Thoughts on the 2.0 class in the Context of MLIS

I saw a post on the ACRLog by StevenB, entitled What is the value in an LIS technology course that questions the value of courses which introduce students to the latest trends in technology, for instance Web2.0 apps. Basically, his criticism is that these courses simply introduce students to trendy technology without including theoretical instructional design content to aid students in their ability to evaluate when these applications will be useful, and to give students a framework to use as trends continue to develop and current technology is supplanted.

Put this way, who could disagree? However, one does wonder how many classes in LIS programs are actually based upon learning to use Twitter, that poor scapegoat for all 2.0 apps. I can’t really say how many classes would fall under that designation that StevenB uses as foil for his suggested improvements, but, having just completed a class on emerging technology, I can comment on the utility of that course in relation to the rest of my LIS education, which I will complete in May, and in relation to my current library work.

First, I should say that with the number of courses I was able to take in my two years, about 12-13, and with the diversity of responsibilities within the ever-changing library field, some really difficult choices had to be made. That said, choosing to take a course that was centered on new technology was not a hard choice, because it seemed clear that this is one area in which the interest and programming of libraries is currently expanding.

I think Mark K.’s comment on Steven’s post, suggesting that

I would rather see the tools integrated into assignments in other classes, along with the traditional things

is a good one. This would allow the emerging technologies classes to go deeper, both in terms of how these technologies work and how they can actually be adapted by libraries for library purposes and in terms of how specific user groups can be served using these technologies. Both of those objectives require a student to employ a good theoretical framework (currently, I think that, having taken the 2.0 course at the end of my LIS study, the theory had been imparted in earlier courses such as those on reference, cataloging, marketing, and bibliographic instruction–that is, the theory was distributed, while the intro to technology was focused in a single course).

I like the idea of a course on emerging technologies getting into the more technical aspects, and I like the idea of librarians coming fresh out of school with some basic knowledge of programming. However, I was in a class on IR’s that got quite technical, and there wasn’t a single student who really understood much of what was going on. This type of thing also doesn’t serve much point. There are only so many skillsets that one can have.

Rather, I think that the important thing is to understand that new technology should be as closely linked as possible to ways to improve service, whether by reaching users directly or by improving work internally. While there are many trends and fads that may come or go, what is really more important to consider than ultimate popularity or staying power is the cost versus the potential for better service over a set period of time. It is also quite useful to remember that some services may be satisfactory without new technology; however, if the totality of library services don’t change at all in response to changes as great as we have seen with Web 2.0, one must start to wonder why, and, to the extent that it is a simple result of librarians being unfamiliar with new technologies, particularly social networking or other read/write apps, then a class which encourages a spirit of engagement has a clear reason for being, or should we say an esprit d’etre?

Project Reflection

We used various web apps to help us complete our project. In general they were quite useful. Our primary tools were a weblog which we used for communication and for posting the content which we created for our podcast. This was a good central location for us to keep our content, but was a bit less effective as a means of communication (partly because I forgot to set it so that the comments would be emailed to me).

I also set up a wiki, but it didn’t seem to make sense for this project. What worked better was to create a Google doc when we were brainstorming about our presentation and implementation plan. This evolved into a handout as we all contributed and added comments to explain revisions. We also held a group meeting in a Meebo room while simultaneously all editing a Google Doc. I was a little concerned about my level of multitasking skill, but actually it was quite easy to do, and the meeting was very effective.

I tried to create a faux library homepage to put our feed chicklet onto as a sort of front end to our presentation using Squidoo, but after I had started it, when I wanted to go back and edit, I got a message saying they were upgrading their server or something. This, I suppose, could be a complaint against the web as platform, but one doesn’t encounter this sort of thing that often. Although, it will always be at the worst time, won’t it…

In all, I thought that the group project was enhanced and aided by Web2.0 apps, though it is important to select only those which will be useful, and much time can be wasted setting things up if they end up not working (as with the Squidoo lens).

The Times They are…yup, I went there.

Horrible Dylan Rewrite for L2

You might need to turn up the volume a bit…

Paper preview

My paper is going to take a look at the rhetoric of the discussion of Library 2.0 within the library field.) The focus will be on identifying the major positions (basically pro/con) and the rhetoric of each as it is/isn’t in discourse, determining how this discourse has evolved up to the present (in a very basic fashion), and finally trying to position the library field in general in terms of change management. I will bring in a few articles from the business world on managing change, and use the principles to consider what has occurred in the change process (Library”1.0?” –> Library 2.0) , and what the next steps should be for those who wish to advance the dialogue.

Depending on space, I may use this analysis to bring the discussion from the broad scope of the library field in general to the level of single libraries, suggesting that those who wish to forward dialogue use a similar analytical process of evaluating positions and rhetoric, considering the trajectory and evolution of the dialogue, analyzing the situation using management principles, and thence purposefully creating new rhetoric to further the dialogue of change.

My impetus is that I believe the overall dialogue has been frequently unhealthy (Gorman v. blog people, e.g.) and the rhetoric unhelpful in furthering the discussion. I think that taking stock of the discussion (which many are quick weary of) and looking for new ways to find common ground and new rhetoric to shape the narrative of the library’s future may be very much in order and quite helpful. However, I believe that this process has already begun, so I am interested to see what has evolved, and how all these things can be brought to bear on a particular library’s situation.

What books are really good for…

Check out the post over at Weekend Stubble

Gaming

Everything that’s Bad…

The LibrarianInBlack writes that those who are interested in the discussion of gaming should check out the book Everything bad is good for you. I am interested in the title of the book, because it gets at the heart of the context of the discussion about gaming in libraries. There are two types of things, based upon their effect on a user, good things and bad things. If you think that books are good for people and not games, then you think good things are good for you, but if you think that gaming is good for people, then you think that bad things are good for you. Of course, if something is good for you, then obviously is shouldn’t be also considered bad, right? So does this mean that we flip a binary switch and good and bad are reversed?

To be fair, Johnson, in his book Everything Bad…, doesn’t neglect to say that reading has benefits as well as other media such as gaming.

Collecting by binaries

The problem often suggested for libraries is one which is well-known to library students: do you “give them what they want,” or try to collect things somehow “of value, useful for improving the mind, salutory to civilization and society, etc.” Of course, this too is a crude binary. However, while culture in general can be on the fence, can be expansive and inclusive as it wants to be, libraries have to make decisions about resource allocation (that is, they have to be selective). This means that a library perforce must employ a notion of value in selection (and to be reasonable, a cohesive set of values over time), a notion which directly affects the way in which they serve the public. So if you say that everything that’s bad is good for you, perhaps the value is in the bad things the library has not traditionally collected. This change in values means that the library will exchange one type of collecting for another, unless the budget is expanded.

Nothing is good for you except…

But wait, let’s not be so either/or. Everything that is is good for you. Books are good. Games are good. So perhaps the library should still collect everything, but just a little less of each, and a little less deeply. Or perhaps…

Nothing is good for you except when it is made good by you.

And perhaps this is where the focus of the library can be. And it sounds like it is; game nights within a community foster the good of gaming, compared to mere purchase and lending (and loss/damage of) games/systems. Rewards programs that foster wide use of library resources (including games) help you make the materials good for you. Oh, no, I think I’m headed toward promotion of marketing and creating useful “products” again. But on a certain level, isn’t utility the only real modifier of relativity (and so on until a new set of privileges emerges as values?

Selling 2.0

I am working in the group that is doing a podcasting project. This promted me to survey some of the library podcasts. Well…they’re trying (ok, ok, some are actually really good).

The myth of audience

I have a comment to make about entering the read/write web. I think that there is a myth we all want to believe the first time we create public content on the web–viewable to millions and millions of people, right! There is a danger in assuming that some of these people will care, that you have an audience. That the fact that you put something up online basically means, you know, end of story.

I confess, with my first few posts of my first ever blog, I was kind of waiting for the stream of comments, and for my friends to be like, “dude, you’re blogging now?” Not quite. Why not? I didn’t tell anyone, for one thing. For another, there’s a lot of blogs out there, and if you aren’t contributing something really useful, who cares? That’s right, people still don’t care about you life, your library, or anything that is unrelated to their interests.

Who you talking to?

This points out two things, quite simply: 1. Market and advertise/promote the hell out of anything you take the time and effort to put together online, and 2. Be useful (and interesting to a specific audience you know exists). 1 comes before 2, and if you don’t do at least one of the above, why sit around recording yourself for a podcast? Why post a recording of a really interesting lecture or author visit without telling everyone who could possibly be intersted (and, first, identifying them).

The more I think about the plethora of 2.0 possibilities and the fatigue of trying them all and letting them all fade away, the more strongly I feel like a little good, solid marketing is the key to library 2.0 efforts. L2 (the online part anyway) is about creating and letting users create in order to promote the library as a place/community/portal. Creating anything without asking who is going to care about the product is relatively pointless, letting users create without having users who know or care about it is completely pointless (reviews in OCLC WorldCat?–cool and 2.0, but unused and pointless [hey, but it worked for Amazon...?]), and then trying to use this content and technology to promote the library without thinking about why different segments want/need to use the library is shooting blanks blidfolded. Sure, no one gets hurt, but it isn’t very effective (maybe this violent metaphor falls apart a bit here, but you get the point).

Marketing: Not just for Philip Morris

Let me be clear. When I say the library should engage in marketing, I’m not talking about trying to sell cigarettes to kids. Casey and Sevastinuk and many other 2.0 thinkers emphasize the importance of asking users and frontline staff. Marketing is doing this in a way that creates a logical plan for how to proceed with the information that is gathered. You start with the framework that you will be creating content/ways for users to contribute content, and you ask who wants what and how you can give it to them so they will know and care about it.

This planning should be lightweight, flexible, and repeatable (the cycle, more or less, can be marketing->creation->promotion->evaluation, re-thinking marketing, etc.). Marketing should at least answer the question, “is there a good chance that the content/service/product will be useful and intersting to a group of people?” That is lightweight, not a ponderous user study that takes years to complete. Casey and Savastinuk stress that L2 is about contant change. Keeping marketing principles in your head is a great way to manage change, because it is a great way to focus on staying relevant.

Social Networking

I was struck by the relationship among the readings of networking and privacy. Particularly, I found myself thinking about the OPAC/library website in light of these concepts. Rutkoff several times makes comparison between LibraryThing and a traditional library catalog. I am struck that while adding folksonomies and tagging to OPACs might be useful, to really get the full potential, there needs to be some level of networking capability among users, as there is in LibraryThing. Otherwise, I think one will find that few people may be that interested in investing in the time it takes to do good tagging of resources.

But networking brings up issues of privacy. In order for a network to function, some privacy must be forfeited, and that means that someone has to be in charge of keeping the personal information, a job that libraries have rightly been loathe to take up. The discussion of Facebook I found a bit chilling, and I have expounded upon the corporate aspect of Web 2.0 already, so I will forgo that here. I think we can suffice to say that Facebook is not by any means alone in this trend, they just have been more aggressive about displaying to users the information that is kept.

This makes it difficult for the library to keep up with 2.0 trends, but on the other hand, it gives the library a great opening for providing a service that is not based upon business and advertisement. If the library did find an appropriate way to provide social networking in some capacity, and could do so without jeopardizing privacy in the way that Facebook does, this might be a useful service for the youth of our communities in particular. I think the library would likely have to partner with larger institutions to create this type of service, however.

A final rather tangential comment is that I did not realize that Facebook owns all content that is put up on my profile. First, this is a sad commentary on the fact that I just clicked through the user agreement without a second thought, and on the fact that I have perhaps to blind a trust in the fact that a service used by so many others is by default completely safe and trustworthy. Second, I will definitely keep this in mind as I continue to post material to my Facebook profile. Somehow, one has to draw the line between paranoid and naive.

A bit shifty

I am officially not that tremendously fond of certain aspects of this blog template, such as that it appears to have some sizing issues (particularly in Firefox). Such as that if you make the browser window smaller, the third column drops below the second. Also, what looks good at school, where I have the monitor set differently than at home, looks extremely amateur at home (my Meebo box, that I custom sized to look nice in the first column, is now proportionally bigger viewed from home, so it extends into the second column. Plus, it doesn’t like the code from WorldCat to embed the search box, which works fine everywhere else I’ve tried it.

But until I can develop a better template (which will probably be never), I can’t complain too much.

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