Thing 2, at long last

Okay, so I've actually been working on a blog-worthy response to the great big library 2.0 question for some time now. Yes, I am in fact nerdy enough to actually write drafts of and revise my blog entries. I have always done this with emails and my personal Livejournal, too, but that's not the point... Although it does bring up, for anyone who maybe doesn't know, that you can save drafts of entries that only you can see. Blogger seems to offer just about nothing in the way of targeted privacy settings (which Livejournal *does* offer), but at least it has draft-saving. If you click "Save Now" at the bottom, but don't click "Publish Post," it'll save what you've written so you can sign out and then come back and edit/post later. (Actually, it auto-saves every once in a while, too.) Anyway, on to the big questions...

I think Web 2.0 is a pretty hyped-up buzzword, and I was honestly hoping it would just go away and we could rename our techno-revolution (if that's what it is) something better. That being said, I use its many wond'rous tools every day and have only indulged in the surrounding rhetoric for amusement (again, nerd) or for class.

I have to admit that I see myself more as a library patron in most of my future than as a library worker. So from that perspective, my view on Library 2.0 is this: If libraries continue to be places, I want a place (that's quiet!) where I can get the information I need or want, preferably when I want or need it. If the place becomes obsolete and that means downloading an e-book (which I'd probably print out because I hate reading off of screens, but I digress) or using IM's or whatever, then I'll do that. No matter what the *crazy*new*mind-bending*technological*breakthrough is, I'll do my best to keep on it and go with the flow.

I agree with what one of the articles said, which was basically this: we need to use what works, and abandon what doesn't. Also, I think we need to think carefully about *our* patrons and *this* culture (culture in the micro sense) to ascertain what people might need or want.

Because believe it or not, as much as I love technology (if you know me at all you have figured this out), it is supposed to bring us enabling tools and enhanced entertainment. If it's not doing one of those things, then --to borrow from one of the zillions of such omnipresent expressions in my generation-- you're doing it wrong.

Technology does not a library make. Information and entertainment do. So just keep that coming and a great deal of us will be just fine with that, I would hope. It'll require adjustment for some people, but so did the telephone.

By the way, the name Marshall McLuhan kept coming to mind when I was thinking about this. Some of his views might be outdated or proven wrong at this point, but some of it's eerily relevant. Read some.