savvy than we are. We'd better go back to the books.' No, no, no, no NO! We need to be providing services of all sorts, we need to be involved in outreach, we need to get out there and offer this stuff. Some of them will ignore it, and that's absolutely fine and their right. Others will use it, and that's fine as well. But if we don't DO that, if we just sit in the walls of our libraries, to be honest we may just as well pack up and go home.

Meredith says that mistakes will always be made. Absolutely right, and we need to get into a culture where mistakes are considered good things. If you don't make mistakes you're not trying new stuff and you're not learning. The error is to assume that if one 2.0 thing doesn't work none of them will. Meredith also focuses again on the users 'we have, not the users we read about in...' No, I can't go that step I'm afraid. If you focus on the users you've got, you're dead in the water. It's as important to focus on the users you don't have. No-one won an election by just talking to the people who were going to vote for them anyway. If you've got someone who should be a library user and they're not - why aren't they? What's going wrong there? That's what interests me. And if there are users mentioned in library magazines, if other librarians are saying 'oh we're using this resource and that resource and our community is really getting something out of it' maybe we DO need to look further, and to be dissatisfied with what we're currently doing.  Yes, you do (as she points out) need to focus on your users and do things that they'll find useful, but for a lot of the time they don't *know* about this new stuff, and surely it's the responsibility of a library and librarians to say 'I can show you how to do this better and more effectively, in ways you've maybe never thought of' rather than to just sit back and let them decide. Unless you explore, unless you do, unless you try new things, unless you *evolve* then what you're actually doing is a real disservice to your users. And that's a tragedy.

Finally, I agree with her point when she says that trainers, bloggers etc need to ask themselves if they focus enough on assessment, or if they in fact only focus on the tools. Given that I run courses that are about the tools, or the stuff it's very easy to just say 'this is how it works' and to think that a successful course is one where everyone goes away having made a weblog. The real point, and one that I always try and hammer home is that it's the state of mind thing. Ignore what a weblog is (and I'm just using this as my example), and decide how you can use one. If you can, do. If not, don't have one. I would however also add in slightly more - when we're looking at the stuff, we need to look at both sides. Don't just look at how we can create and use a Flickr account to promote the library, look at how you can use Flickr to find out information. Don't just think of writing a weblog, think of how much information you can get from weblogs when you're searching for information. To concentrate on just one angle is sloppy thinking; it should always be 'how can I use this to help my users, and how can I use this to help myself?'

I'll end by saying pretty much what I say on my courses. There's a bunch of stuff out there. New stuff that we've not seen before. Sometimes it'll help you do your job better. Sometimes it'll let you do new things. Sometimes you know, it won't help at all. Your job is to look at it, play with it, explore it and see if the stuff adds benefit and value. If it does, use it. If it doesn't, go off and find something else that does. Forget about names, labels, because it doesn't matter. Just use the good stuff to be better at what you do.

Comments

[Edwin]

Nice reading. Thanks!

[GeekChic]

Phil, Excellent essay. I agree almost entirely. The only quibbles I have are with these statements: "'we need to run a cost analysis to see if we use this tool'. Not when it's free you don't. 'We need to invest in staff training, we don't have the time'. Not when it's pretty straightforward you don't."

Why do I quibble? Well, nothing is truly free. Even if it doesn't cost you money it will cost you time (to deploy, to use, to keep up). And even things that seem straightforward can require training if the people that will use them are terrified of computers or refuse to use new tools without training (both common reactions at my current place of work) or if their are potential policy implications (i.e. what kind of pictures can be posted to Flickr).

[Meredith]

Nice response. I'm sure you know where I agree and disagree. I still believe strongly that not every library should have a blog. Some good reasons not to are that they already have communication mechanisms that work for their patrons, that their service population wouldn't be interested in that form of communication, or that they don't have time to keep the blog up. It's so incredibly easy to start a blog, but it takes a good bit of effort to write consistent and engaging material that keeps people reading it. This frequently isn't taken seriously and I think that's a big reason why there are so many abandoned blogs out there.

When done well and for an interested audience, a blog can be a terrific communication tool for organizations. I just don't think it's a good fit for every library.

[Jamesm]

Phil, thanks for this and Meredith also for your original post, both very thought provoking. If you haven't already ready read it there is an interesting piece in the latest CILIP Update in the review 2007 section on using Web 2.0 applications.

In it and apologies to the author because I have forgotten her name, the author argues that just because you are a Librarian using Web 2.0 applications this doesn't mean that your Library is now Library 2.0. Something I would agree with. I regularly use RSS, post to several blogs and use Social Networking sites, some of which I do for my Library and some I don't.

I also agree with your comments Meredith about blogs not fitting in every Library. Certainly within the Corporate sector a more well used solution is a Wiki as this seems to me to embrace the Knowledge Sharing and Management principles that Corporate Libraries seek to develop.

[Phil Bradley]

I find it interesting that there's a lot of emphasis on the blog comment. I don't really believe much in absolutes, so I'm not going to say that every single library anywhere needs a weblog. That would be silly. I will say that I think, as I have already said, that a weblog is a very good way of communicating with users, and much more often than not a library blog is going to be a good thing. My default would be 'why wouldn't we want a weblog' rather than 'why would we?' I'd like to think that my emphasis throughout this piece is to look at what you're doing and what you want to do and to react accordingly. It's not about the tools, it's about how professionals can use them.

I hope that's clarified that issue!