23.21-23 The Present of Libraries: 3 things from Web 2.0 about organization

Many Library 2.0 ponderers in the blogs speak of the future of libraries, and that’s the direction to look for sure. They speak of how technology will change our missions, our tools, and our organizations. With the caveat that in meeting LCPL’s mission, we need not so much to change it as to recommit to it, I do have some sympathy with the idea that as collaboration, openness, and user-focus become more possible due to technology, we must take advantage of the strengths of these tools. I hope we can apply lessons from library 2.0 to the here and the now.

I'm Out of Order? This Whole Court Is out of Order!

Having skipped #15 for awhile (it's a big topic), I looked at the library wikis in #16. They are interesting ideas all -- I remember suggesting using blog technology for subject guides in what, 2004?

St. Joseph's went wiki instead. I'm curious how often it's used -- is it rarely used, like most library link collections, or does the wiki format make it more accessible, and more used? Ditto for Princeton's Book Lover's Wiki.

The Library Success Wiki is great -- although a collection of links remains a collection of links, whether it's in wiki or web page format. I also wonder when the library profession stopped using peer-reviewed research as it's sources for how to plan and deliver services, and chose instead to rely on blog postings referring to blog postings. It might work; maybe the speed of change overwhelmes traditional academic practices; but I doubt we'll see doctors and lawyers and engineers jump on the bandwagon in quite the same way.

Bull Run's Wiki is great too, but isn't it really a blog, using wiki structure and software? It's nature reifies something that has bothering me throughout the 23 things -- the technolgy, the formats, the tools, are not necessarily relevant -- it's the Data, Information, Knowledge (including Entertainment), and Wisdom transmitted in the communication that actually matters. I want a blog, I want a wiki, I want a podcast -- not. I want to know, to learn, to enjoy, to grow. The tools that help me do that? Good.

Appalachian Infosphere -- the tail of the Long Tail

The Appalachian Infosphere blog is part of Loudoun County Public Library's 23 Things program. Library staff including me are experiencing and assessing Web 2.0 tools for their interest and potential application in public services to library users.

This post is logically an introduction -- but of course as blogs fall, it will usually be seen at the end of more recent posts, if at all. This is actually a fair example of how a small change can make us rethink long-evolved literary and information-transmission formats. After all, blogs are often described as online diaries. Has any one ever read, or published, a diary in most recent first format? Before blogs, that is. How does that affect the processing of information? And usuability?

In truth blogs fall into most recent first organization not because they are diaries, but because they following a media object model, like newspaper stories on the web, magazine articles in an infotrac search, and like people's "What's New" page from the web of 1994 or so. I'm sure this and other blogging tools have options for flipping the order -- but it's premature to use them. I think though that the case can be made the organization of information prcinples suggest that recent-first, as an order, is far more demanding than oldest-first, both for the writer(s) and the reader. Let's see how much sense this blog makes in the native ordering of the technology.