Week 13: Best Practies for Library/Web 2.0

Although many of the technologies are useful and relatively simple to adopt for libraries, some are much more challenging and may even be irrelevant to a library, depending on the user base.

Tools which I consider useful and meaningful to adopt would include blogs, RSS, wikis and tagging/folksonomies and social media applications.  Certainly, there are challenging aspects of any of these technologies such as user interest, type of library (for instance, a special or government library may not necessarily need blogs or Wikis if their staff and client-base are relatively close-knit already), while libraries with a large user-base might need to expend a lot of resources to moderate truly user-editable content and to provide the bandwidth to support high usage of Web 2.0 technology.  Regardless, most of these technologies are relatively simple to set-up and easy to use, allowing for vast possibilities.

I think it is important, however--while considering Web 2.0 best practices--that we are aware of how to use these technologies in a relevant and pragmatic way.  Libraries should not simply adopt Web 2.0 principles simply because they are the "next best thing".  I always think of the television commercial that asks: "isn't trying to be cool the opposite of being cool?" when I see libraries adopt ways of doing things to appeal to the marketplace.  While we do need to market our services to the young and the technologically-savvy users who are up-and-coming library patrons, we also need to avoid making them feel like we are trying to be cool.  Our use of Web 2.0 technologies needs to be relevant and appealing to those who will use it and it also needs to be useful from an administrative perspective: if a service makes the administration of our services difficult or impossible, why should we adopt it?

Another challenge I see in Library 2.0 is the redundancy of some services with little return on our investment(s).  One of the biggest examples of this that I have studied is the use of virtual worlds and gaming for reference services.  While gaming and virtual worlds are very useful from an educational perspective, I consider virtual worlds to be difficult to justify when many libraries already offer virtual information services in a textual form.  The amount of computing and bandwidth horsepower needed to receive and deliver information services is far too high for libraries with limited budgets and also sets up an unsavoury digital divide between users who can afford superior computers and internet access and those who cannot.  For a service that ultimately offers very little above and beyond traditional virtual reference, and requires so much more on both ends of the "reference desk", I consider virtual world reference to be a frivolous direction for now.  I would also feel the same way about non-Web 2.0 redundancy, of course, but that is really outside of the realm of this course.

To me, any best practice in service industries should provide both excellent service and also inexpensive service to clients.  If we consider libraries to be service-based workplaces (a notion which I think most librarians would support!) then we do need to set our clients as the primary benefactors of any of our "best practices" and assure that they are as happy as they can be.  Any services that are superfluous to a users needs and wants are ultimately a source of wasted resources (both human and financial)... why not simply use these resources to provide better services to users in ways that they seek?

But how do we know what users want?  How do we move forward and keep libraries relevant?  Simple!  We ask!  Most libraries are funded directly (or at least indirectly) by their clientele (public, government and special libraries are all funded by those who avail of their services directly, while even academic libraries are funded by the institutions and students who use the libraries(if only in an indirect manner!)).  We know our clientele fairly precisely, it is relatively easy to survey them formally or even informally notice what they're doing and where their technological and research interests lie.  If we're as good with information as we like to claim we are, why can't we take in information from our users to determine the direction of our services?

Ultimately, users should be our primary concern when determining best practices for Library 2.0 and I think we can learn a lot from our users.  While we do need to take the initiative and be forward-thinking in offering new and original services, it's always important to remember that our decisions affect our services in some form or another.  In this sense, I consider future-orientation, innovation, and technological adaptation to be best practices for libraries (and especially for Library 2.0), but these must all relate to the delivery of client service.