Thing 15 Library 2.0

The YouTube video for this lesson was really awesome, I have to say. The author of the video is named Michael Wesch, and he's an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. I felt really engaged by his use of the copy/paste function to convey meaning. The last bit of the video, where he types "We have to rethink a few things" and deletes "few things" and then writes in "copyright" then deletes that and writes in "privacy" and a slew of others, I particularly enjoyed. What a wonderful use of the medium.

The concept of Library 2.0 I find intriguing. I love new things in general, I love computers and the internet specifically. I feel that I could study computer applications every day for the rest of my life and still not understand everything that's out there. I think that's pretty cool, that our culture has evolved and specialized to the point where no single person can grasp all facets of their own culture, even all facets of a beta culture like the internet, that has only been around since the late 80s. (1960s if you count APRA and the cold war network setup linking four computer terminals; I don't).

I like the article by Rick Anderson, and I agree with him. But I'm not quite sure what he's suggesting libraries do, exactly. Move all of our content to the internet? Structure our spaces so that libraries are just internet cafes with "helpers" (i.e. obsolete librarians) who stand around and train newbies? (Hey, wait, that's basically my job description, oops.) Surely we must retain some semblance of a print collection.

When he mentions that we have to let go of the "come to us" model of library service, I start to get nervous. What do libraries have that the internet doesn't? Well, print books, for one. People trained in sorting and accessing information, there to help you (although the virtual librarians at Maryland AskUsNow! are one exception to this). We have a physical space where "the community" (i.e. anyone who feels like it) can come and sit for any length of time and surf the internet or read a magazine (at my library these are mostly the homeless, teenagers whose parents don't get off work until 6pm or 9pm, immigrants, people on welfare looking for jobs [or not looking for jobs, as the case may be], retired people, and others). Homeless people can't sit in the internet, and the internet isn't a place where parents can leave their children unattended. . . or is it? Hmmm. . . I'm not going to get into semantics. We have FREE internet for anyone with a library card. The internet itself isn't free to all.

I wonder how this specific library is going to change in five or ten years. I hope I'm still around to see it. Let's see if I get drafted to fight in Iran so that Halliburton can make it's desired profits for next quarter.