Just came back from a Social Networking class presented by some great folks – John Blyberg from Darien Library, and Kate Sheehan from Danbury Public Library. I hear the same things over and over again when I go to these talks – libraries just have to stay connected and stay with it! We have to keep watching the way users, customers, patrons – whatever you want to call them – use the technology and how Web 2.0 changes it all. Libraries have always offered service and books – users come to the library and check stuff out and that is all. But times are a-changin’ – users want to do more. They want to participate, comment, share their thoughts, provide feedback. They want to find stuff in a way they can actually find it – have you ever looked at how a record in a library catalog looks? The subject headings are so …authoritative. And yes there’s the argument of needing controlled vocabulary – which I totally understand. But there’s also nothing wrong with letting your patrons into your OPAC (that be Online Public Access Catalog, library-speak) – and letting them add tags, reviews, etc. to our books – just like you would on Amazon or YouTube or Flickr.
Both John and Kate have got the idea – John created the “SOPAC” (S for Social) at the Ann Arbor District Library – www.aadl.org/catalog – and its catalog is just unbelievable – OPAC-wise. Library vendors really need to step up and look at this, and give us these tools for all libraries, instead of the libraries that can afford to have people spend their time programming up their own OPAC. Danbury Library, like most public libraries, doesn’t have the luxury of such a large technology team as AADL – but yet has managed to integrate at least a small part of Web 2.0 into their own library catalog. http://cat.danburylibrary.org - look up any book, and you’ll find the regular, authoritative record at the top, but then at the bottom, there’s a tag cloud! And you can search through the tag clouds! With words that make sense, instead of “cookery”! These tag clouds are generated from LibraryThing – if you are an avid book reader, you *have* to start using this. You can keep track of the books you’ve read, provide reviews, tags – see what other people are reading who have similar tastes, etc. I’ll be playing around with LibraryThing a lot more to see how truly beneficial it can be for our library (you can look me up under Miriella, if you so wish). It’s definitely a step forward in the right direction to implementing and using 2.0.
