People Are Doin’ It For Themselves
Tuesday, February 27th, 2007I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Looks like I’m not the only one. Maybe it’s a (dare I use the word?) zeitgeist thing*.
On the very same day, Skagirlie laments that her OPAC sucks because it doesn’t do what Amazon, iTunes and LibraryThing do and Libraryman wonders why libraries don’t do what Pandora does. In the comments of her post, Maire says, “It’s just a bummer that a 3rd party has to offer something that should be intuitive.” I absolutely agree, it’s a bummer. Heck, I think it’s even worse than that.
On YouTube, people can upload and share their own videos with others. They can also collect other people’s videos, catalog videos, rate videos, and comment on videos. On del.icio.us, people can collect web pages, catalog them, and share them with others. On LibraryThing, people can organize and catalog their libraries, share them with others, start and join book discussion groups, and get recommendations for other reads. These are all free to use…just like libraries.
I’m usually not much of an alarmist, and I really hate to sound like Chicken Little, but…if libraries aren’t asking themselves “What do we provide that these other services don’t?”, we’re just begging to be kicked in the Higher Power of Lucky. If people can create and organize their own libraries and share them with each other–and do all sorts of other things to boot!–then asking them to use sucky OPACs and expecting them to learn the Dewey Decimal System isn’t just mean, it’s shooting ourselves in the collective foot. If a library’s best bet is the digital divide (”Don’t have a computer? This is the place for you!”), then when the digital divide disappears (Think it won’t? How many people do you know who don’t have a telephone or a TV?), libraries will be screwed. It’s well past the time for libraries to be dipping their toes in the water. It’s high time we dove right into this stuff. When one joe in Maine starts a killer library site, that’s the sign that the time for exploratory committees has come and gone. It’s time for action. Let’s not waste any more time talking about the great services we could be providing for people, let’s actually provide them. Forget about jam tomorrow, I want my jam today.
* That one’s for Maire.

