— I'm Timothy Greig. I live in Wellington, New Zealand, and work
for AIM Proximity. I'm interested in game design, information architecture, librarianship, and transmedia storytelling. Updates? — Try the RSS.

“Not a standard but a state of mind”

Library 2.0 has been drawing a lot of attention in the past year or so on the blogs of library professionals around the globe (it’s called the Biblioblogosphere). There’s no shortage of discussion and debate out there on the Internets about the idea (or meme?) of Web 2.0 and it’s semantic offspring ‘L2′. What follows is my attempts at an introduction, and the outline of three areas I feel will make three good blog posts for discussions and examples.

Web 2.0

The meaning of Web 2.0 is somewhat ambiguous and ethereal; it is term that is usually used to evoke a series of perceived changes in the way that the world wide web operates. Tim O’Rielly suggests that “you can visualize Web 2.0 as a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles, at a varying distance from that core” (O’Rielly Radar, What Is Web 2.0?).

According to Wikipedia, the Web 2.0 tag can be applied to:

1. The transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming a computing platform serving web applications to end users
2. A social phenomenon referring to an approach to creating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and “the market as a conversation”
3. A more organized and categorized content, with a far more developed deeplinking web architecture
4. A shift in economic value of the web, possibly surpassing that of the dot com boom of the late 1990s
5. A marketing term to differentiate new web businesses from those of the dot com boom, which due to the bust now seem discredited
6. The resurgence of excitement around the possibilities of innovative web applications and services that gained a lot of momentum around mid 2005.

- Wikipedia Web 2.0

Importantly, Web 2.0 represents a shift away from software installed on individual personal computers towards applications which are entirely accessable online. Locating applications online allows for greater connectivity and flexibility for data.

Web 1.0 was the era when people could think that Netscape (a software company) was the contender for the computer industry crown; Web 2.0 is the era when people are recognizing that leadership in the computer industry has passed from traditional software companies to a new kind of internet service company. The net has replaced the PC as the platform that matters, just as the PC replaced the mainframe and minicomputer. – Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Radar, Not 2.0?)

The library’s information provider crown is slipping. Justifiably or not, today libraries are increasingly viewed as outdated, with modern, Internet-based services, such as Amazon and Google, looking set to inherit the throne. – Chad and Miller (2005) Do Libraries Matter?

Librarians have been particularly interested in exploring the similarities and differences of these web technologies to traditional library-based information retrieval/provision resources and services in the hopes of meeting changing user expectations. The term “Library 2.0″ as Chad and Miller suggest, has come to stand in for the application of this attitude shift:

Library2.0 is a concept of a very different library service that operates according to the expectations of today’s library users. In this vision, the library makes information available wherever and whenever the user requires it. – Chad and Miller (2005) Do Libraries Matter?

Focus Areas

My impression is that conceptualizations of Library 2.0 can be smooshed into three key areas, which I aim to look at in turn in my three blog posts for this research project:

Visibility (L2Visible)

“…libraries should make themselves and their services visible to end users and to one another…” – Miller (2005) Coming Together Around Library 2.0

“The principles of Library 2.0 seek to put users in touch with information and entertainment wherever they may be, breaking down the barriers of space, time and outdated policy.” – Michael Stephens Tame the Web

Flexibility (L2Flexible)

“I believe strongly that the most significant characteristic of this era of development is the openess that is enabled by APIs. It’s about sharing information and data and having services work well together.” – Mena, blog post at Mena’s Corner.

The digitization of media/information resources brings increased flexibility to the methods by which this information can be organized and accessed. Library 2.0 sparks ideas about how information management professionals might make their services available to both clients and colleagues in formats that are more readily adapted to engage with other (potentially user-developed) platforms and services.

Web 2.0, web mashups, AJAX, etc., [...] in my mind are all facets of the same phenomenon: that information and presentation are being separated in ways that allow for novel forms of reuse. – Sho Kuwamoto.

Usability (L2Usable)

Library 2.0 is very much influenced by technology-driven, two-way, social interactions between staff and staff or staff and patrons. L2 has provided a framework within which we’ve been able to re-evaluate virtually every aspect of classical librarianship with the end goal of usability and findability in mind. – John Blyberg Blyberg.net

“It’s about embracing those ideas and technologies that can assist libraries in delivering services to these groups [of both traditional and non-traditional information users], and it’s about participation — involving users in service creation and evaluation. Library 2.0 is an operating model that allows libraries to respond rapidly to market needs.” – Michael Casey LibraryCrunch

I have a report assignment coming up for INFO 525 (Information Technology in Library and Information Services) , a paper I am taking as part of my MLIS degree. There is a specific scenario for the assignment, and a list of technologies to focus on.

In this scenario you are a consultant who specialises in the application of new Information Technologies to information services.

You have been commissioned by a specific information service to write a report on one of the Information Technologies in List 1 below. You are to describe the technical aspects of the service as it applies to the chosen information service, and assess its potential value to the information service (chosen from List 2 below).

The report must end with a recommendation to either adopt or not adopt the chosen technology. Note that your report should be about the type of technology, and not a specific product.

From the first list (of available information services/technologies) I have chosen to focus on “Library 2.0“, however I think that this will almost certainly lead my research to cover other topics such as open source software (a category which a number of 2.0 applications seem to fall into), Weblogs and RSS (technologies potentially useful in a 2.0 environment), and XML (a technology which many 2.0 applications rely on).

From list two, I’ve chosen “The library of a small private university” as my focus point for exploring Library 2.0 technologies. In keeping with my normal research focus, I’m thinking specifically of (extremely media-savvy) small academic libraries that might exist (now, or in the future) such as:

the “Media Centre” at Full Sail (media and game design school)

a branch library to support the Center for Computer Games Research IT University of Copenhagen,

or perhaps a private, primarily digital, library for Auckland’s Media Design School.

While I do know a bit about Library/Web 2.0, and use 2.0 apps in my day-to-day life – I think it’s important that my first post towards this be “What is Library 2.0?”. Stay tuned, and don’t hesitate to give feedback!

Against all odds, work continues on my MA Thesis and is being collated here. (Of course it has a password, now. If you’d like to see it, drop me a line. )
Not nearly enough WoW-playing is happening, unfortunately.

After many delays, my MA proposal has at last been submitted. An online version can be found here. My supervisors are not entirely satisfied with it, but have decided to still let me submit it because time is ticking away.