Libraries (public, school, and academic) should be community centers, only now many people spend time in virtual communities. Web 2.0 applications help libraries bridge both physical and virtual communities. I still like to take my kids to the local library story hour, but I can also use the online catalog and many web resources gather by the library from home. I can listen to downloadable audiobooks with a library card number. Maybe I’ll be able to watch streaming video through a library subscription someday. Does it matter if the concepts of 2.0 (creating, participating in and adapting to the community you serve?) are part of ancient library culture or not? Any tool we can harness for good is helpful!
I read the OCLC article, though some of it was a bit over my head. I would like to see interlibrary loan in Web 2.0. Our current state system is too cumbersome and complicated. Can we keep track of book moving physically without limiting the channels of ILL information?
I also wonder about the reference interview and web 2.0. IPL has had “ask a librarian” email capabilities for a while. How can Web 2.0 help increase the effectiveness of this communication? When I answer a live reference question, there is usually a complex conversation between the patron and myself, and often anyone else who happens to be in the library at the time with a similar assignment.
Of the article I read, I am most interested in “School Library 2.0: Say good-bye to your mother’s school library” by Christopher Harris — School Library Journal, 5/1/2006. I work in a an elementary school library, where for better or worse the web is filtered, and physical access to the library is also limited by fixed class schedules. Teachers use “library time” as a break time, and I, as the licensed professional, am supposed to be in the library managing and instructing the children. I like the idea of being available “virtually” outside the walls of the library, but I am currently schedule to take classes nearly of the hours I am in the building. I wonder how to move into offering more of a virtual, dynamic presence to my teachers and students.
That said, I am excited about our new library catalog that allows users to log in and create booklists, as well as post reviews and comments, and do the web 1.0 feature of linking web sites and other online resource to the library catalog. I will introduce my students to the DCF blog (can we make a Red Clover blog?) I hope to use a blog to post a library newsletter. I am playing with an epals account. I am glad to have examples of other schools moving in this direction.
Do any Vermont elementary school librarians have web 2.0 features used by students? DO other librarians need the principal to approve every word posted on the web before it is posted?
August 31, 2008 at 3:11 am
But your picture is on the side:)