>>At an inaugural lecture last night, while the speaker was enthusiasing
about Web 2.0 someone asked the question, or made the point, that searching
isn't the point of the exercise, finding is, and showed the National Record
Office as a case.<<
Actually, I'd go so far as to say that finding isn't the point either.
Finding the right thing at the right time to answer the right question is
slightly closer to the point. Delivering that in the fastest and most
effective way is even closer to the point.
>>This seems to me to be full of Web 2.0 stuff with just about nothing
obvious on the traditional skills and professional competences which made
libraries libraries.<<
I think that in order to fully answer this point it's really necessary to
have an indication of what 'Web 2.0 stuff' means, and also what these
'traditional skills and ... competences' are. Otherwise it's all too easy to
get lost in a semantic tussle with different people meaning entirely
different things. However, with that caveat I'll take a stab at this, and
I'll use my own definitions and resources - please feel free to ignore as
appropriate.
Web 2.0 resources such as start pages (exemplified by Pageflakes and
Netvibes) allow people (librarians and others) to arrange their work, to
organize information, to get hold of information quickly AND to be able to
share it with others. That seems to assist in a pretty traditional skill to
me.
Search 2.0 resources such as Rollyo, Eurekster and Yahoo Search builder
allow librarians to facilitate in creating a small 'universe' of good
quality, authoritative resources, thus facilitating their users to obtain
results that can be trusted. Again, this uses Web 2.0 technologies to do
exactly what information professionals should be doing - assisting their
users.
Social bookmarking systems ensure that information professionals can keep
their users up to date with what is happening in the world around them -
that used to be called Current Awareness Bulletins or Selective
Dissemination of Information in my day, and although the name may have
changed the function remains the same, just executed rather more quickly and
effectively than ever before. Indeed, using del.icio.us as a search engine
often results in better and more accurate results than you get with
traditional search engines.
Wikis and community builder software allow the information professional to
work with their user base, to share, to exploit resources and heavens forbid
- sometime learn from them as well.
I also suppose that a traditional skill is to communicate with users and to
provide them with information in the most effective manner possible. Instant
Messaging systems, Plugoo, Gabblychat, Meebo and so on allow information
professionals to continue to use their communication skills, but in a much
enhanced and increased manner.
Weblogs allow the professional to make information available, to archive it,
and to create repositories of data and content that might otherwise be lost.
They also allow them to disseminate that information much more widely than
they've been able to before.
Resources that allow information professionals to annotate webpages and to
share that information with colleagues is surely a subset of basic skills -
communication, authority checking, sharing information and so on.
Social groupings like Facebook and MySpace allow professionals different
ways of communicating and sharing information (a little bit like LIS-LINK I
suppose) and they allow us to work across boundaries in new and exciting
ways.
RSS brings a lot of these resources together, allowing for the flow of
information to come to us, thus allowing us to get on with using it
effectively, rather than chasing our tails rather ineffectually using
something like Google. That's got to be another key skill surely - using the
best resources in the best way at the best moment in time.
I could continue, but I've either made my point to your satisfaction or I
haven't, and if it's the latter case then you (generic you) have issues that
go way beyond utilizing new resources in the best way possible for the
professional.
>>Is the plot being lost?<<
In a word, No.
>>In Librarians for Social Change I argued we had to improve the political,
historical, philosophical, cultural, aspect of our competences, not throw
them out entirely.<<
I see *absolutely* nothing that suggests that we're throwing anything away.
What we're doing, individually and in small or large groups is to look at a
huge, vast range of resources that are becoming available, and deciding
which of them work for us within our profession. This isn't throwing away
anything! This is supplementing what we do, utilizing those that work,
ignoring those that don't, and letting us see how we can use them to change
what we do, and God help us, allow us to do it better than we've been able
to do in the past. In actual fact, it's very easy to argue that what Web 2.0
resources give us is the opportunity to get much more politically involved
in our organisations because we can do much more, without the required input
from technical colleagues - it's giving us a chance to drag the information
unit centre stage in new and exciting ways. It's allowing us to take our
central philosophies (and here I'm having to guess what you mean) of good
service, accurate information delivered in a timely fashion, and use them in
a practical way. On a cultural level it's letting us get to grips with
providing information, sharing knowledge, learning from other people in new
ways. Throwing things out? We're doing the exact opposite!
>>With the computer industry forcing grep and search upon us, with social
tagging and social networking, it seems now that re-asserting the essential
competences is more important than ever, but the profession is remarkably
silent, like it has given up, yet the ILI is badged with CILIP.<<
Nobody, least of all the 'computer industry' (whatever that is), is forcing
anything on the profession. In actual fact, what I see in my day to day work
and discussions with librarians and different library groups is an interest
- almost a hunger - to be able to see how Web 2.0 can help people to do
their jobs better, to improve on what good services they already have, to do
more outreach work and to share that with colleagues.
I entirely agree that the information profession needs to re-assert
essential competences, and one of the very best ways of doing that is to
look at new resources, embrace, use and improve on those that work and to
discard those that do not.
Almost every conference, AGM, workshop or meeting of librarians that I've
attended over the last few months (and believe me, it's been a lot) has been
looking at Web 2.0. Very often in a positive way, often curious, and
sometimes skeptical, but it's very much on the agenda everywhere. How
someone can say that the profession is 'remarkably silent' is quite simply
beyond me.
>>Perhaps we need to reform the library association?<<
Perhaps we should do away with the internet, go back to using card
catalogues or even better - go back to chaining books to the walls! I
apologise for the flippancy of that remark, but I think that what Web 2.0 is
doing, perhaps more importantly than all of the things that I've previously
mentioned is to give information professionals - librarians, researchers,
public librarians, school librarians, commercial, legal, academic and every
other type of librarian the opportunity to expand what we do, to make our
role even more important, both within our organisations and within our wider
communities. It is giving us the opportunity to continue along the lines
that we started back in the 60s and through the decade of CD-ROM, into the
Web and now into Web 2.0 which is to take information by the scruff of the
neck, manipulate it and provide it to our users. That surely, has to be a
good thing?
Phil.
Internet Trainer, Web designer, SEO, Speaker, Author
Visit http://www.philb.com for free articles on many aspects of the
Internet.
My weblogs: http://www.philbradley.typepad.com/
*** How to use Web 2.0 in your library is now available ***
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