Uprising
I don’t think Library 2.0 is just about Web 2.0 technobabble. Nosirree. It’s a way of thinking, a willingness to accept that, despite my lack of jetpack and flying car, we live in the future. A willingness to not just embrace change, but give change a big ol’ smooch–with lots of tongue. (Gee, was that metaphor a bit too steamy? Oh, well.)
I’m a child of the Baby Boomers, a child of rock ‘n’ roll. I’m Generation X. So, naturally, this essay speaks to me. I particularly like this sentence: “Let’s create intellectual amusement parks.” Yes! With popcorn and cotton candy and calliopes! With clowns and fortune tellers and prestidigitators!
Brian S. Mathews’ essay is about bringing change to the table, about bringing new ideas to the library, about trying new things out. Which, I think, is the essence of Library 2.0. Not just rethinking the use of library space, but rethinking what library space is. “I am much more interested in what a person can do in a library than what we can put in one,” Brian S. Mathews says. And I feel the same way. Libraries aren’t buildings full of books and magazines, they’re processes, they’re events, they’re shifting and warping nodes of connectivity.
Library 2.0 isn’t really about Ajax or RSS feeds or open APIs. Those are just emblematic of what Library 2.0 really is: a DIY aesthetic and a manic demand to constantly change our libraries and our selves.
April 7th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
Correction - You’re NOT the child of Baby Boomers. I was born during the Great Depression, and your mother is pre-Baby Boom by less than four years and more than two years (we won’t reveal her age here).
April 8th, 2006 at 6:13 am
So…I’m the child of Nitpickers?
April 26th, 2006 at 9:50 am
A little too much tongue there, I’d say!
I think it’s important in this bubbling sea of connecting nodes to remember that libraries are ALSO “buildings full of books and magazines.” Print technologies still have the longevity factor working in their favor, and we young librarians will do well to remember the virtues of the old-and-mundane technologies that have made all our information-sharing possible in the past.
April 26th, 2006 at 9:57 am
Absolutely, Benjamin! As I said in an earlier post, the print medium is a brilliant bit of technology, durable and useful.