Workshops For All

Library 2.0 and Building Rockets: Man's Best Friend


One Inventor
One Dog
One Rocket
And a whole lot of cheese.

Everyone has seen Wallace and Gromit. So you know the story about how they run out of cheese and build a rocket to go to the moon, because everyone knows the moon is made of cheese. (If you haven't seen it, then go out to a Blockbuster or download it on Netflix.)

I thought here is a guy who goes into his workshop and builds a rocket ship to go on a picnic. In a way that is what a lot of folks are doing with their social software. At places like MySpace and YouTube, folks are building cyber bridges that are not only closing Internet gaps, but changing how they communicate, and the rules of communication too.

Right now, assuming everyone has a workshop, then it is a matter of having enough supplies to go around. But not everyone has a workshop. Some folks are poor, on a fixed income, elderly, or unable to use these tools in their homes on their own.

That's where libraries step in. The next wave is 2.0. It has been a buzz word in library circles for a couple of years, but most public libraries are moving slowly to reformat their spaces and development policies to reflect this wave. In the Internet it is yesterday already.

But what is 2.0? Well, to keep it simple, it is a rather elastic term used to describe a format where users more actively determine virtual and physical spaces, and the services in them. They include virtual and digital softwares and systems, web spaces that is, and real physical spaces for users to converge in. It includes social software, gaming, and other virtual options for users to personally build a rocket to travel into the deep space of the information universe out there. Information is such a large concept that it can no longer only have physical dimensions like books or other more traditional print routes.

It seems as librarians we must become designers of such possibilities. The tools are exactly what they are. Michael Stephens points this out eloquently. They are opportunities. He has a hard sell, too. Technology expands and grows so rapidly it can be rather daunting. As librarians we must think in far less fixed and far less habituated terms if we want to grow with technology and its trends.

So getting the materials, building the workshops for those who have no launching pads, and helping when help is needed, well, that is our duty? Right?

OK, everybody, say CHEESE!!!

Any thoughts?


Here are a few links:

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6365200.html

http://www.techsource.ala.org/blog/2006/01/library-20-the-real-world.html

http://infoisland.org/

http://tametheweb.com/2006/01/defining_library_20_ii_is_it_m.html