If you didn't take the time to watch the YouTube video "The Machine Is Us/ing Us", you might want to. The music alone is worth the watch. This professor from Kansas State U. ought to be in the marketing business instead of cultural anthropology!
After reading several of the perspectives on Web and Library 2.0, I found many interesting opinions. Rick Anderson at the Univ. of Nevada, Reno Libraries, said there was a 55% drop in circulation drop in his library. Well sure, he works for a university library where most of its customers are 18+ year old young adult students who are all products of the technological era! I agee that libraries no longer have the monopoly power they once held, however, I can't say that the Web is the preferred environment (yet) for ALL public library customers. I believe he is speaking from a purely academic view. I also agree that we need to be integrating our services into user's daily patterns of work, study and PLAY.
The perspective that seemed least biased was actually the one from Wikipedia because it mentioned different points of view for Library 2.0 in the "debate" section. It mentions that some librarian bloggers argue that the key principles of Library 2.0 are not new and have been a part of the service philosophies of many library reformers since the 19th century. For example, Library 2.0 comprises a combination of tools and attitudes which are excellent ideas but not new, a few business and tool-focused attitudes which will not serve all users and incorrectly places libraries as the sole source for all users to gather all information. Others, who have spoken to these criticisms argue that while pieces of Library 2.0 are not entirely new, the convergence of these service goals and ideas with many new Web 2.0 technologies has led to a new generation of library service. I happen to agree with both statements!
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