When first reading Chad and Miller's "Do Libraries Matter? The Rise of Library 2.0" I totally bought into their presentation:
Yes! Libraries should adopt Web 2.0 applications and provide better services to a changing society. Yes! Libraries have still life in them, and are not just outdated repositories of musty old books. Yes! I will let Library 2.0 into my life as my own (soon to be) professional saviour.
But like most things, upon closer inspection I began to see the holes...
The intention of the authors and their advocation of a Library 2.0 model became suspect when looking for the sources to their claims of libraries inferiority to Internet-based services. And the possibility that they were using this white paper as a marketing tool to position Talis as a leader in the Library 2.0 model. And the emerging interest of private technology companies in libraries and their holdings (the same month Chad and Miller presented this paper, Google donated $3 million to the Library of Congress' World Digital Library project).
Though I found Chad and Miller's presentation useful in imagining a response to the challenges presented by Internet-based, I concluded that librarians must critically assess the Library 2.0 model (and all the external influences informing it), before adopting them into their library's services.
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3 comments:
That was about my thought process too. The first time I read the article I thought it was a pretty cool idea. Then I thought about it some more and read it again. Good thing I did that, hey.
"professional saviour"?!@
Nice conclusion! I like your research about what Google was up to at the same time...
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