Week #6 - Thing #15 Web 2.0 & Libraries

Just when I vowed to shorten my posts....

Looked at most of the articles (all from 2005 & 2006) and only The Horizons Report is 2008. My 40 year perspective is unchanged: that the essence of librarianship is the quality of the bibliographic record. And, it has to be coupled with acccess. I think the intentions of all libraries has been integration of resources with society. We have fallen short in the implementation for a bunch of internal & external reasons. I also expect the library to be a neutral information source, not dominated by a perspective, big business or big government. Developing Schultz's "focused expertise" has to be a way to harness ever-compounding data for individual needs. I think her ideas are the best of this group of articles because of her holistic descriptions "on the way to the library experience of the future."

Casey says the heart of library 2.0 is user-centered change. Certainly user-centered instruction is the current public educational focus. What is the nature of this every-present connectivity? Besides catching students' attention, does it facilitate critical thinking skills about the content we think they should be ingesting? I have seen evidence in middle school but it is very limited to date. Litwin's concern is privacy, students' need to see & be seen vs. the sharing of information, and interestingly, how that may change as they become adults. I appreciate the growing ease and benefit of collaborating online and believe teacher librarians are better prepared to adapt & utilize emerging 2.0 tools for instruction than teachers. Am just trying to find out how to prove that within the current public school bureaucracies.