The Winners' Circle

I checked out the Web 2.0 Award winners for the categories of Books, Games and Collaborative Writing and Word Processing. Nothing new in Books, but I got a huge kick out of Guess the Google (an image guessing game). The game presents a mashup of images, all purportedly retrieved as a result of entering a shared search word; the game objective is to guess the one-word search term that links all the tiny images. Mildly addictive, the game increases mental flexibility with its reverse search strategy. That's the rationale I offered as I tapped the keys repeatedly for one more round of intellectual calisthenics.

I was pleased to see the online word processors accorded recognition; these are a boon for library customers using public internet computers. They really deserve their own module in our 2.0 exercise, and many other Learning 2.0 programs accord them their due. Familiarity with tools like Zoho, Thinkfree and Google Docs should be required competency for library staffers, especially where access to proprietary productivity software (e.g. Microsoft Office) is limited and in high demand. A valuable exercise would be to challenge staff to create a blog post using one of the free web-based word processors. The investment in boosting staff awareness of these tools would pay off smartly in enhanced customer service and public appreciation.

Tinkering with Technorati

It was interesting to search blog posts and add tags to be sifted by Technorati. It was exciting to see my own blog miniaturized on the Technorati search page. I checked a few other blogs and noted the additional blogs that link to them. The exercise presented a neat visual network.

Now We're Talking!

Couldn't get enough of the folksonomy readings; tagging is cool! Building an intellectual community of expertise and interest is more genuine and exhilarating than approximating a network of emotional affinity. Del.icio.us is a handy tool, especially for nomadic library staff. A well compiled set of online bookmarks can function like a portable information kiosk. Bookmarking sites can help demonstrate the library's traditional strength--navigating and creating pathways through formidable stores of information--enacted on a dynamic Web 2.0 stage. Bookmarking sites can play to the customer's marketing soft spot; we're all tempted by the customized product--the responsive blend that validates our interests and satisfies our curiosity

The Tools of Engagement

Language has always fascinated me. Most times, I'm honored to be held in the thrall of words, but on occasion, I've been backhanded by bit of linguistic irony...and it smarts. The language of social networking repeatedly stings me. I wince when I hear "myspace" and I shudder to hear folk proclaiming the roll of "friends" collected on their page. I despair when I imagine a generation or two (or more) for whom the terminology of social networking holds no satirical bite.

The language purist in me roils at the sloppy labelling; we've no lack of appropriate words to describe online connections and connectors. In virtual as in physical realms, we encounter colleagues, acquaintances, onlookers, as well as friends and assorted loved ones. Why lump sundry gradations of social encounter together, and strain a word's utility with imprecision? Friendship, for me, has a degree of exclusivity, founded on a particular, intense, and mutually perceived symbiosis.

It's all about engagement, an intimate process, whether writ large or small. Engagement happens when we experience that moment of revealed symbiosis. Here is a writer who has penned what I have felt. Here is a painter who creates what I have seen. Here is a partner who acts on what I believe. Here is a librarian who hears what I seek, who finds what I need. The task of engagement is far more basic than deciding whether to create a library MySpace account. The challenge for libraries lies in learning to engage the public. The prudent library (and librarian) perfects the capacity and skill to engage the on-hand customer in genuine interchange, before casting about for the illusive virtual passerby.

Being There - MySpace Paradox

There is a deft bit of industry two-step called for in combining library service and marketing. Not surprisingly, the proficient and self-assured perform the choreography best. MySpace may be utilized by teens as a playground for practicing representation and tweaking response, but it is no place for faint or fumbling institutional posers. Libraries are not adolescents, and ought not don the trendy (but ill-fitting) garb of those whose legitimate developmental task it is to pose and parry.

It's unfortunate that "youth space" has gone virtual. In Platonic terms, adolescence is a time to exit the cave, to glimpse alone and with one's peers the awesome world without. It's a time to try to differentiate shadowed from genuine reality. Libraries have no place "fronting" in the MySpace developmental playground, but might stake a signpost to point the way toward genuine, non-mediated life experience. A link to the teen section of the library web page, which in turn provides information about events and volunteer opportunities, would suffice.

The amassing of "friends" should be eschewed; such social misrepresentation is a developmental disservice to young people. Libraries with vital, committed teen departments are far better served (and far better servants) in promoting face-to-face encounters and supporting non-virtual youth spaces. Let the teens buzz in their branded Murdochian cave, if they must, but let's help them transcend their shadow play, and discover and appreciate the tangible, transformative world of interaction with fully fleshed people and ideas.

IM...Red Carpet Detour from the Socio-Digital Divide

There is an aspect of the feverish procession to IM that troubles me. Were it accompanied by commensurate outreach to disadvantaged users, it might be more laudable. Where it coexists with policies that needlessly constrain those who lack access to basic technology, it signals a woeful retreat from our fundamental institutional charge to decry social inequity and ameliorate its effects. Shame on libraries that fawn on the privileged and exacerbate the digital divide!

Resources allocated to court the digitally privileged are more responsibly spent in empowering the digitally impoverished. Energy expended to lure the immature into ever more superficial exchange is more productively (and honorably) spent in dismantling the obstacles (some imposed by libraries themselves) that thwart engagement on the part of masses that are already seeking us out, and that, unlike the IM-intoxicated, lack viable alternatives.
instant messaging
social responsibility
library 2.0

We Will, We Will WIKI...

Wikispaces had a pleasing interface, more attractive than PBwiki. Posting was relatively easy and contributing was satisfying. It is a site I would explore further.

The cumulative effect of additional postings to the Wikispaces site could be the cultivation of a useful resource, especially if postings are annotated with RA appeal language

Wiki Wonderland

Wiki Wiki Wiki...as much fun to say as they are to browse! Wikis are cool, and when used for appropriate projects, they're an invigorating, interactive paradise. They accommodate anonymity and encourage dialogue and discovery. I think they work well for subject guides, but are especially powerful showcases for reader advisory and conference experiences.

The Princeton BookLovers wiki fed a near-universal curiosity--the desire to peek into another reader's bookbag. Viewing the wiki is like walking up and down the checkout line, querying each customer "Hmm...why did you choose that one?" Who hasn't wanted to do that? Or on the flip side, who hasn't encountered the customer who's bursting to tell someone about the book they just returned?

Call it CHAT

Here's an analogy: IM is to quality reference as Koolaid is to fruit punch. Quality reference transactions depend upon resources and engagement. IM communication is often on-the-fly and tangential to other activity. A multitasking customer is not a suitable actor for the level of engagement required for quality reference service. Similarly, the absence of broadly recognized, accessible in-place resources and practiced scenarios diminishes the likelihood of quality instant- message-based reference service.

IM Nation under a Ruse

Not surprising that IM use follows generational lines, according to the Pew Report, with Trailing Baby Boomers among those who use IM least. Perhaps the reason has something to do with the innate peculiarity of IM communication. Highly exposed, yet oddly disembodied, it can be urgent, intimate, formulaic, disingenuous in configurations not attainable by traditional communication.

Reliance on IM for anything more than the most cursory communication poses challenges for libraries. It may be handy and well appreciated for navigational guidance and light information regarding programs and services, but for interaction with customers regarding reference questions, there are core issues of privacy to consider. Online there is always the prospect of third party presence to information transactions, and policies of chat record deletion lose efficacy.

Libraries soliciting IM interaction with the public should do so with gravity, caution and clearly worded caveats in order to avoid misleading those driven more strongly by curiosity than circumspection.