Week 6 Web 2.0, Library 2.0

The del.icio.us site makes bookmarking and tagging sites so easy. I had a look at the education and reference sites and their related tags, the "clouds" made selection of popular sites so simple. Had fun looking at the TV Guide and reading the celebrity blogs!!

Now to the articles!
Yes the face of our public library system is changing, and like all services in the public sector we must keep abreast of current innovations and developments in technology and the Web.
I can remember when I started my university degree in Teacher Librarianship (back in 1981) and how terrified we were to hear that computers would be 'taking over' in a manner of speaking!! Coming from the generation of typed catalogue cards, it was quite alarming! Little did we know that this new technology would be a blessing in disguise, and we would not be out of a job! Like the innovations of yesteryear, Web 2.0 will only improve on the services and knowledge already provided by our libraries. We owe it to our patrons to have a good grasp of these Web sites, in order to impart this knowledge onto others.

Rick Anderson in his article "Away from the icebergs" sees our print collections being reduced as patrons become more educated in finding answers on the Web. Rather than us building collections of books we think our patrons might need, they can instead access virtually everything via the Web. So as librarians our skills then need to encompass how to best use the sites available to us.
He says that unlike school libraries, we will not have the time to teach these skills, due to the low numbers of staff in each library. So we need to work out a way of "eliminating the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need". Rather than the library being the main source of information we have to work out how we can best provide information to our patrons.
(I read all of the articles, great stuff!!)